How to avoid the development of nuclear bombs, if nuclear fission still discovered.

[Michel Van]

Once Otto Hahn split the Atom in 1938
The Scientist knew you could use that for a bomb.
it took them 7 years and insane Austrian with extermination dreams, a Rampaging Japanese Empire and Letter from Albert Einstein and
in 1945 explode the first Atomic bomb!

Although the Nazi never were able to build the Atomic Bomb
Too many teams fighting for small resources, lack of Jewish Scientist and chef Scientist had not a clue how Atomic bomb works...
They study use of Natural Uranium as core for Bomb, in mean time in USA we're Jewish Scientist cooking Plutonium for first prototype...

 

[VVD0D95]

Hmmm, so an additional question for tihs, how long could the discovery of nuclear fission be pushed back? What consequences could there be if nuclear fission is never actually discovered?

 

[RY1985]

No, it is not possible. The hard part is getting from natural uranium (0.72% U 235) to a moderate level of enrichment (such as 20%). Getting from that enriched level to high enrichment is much, much easier because of how enrichment works; you're trying to separate compounds with a uranium atom in them based on the very small difference between the mass of the U 238 and U 235 isotopes. The more of the latter there is, the lower the chance of an "error" there is and so it becomes easier and easier to get an ever more pure output stream out (up to a certain point where it becomes hard again, of course)

Thank you very much for that reply.
A bit out of topic, but this could be useful for another timeline I am working on.
Why hadn't Iran built a portfolio of functioning nuclear bomb yet when Pakistan already had done so much earlier in OTL? The US did it in the mid-1940s and the USSR did so but the computers do so and the precision engineering to do so is much more advanced now.

 

[Arkenfolm]

Is it possible for draconian government censorship to work in such a way that generally, most countries know how to get to 20% refined levels, but not 80%? Off the top of my head, my sense that it is not possible, unless governments keep such a tight lid on the entire knowledge base on nuclear physics such that only a few select governments even know how to enrich but I simply don't know how that works.

There were too many spies embedded in various nuclear programs for that not to be known.

Why hadn't Iran built a portfolio of functioning nuclear bomb yet when Pakistan already had done so much earlier in OTL? The US did it in the mid-1940s and the USSR did so but the computers do so and the precision engineering to do so is much more advanced now.

The main reason is that Iran has to navigate financial issues, international sanctions that specifically target their nuclear program, and especially Israeli opposition that's gotten a few of their scientists assassinated by Mossad and facilities sabotaged. If Iran didn't have those issues, they've have nuclear weaponis by now

 

[Titanium49]

Please VVD0D95 & others, be very careful of some of the wild things said by the anti-nuclear movement. Chernobyl killed <100 people & nuclear energy is easily the safest source of electricity. People continued to live in Hiroshima & Nagasaki & many of them lived until old age. There was a blip in cancers probably due to people receiving sub-lethal doses of radiation from the bomb itself. There's actually no conceivable scenario where you can make a large area uninhabitable.

You can actually work some of this out with a little knowledge. For example, a kilo of 239Pu is about 2.5 trillion Becquerels.In a city 10km x 10km, the amount of radioactivity in the top 10m of soil is 600 trillion Becquerels. Each kilo of Pu is about 4 moles & thus about 2.4 x 10e24 nuclei. You can get yields from Uranium or Plutonium, each fissioned nucleus leads to 2 daughters which together decay about 8 times, but 7/8 decays occur in the 1st few seconds, after 2 minutes I have only about 1 x 10e24 decays left. Most ASB scenarios are actually more likely than Helen Caldicott.

I don't think there's any conceivable accident that will cause dozens of deaths without an explosion. I doubt that it's possible that nuclear weapons could be delayed. Little boy was a U weapon, if you bring 2 slightly subcritical masses of U together, you have 1/1000 second because if a spontaneous fission occurs, the weapon doesn't go off properly. With Pu the period is much shorter & an implosion method is used.

If you want my suggestion, maybe someone could miscalculate the disruptive effect of pre-ignition by spontaneous fission & conclude that it's impossible.

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

... If you want my suggestion, maybe someone could miscalculate the disruptive effect of pre-ignition by spontaneous fission & conclude that it's impossible.

