Science

“Building a basic nuclear weapon is not easy, but not all that hard either. In 1964 the U.S. Army decided to see just how difficult it was. They hired two professors that had Ph.Ds in physics, but no experience with nuclear weapons or access to nuclear secrets. The two were given the task of designing an atomic bomb using only information available to the general public. It took them roughly two years, but in the end they designed an implosion style weapon that could have been made in a local machine shop which could have produced an explosion similar to the Hiroshima bomb.” [1]

Grab Some Uranium

Or preferably Plutonium. You’ll need some sort of large atom that releases high velocity neutrons anyways. The explosion of a nuclear bomb happens because the atoms are are literally blasting each other with neutrons, breaking into smaller atoms which shoot off even more neutrons in the process, breaking even more atoms which shoot off even more neutrons! This process happens in an extremely small amount of time (way less than a second) and is called a chain reaction. The process of breaking the atoms into smaller atoms is called fission. As these atoms are ripping each other apart they are releasing an enormous amount of energy. The amount energy released is described in the famous formula E=mc^2. And trust me, it’s a lot.

Reach Critical Mass

This is the amount of mass (or atoms) needed to create this kind of nuclear chain reaction. You’ll need about a baseball sized chunk of weapons-grade quality stuff weighing around 35 lb. The good news is Uranium Ore is being conventionally mined on every continent so there’s a chance you might have some under your backyard. With some luck, and a lot of digging you can be well on your way to building your first nuke!

Make it go SUPER-critical:

This is the tricky part. You might want to hire a team of scientists and engineers to take care of this for you if you’re lazy. But if your determined to cut costs and do it yourself, here’s the basic idea on what you have to do to get a real quality explosion.

In order for this bomb to detonate in a fiery explosion and not just a shockwave of radiation, you must hold the materials together long enough for the Uranium to go supercritical. This is not easy to do, as the atoms would much rather shoot away from each other than be violently ripped apart. To do this it is conventional to use detonations all around the material to hold it together. But the pressure must also be distributed uniformly, or the uranium will find a weak point and leak out.

And now you have a Nuclear Warhead!

You’ll still have to build a sophisticated rocket for launching it but the hard part is now all behind you. Congratulations 🙂

So What?

So it took me about an hour on google to figure out the basic mechanics behind a nuclear bomb, and I’ve never even taken a chemistry class. What does this mean? Well, It means that any country (or individual) with a few smart scientists, a lot of money, and the ability to use google could potentially engineer a nuke in a few years. I wouldn’t be surprised if most countries already have nuclear weapons, and the NPT [2] is just a way of trying to keep everybody calm.

Links for Further Study:

[1] http://www.unmuseum.org/buildabomb.htm

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_the_Non-Proliferation_of_Nuclear_Weapons

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-critical-mass.htm

“We will deprive the ocean of all its terrors by illuminating the sky, thus avoiding collisions at sea and other disasters caused by darkness. We will draw unlimited quantities of water from the ocean and irrigate desserts and other arid regions. In this way we will fertilize the soil and derive any amount of power from the sun. I also believe that ultimately all battles, if they should be come, will be waged by electrical waves instead of explosives.”

~Nikola Tesla: New York Times, 1915 [1]

Controlled Earthquakes

“Tesla once said to a reporter with respect to his telegeodynamic art of ‘controlled earthquakes’ that with a small amount of power it would take about two weeks to two months of vibration of the earth to bring it to full resonance, ‘and it could be made to split in two like an apple.’” That’s a scary thought. Don’t believe it? Watch this. http://youtu.be/7T0DD9KilmM?t=14m15s

But Tesla’s intentions were not to frighten us, but rather to illustrate the power of this technology. It all comes down to…

Resonant Frequencies

Resonant frequency is a term used to describe when two or more different vibrations oscillate (vibrate) in harmony with each other, thereby strengthening into one stronger vibration. It is this understanding that made Tesla’s development of AC (Alternating Currents) for powering our electrical devices possible.

In the early 1900s Tesla thought to push this to the next level, by determining the resonant frequency of the earth as a whole and pumping it up with some vibrations of our own. The way electromagnetic fields work is that they distribute energy or vibration equally to the entire field. This would mean that pumping energy into the Earth at any specific point would allow that energy to be utilized at any other point on Earth practically instantaneously.

Wireless Electricity

This means that electricity could be accessed equally at any point on the planet! The idea is, you would need some sort of receiver, but that could be as simple as an antennae. The receiver would pick up those vibrations and use them to create a magnetic field. With a little know-how, you could

But wouldn’t these vibrations effect people and ecosystems one might ask? It seems logical to conclude this, but think about how many vibrations constantly stream through your body from satellites transmitting radio, television and cell-phone frequencies to name a few. Tesla was also famous for running large amounts of electricity through his body in his experiments to discover if they were harmful. Apparently they aren’t.

Free Electricity

The big problem (or big solution depending on how you look at it) with this technology is that there’s no way to put a meter on it. Anybody, from anywhere in the world, could utilize this energy at little to no cost. Some theorize that this is precisely the reason that the theory was never put into practice.

So What?

So What!? Two words: Free Energy. This is perhaps the single impeding factor in our development as a species at this point. With unlimited energy our possibilities are limited only by imagination. Even physically limitations such as time and gravity can theoretically be defied with enough (albeit A LOT) of energy and intelligence. In addition, with this kind of global distribution, anybody could live in any corner of the forest, desolate mountain top , or deserted island without forgoing the comforts of electricity. Awesome.

nikola-tesla-and-his-wardenclyffe-towertower-and-laboratory5

“Wardenclyffe Tower (1901–1917) also known as the Tesla Tower, was an early wireless transmission tower designed by Nikola Tesla in Shoreham, New York and intended for commercial trans-Atlantic wireless telephony, broadcasting, and proof-of-concept demonstrations of wireless power transmission.[2][3] It was never fully operational,[4] and the tower was demolished in 1917.” ~Wikipedia

The Mysterious Past

How to Build a Nuke

So What?

Nikola Tesla’s Tele-Geodynamics (AKA Free Energy)