Wednesday 16 May 2012

I despise journalists

In an online article on the news.com.au web-site, "staff writers" demonstrate just how stupid & lazy journalists are.

The article is headed:

"Now, to the small matter of Kodak's nuclear reactor. Wait. Nuclear WHAT?"

and contains this gem:

"Gizmodo.com reports that in the basement of Kodak's New York property lay 3.5 pounds of enriched uranium. Which means they had enough to build an atomic bomb."
 
Which is the most egregious CRAP. 
 
Thirty seconds with Google reveals that PURE U-235 has a critical mass of 52 kilograms. A lump smaller than this is known as sub-critical and cannot sustain the chain reaction necessary for the blinding flash and the big-ass BANG.
 
For the arithmetically challenged, 3.5 pounds converts to LESS than 1.6 kilograms, and just to be BLINDINGLY obvious, 1.6 kilograms is LESS than 52 kilograms.
 
For the likely level of enrichment of the Kodak uranium (20%), there is precisely ONE way to turn this amount of radioactive uranium into an atomic bomb - add another 400 plus kilograms of 20% U-235.
 
Journalists are the reason that journalists are despised.

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