That can certainly delay things solidly for a few years. Eventually others will revisit the calculations, for assorted research reasons and see the error, but it could be a half a decade or more. Then someone needs to have a large enough reason to spend the large required to build a few of these devices. The OP waives awayWWII, really we need some later war or threat big enough to justify the costs. The Depression is over by the 1940s & a couple decades of rising prosperity could waive off and largish wars though the 1960s, even 1980s. Europe went from 1815 to 1914 with only small limited wars. Fifty years of limited wars post 1918 is not ASB.

 

[The Ranger]

Have a nuke go off in a major US city on it's way to a testing ground, killing too many people and doing too much damage to clean up.

 

[dmg86]

That wouldn't work. The bomb was developed and tested in fairly unpopulated areas and i think it would only be armed when it's time to use it in a test. Heck when we used them on Japan they were armed in the air.

 

[DougM]

You cant accomplish the gal here. The science is such that to understand you can do one thing you will understand that you can do the other.
And while the Manhaten project was huge, that was for a couple reasons. One they were effectivly doing two projects at once to make sure they got one to work ASAP. And two it was rushed to get as many bombs as fast as could be. During a peace time development the scope will be much reduced. And really as compared to other things and other projects the development of a bomb is not that huge. The B-29 was a bigger project. And if scaled back to a more reasonable level the develpment of the bomb wont be THAT big a deal, A lot of countries have done it with a lot less recoueces tossed at it then the US used.
As for a major accident in a major city… that only can happen AFTER you get the bomb itself. Thus defeating the point.
And trying to outlaw it wont work either. First off outlawing chemical and bio weapons has not stoped develoupment of them from a scientific perspective, And the world has tried to stop the spead of Nukes with minimaal results… India, Pakistan, N Korea Israel, and who knows what is/will happen with Iran. etc. On top of this until we see the bomb used it wont be considered that big a deal. And frankly until we get to the much ,ore powerful versions the bomb is over hyped.
Look at the damage done with the two that were used on Japan. Then look at the cities that were firebombed such as Tokyo or Hamburg, or the other cities with major damage, They first small Nukes were not that much different. The ability to do thah level pf damage existed it just took a bit longer and a lot. ore aircraft. The thing with the first bombs was not the a ount of damage it was HOW EASY the damage. could be done. once you needed a cxouple days and thousands of planes now you needed one plane and one bomb. We have. to stop looking at nukes of the 40s and ealy 50s the way we look at it now. As a “world ender”. The first Atomic bombs were big but not big as far as destructive effect.
And ut is the combination of HUGE. nukes (city killers) and easy delivery (intercontinental bombers and ICBMs) that turned Nukes from being the Biggest Baddest bomb on the block into the “weapon of ultimate death” to only ever be used as a last ditch.

The best you can do is delay the development by a few years. All you xcan do is make prople want yo not develop them and people being people… eventually someone will decuide to go for it and then others will be forced to respond.

So you cant stop the scieence as they are part of each other, you cant stop the interest as they are the ultimate (for now) weapon and not having it when you enemy does is hugly dangerous, you cant stop wars completely, you cant really outlaw them. So frankly as we have said insimilar past topics. You cant avoid it and you can hardly slow the development down.

Not all PODs are possible.

 

[VVD0D95]

