chris@ism780.UUCP (06/13/84)
#N:ism780:13100002:000:1722 ism780!chris Jun 10 21:09:00 1984 < here they come, over the pole! Launch ALL our stuff > I have seen two references in this news group that have puzzled me. They both claimed that finding nuclear weapons was child's play once the city they were in was located. Assuming we don't have Doc Smith spy rays, how is this done? I can think of two or three ways, but none of them work from space, as one mention suggested. The methods are: (1) "Sniffer" equipment picks up the organic molecules exuded by the conventional explosives. Since the charges used to compress/accelerate the critical mass are nitrated compounds (dynamite or nitro starch) they will have lots volatiles floating around. This is how terrorist stuff is often found. However this is very short range, and will find every cache of explosives in the city. They would need lots of devices to cover a big area like LA or NY in anything under weeks. (2) Radiation detectors. These would pick up the characteristic emissions of fissionable materials. This would drop the number of false alarms (can you imagine searching every smoke detector and hospital cobalt source?) but would again be short range. (3) Top Psychics? The Irrational Inquirer uses these all the time to predict future events. I can just see Karnac (Johnny Carson) putting the envelope to his head and saying something like: "Grand central station, locker 314159, friday noon", and the question is, "Where is the device, and when will it go off?". Levity aside, can someone drop me a hint as to how this is actually done? I'd like to build one for myself :-) chris decvax!vortex!ism780!chris decvax!cca!ima!ism780!chris