You cant accomplish the gal here. The science is such that to understand you can do one thing you will understand that you can do the other.
And while the Manhaten project was huge, that was for a couple reasons. One they were effectivly doing two projects at once to make sure they got one to work ASAP. And two it was rushed to get as many bombs as fast as could be. During a peace time development the scope will be much reduced. And really as compared to other things and other projects the development of a bomb is not that huge. The B-29 was a bigger project. And if scaled back to a more reasonable level the develpment of the bomb wont be THAT big a deal, A lot of countries have done it with a lot less recoueces tossed at it then the US used.
As for a major accident in a major city… that only can happen AFTER you get the bomb itself. Thus defeating the point.
And trying to outlaw it wont work either. First off outlawing chemical and bio weapons has not stoped develoupment of them from a scientific perspective, And the world has tried to stop the spead of Nukes with minimaal results… India, Pakistan, N Korea Israel, and who knows what is/will happen with Iran. etc. On top of this until we see the bomb used it wont be considered that big a deal. And frankly until we get to the much ,ore powerful versions the bomb is over hyped.
Look at the damage done with the two that were used on Japan. Then look at the cities that were firebombed such as Tokyo or Hamburg, or the other cities with major damage, They first small Nukes were not that much different. The ability to do thah level pf damage existed it just took a bit longer and a lot. ore aircraft. The thing with the first bombs was not the a ount of damage it was HOW EASY the damage. could be done. once you needed a cxouple days and thousands of planes now you needed one plane and one bomb. We have. to stop looking at nukes of the 40s and ealy 50s the way we look at it now. As a “world ender”. The first Atomic bombs were big but not big as far as destructive effect.
And ut is the combination of HUGE. nukes (city killers) and easy delivery (intercontinental bombers and ICBMs) that turned Nukes from being the Biggest Baddest bomb on the block into the “weapon of ultimate death” to only ever be used as a last ditch.

The best you can do is delay the development by a few years. All you xcan do is make prople want yo not develop them and people being people… eventually someone will decuide to go for it and then others will be forced to respond.

So you cant stop the scieence as they are part of each other, you cant stop the interest as they are the ultimate (for now) weapon and not having it when you enemy does is hugly dangerous, you cant stop wars completely, you cant really outlaw them. So frankly as we have said insimilar past topics. You cant avoid it and you can hardly slow the development down.

Not all PODs are possible.

Is there a way to delay nuclear fission being discovered then? To say the fifties
Or do?

 

[Arkenfolm]

And trying to outlaw it wont work either. First off outlawing chemical and bio weapons has not stoped develoupment of them from a scientific perspective,

No, but it hurts funding for it and mostly confines the threat to a few catastrophic lab accidents, sporadic widely condemned massacres, and cheesy airport novels. The taboo on biochemical weapons has been relatively effective post-1918.

But the real difference is that holding that taboo while lacking any actual demonstration is going to produce a world where the money for bombs goes into nuclear propulsion instead and the anti-nuclear movement isn't remotely relevant (economics still will be, however).

And the world has tried to stop the spead of Nukes with minimaal results… India, Pakistan, N Korea Israel, and who knows what is/will happen with Iran. etc. On top of this until we see the bomb used it wont be considered that big a deal. And frankly until we get to the much ,ore powerful versions the bomb is over hyped.

Given the relatively few countries that have their own nuclear programs, and even fewer countries that have had success with them, I'd say nuclear non-proliferation has done at least decently.

 

[Horton229]

the world has tried to stop the spead of Nukes with minimaal results… India, Pakistan, N Korea Israel, and who knows what is/will happen with Iran. etc. On top of this until we see the bomb used it wont be considered that big a deal. And frankly until we get to the much ,ore powerful versions the bomb is over hyped.

Not sure I agree with the highlight - whilst a few nations have elected to take the nuclear path, many who feasibly could (e.g. Japan, Germany, South Africa, Brazil to name one from each continent - and once you get one, you'll get more to counter) decided not too thanks to non-proliferation efforts. Countries such as Ukraine and Kazakhstan gave them up.
I'm not sure a bomb that delivers the equivalent of a 1000 bomber raid and can kill 100k or more in an instant can ever be considered over-hyped. What they perhaps are not is the instant war-winner they are sometimes perceived to be in a situation where they are available to be used on Germany.

I think it is hard to delay the discovery of fission for another decade plus. Once there is a belief a bomb is possible, everyone is going to want to be first - FOMO a few decades early! Heisenberg's miscalculation of the critical mass of Uranium is deemed a factor in Germany's dismissal/lack of investment (amongst many others),

Perhaps without the laser focus of the Manhattan project it might be delayed, but it might depend on the world view of the time. No WW2, but is there a huge, threatening German state/Russian state/both? How much of a threat is Japan? Conversely, if no WW2 what is the state of 'Jewish science' in Germany? Without the Nazis, could they develop the bomb instead, given how many leading physicists they had?

 

[VVD0D95]

Not sure I agree with the highlight - whilst a few nations have elected to take the nuclear path, many who feasibly could (e.g. Japan, Germany, South Africa, Brazil to name one from each continent - and once you get one, you'll get more to counter) decided not too thanks to non-proliferation efforts. Countries such as Ukraine and Kazakhstan gave them up.
I'm not sure a bomb that delivers the equivalent of a 1000 bomber raid and can kill 100k or more in an instant can ever be considered over-hyped. What they perhaps are not is the instant war-winner they are sometimes perceived to be in a situation where they are available to be used on Germany.

I think it is hard to delay the discovery of fission for another decade plus. Once there is a belief a bomb is possible, everyone is going to want to be first - FOMO a few decades early! Heisenberg's miscalculation of the critical mass of Uranium is deemed a factor in Germany's dismissal/lack of investment (amongst many others),

Perhaps without the laser focus of the Manhattan project it might be delayed, but it might depend on the world view of the time. No WW2, but is there a huge, threatening German state/Russian state/both? How much of a threat is Japan? Conversely, if no WW2 what is the state of 'Jewish science' in Germany? Without the Nazis, could they develop the bomb instead, given how many leading physicists they had?

This is true, if fission isn’t discovered in 38, how far could that be put off for? After all it was discovered by accident.

 

[Post]

The taboo on biochemical weapons has been relatively effective post-1918.

The use of them maybe, but that's only because these weapons aren't very effective. See this recent thread: https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...-weapons-from-the-start.525656/#post-22939766

 

[Workable Goblin]

This is true, if fission isn’t discovered in 38, how far could that be put off for? After all it was discovered by accident.

Probably not all that long. It might have been an "accident" inasmuch as it wasn't specifically being asked for, but scientists had been bombarding stuff with all kinds of subatomic particles for decades by that point to see what happened, it was just a matter of not that much time until someone tried bombarding uranium with neutrons and noticed fission was happening.

 

[VVD0D95]

Probably not all that long. It might have been an "accident" inasmuch as it wasn't specifically being asked for, but scientists had been bombarding stuff with all kinds of subatomic particles for decades by that point to see what happened, it was just a matter of not that much time until someone tried bombarding uranium with neutrons and noticed fission was happening.

Ahh I see

 

[DougM]

Slowing the spread is is not the same as stopping the development of something. Even 1 country building a Nuke nullifies the OPs desired /state goal for this topic. So if we can’t stop the spead by outlawing them or other treaties how are we going yo stop the invention of them?!?
This is like being a little bit pregnant…

And you are not going to avoid counties wanting them. Picture post WW2 without nukes being developed during the war. Now explain how you keep the US and the. USSR from deciding they need them? Both countries didn’t want to be do I acted by the other and if you are the only guy on the block with the A bomb you can pretty much dominate anyone you want.

We have had this discussion before and there is no particular method that will stop the development of nukes by more then a short length of time.

And while we may not have used chemical weapons (much) in the last 100 years this does not mean they were not developed.

And I contend with the horror of WW1s chemical attacks you don’t get them outlawed. And the same (to a degree) holds true. But the truth is that the kids born in the 40s and 50s who became the protesters and anti war types and such of the 1960s exaggerated the effects of nukes more then a little bit. And while they ARE dangerous and the more advanced versions with the incredible power they posses are frightening the truth is it is the ease of deployment that makes them so dangerous.
The US could in theory build enough ICBMs that they could destroy any given country with conventional weapons. But you would need tens of thousands of them. So instead of launching thousands of missiles or hundred and hundreds of bombers you can send one Nuke. Thus they are easier to deploy then a thousand bomber raid and so you can “react” or “retaliate” a lot sooner. This makes much easier to lose control of. The same logic to why a gun is more likely to be used to kill someone then beeting them to death with a rolled up news paper. It is fast and easy and does more damage then a thousand snakes with the Sunday news.
Mankind has spent its entire recorded history getting better faster and more effective at killing other people and that is the true difference between types of weapons, scale. Supposedly the in enter the the Gatling gun was hoping it would make war to terrible to fight. And supposedly Maxim was told if he wanted to get rich he should find a way to let the Europeans kill each other faster and thus invented the Maxim machine gun. Long range bombers and big bombs and firing bombing moved this up to another level but the Nuke is a whole new ball park. We had seen the occ huge explosion such as the famous mines used in WW1 that were supposedly heard in London. But that was very hard to do and took a lot of work and a long time to pull off.
With a Nuke, we could be done in under an hour.

This “scale” issue is why you can let two cousins or brother “have at it” to settle there differences and possibly end up with them become close friends but you can’t let India and Pakistan or the US and Russia “have at it”

BTW i am not sure why the OP wants to delay things. What is the point? If anything this may make things worse. There were several times the East and the west May have started a major war without the nukes scaring them. (Didn’t we just discuss this recently?).

 

[VVD0D95]

Slowing the spread is is not the same as stopping the development of something. Even 1 country building a Nuke nullifies the OPs desired /state goal for this topic. So if we can’t stop the spead by outlawing them or other treaties how are we going yo stop the invention of them?!?
This is like being a little bit pregnant…

And you are not going to avoid counties wanting them. Picture post WW2 without nukes being developed during the war. Now explain how you keep the US and the. USSR from deciding they need them? Both countries didn’t want to be do I acted by the other and if you are the only guy on the block with the A bomb you can pretty much dominate anyone you want.

We have had this discussion before and there is no particular method that will stop the development of nukes by more then a short length of time.

And while we may not have used chemical weapons (much) in the last 100 years this does not mean they were not developed.

And I contend with the horror of WW1s chemical attacks you don’t get them outlawed. And the same (to a degree) holds true. But the truth is that the kids born in the 40s and 50s who became the protesters and anti war types and such of the 1960s exaggerated the effects of nukes more then a little bit. And while they ARE dangerous and the more advanced versions with the incredible power they posses are frightening the truth is it is the ease of deployment that makes them so dangerous.
The US could in theory build enough ICBMs that they could destroy any given country with conventional weapons. But you would need tens of thousands of them. So instead of launching thousands of missiles or hundred and hundreds of bombers you can send one Nuke. Thus they are easier to deploy then a thousand bomber raid and so you can “react” or “retaliate” a lot sooner. This makes much easier to lose control of. The same logic to why a gun is more likely to be used to kill someone then beeting them to death with a rolled up news paper. It is fast and easy and does more damage then a thousand snakes with the Sunday news.
Mankind has spent its entire recorded history getting better faster and more effective at killing other people and that is the true difference between types of weapons, scale. Supposedly the in enter the the Gatling gun was hoping it would make war to terrible to fight. And supposedly Maxim was told if he wanted to get rich he should find a way to let the Europeans kill each other faster and thus invented the Maxim machine gun. Long range bombers and big bombs and firing bombing moved this up to another level but the Nuke is a whole new ball park. We had seen the occ huge explosion such as the famous mines used in WW1 that were supposedly heard in London. But that was very hard to do and took a lot of work and a long time to pull off.
With a Nuke, we could be done in under an hour.

This “scale” issue is why you can let two cousins or brother “have at it” to settle there differences and possibly end up with them become close friends but you can’t let India and Pakistan or the US and Russia “have at it”

BTW i am not sure why the OP wants to delay things. What is the point? If anything this may make things worse. There were several times the East and the west May have started a major war without the nukes scaring them. (Didn’t we just discuss this recently?).

Well my original intention was to prevent nukes ever existing, but that requires a pod much further back than the idea I’m considering I think.

 

[marathag]

Somebody tries something like this in the late 30's and it goes about as badly as it could and can't be hidden from the international press.

Chicago Pile-1 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

View attachment 728640

But was tiny in power.

Max output was 200 watts normal output 0.5W
You're not getting a Windscale or Chernobyl from that, or even from the later CP-2 that 140 kW with 1kW normal operation power

 

[Peg Leg Pom]

But was tiny in power.

Max output was 200 watts normal output 0.5W
You're not getting a Windscale or Chernobyl from that, or even from the later CP-2 that 140 kW with 1kW normal operation power

But you could still manage to irradiate a fair number of people if something went wrong. . Now suppose that the Chicago pile had been in UCLA instead and there was an earthquake during a test. Nothing major as such things go but enough to make the scientists make a mistake. A couple of dozen bright students in a prominent university dying of radiation sickness after a cocked up experiment is going to make the news.