C70:arms-d (08/04/82)
>From HGA@MIT-MC Wed Aug 4 04:43:03 1982
Arms-Discussion Digest Volume 0 : Issue 155
Today's Topics:
Physics of Nuclear Explosions
ABM's and the obsolescence of ICBM's
Artillery accuracy
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Date: 4 Aug 1982 03:15:49-PDT
From: pur-ee!Physics.els at Berkeley
Subject: Physics of Nuclear Explosions
For those who may not have seen this month's issue of American
Journal of Physics, it contains a fairly good article on the above
topic. The article is written for a sophomore physics level, but
carries enough info that we can all be on nearly equal footing (for
rough calculations) with those who have copies of 'The Effects of
Nuclear Weapons'.
The citation is: Am. J. Phys. 50(7)
July 1982
pages 586-594
Title: Nuclear Explosions
els [Eric Strobel]
pur-ee!pur-phy!els
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Date: 4 Aug 1982 03:16:34-PDT
From: pur-ee!Physics.els at Berkeley
Subject: ABM's and the obsolescence of ICBM's
It seems to me that the matter of trust, verification, etc. needs
to be circumvented somehow. With India's launching of a satellite, we
now have a six-way problem. For any single country (or pair of
countries) to agree to reduce nuclear weapons, they need to know that
they are safe from ALL possible attacks. The way around this (as a
naive first approximation) would be for the high-tech nations to put
together a group to design an effective, cheap, easy to produce ABM
system. The know-how to produce it would be disseminated to anyone
who wants to use it.
The advantage to this is that the amount of negotiating is vastly
reduced. Either a nation contributes or it doesn't. (Here I now
patch a very large hole in the previous paragraph.) Any
non-contributory nation must wait some quite frightfully long time
before they may have access to the info. Perhaps long enough for the
others to render themselves invulnerable and commit nuclear blackmail.
That should be strong incentive to contribute.
(Before anyone flames on this, remember, this is meant to be a
first approximation.)
els [Eric Strobel]
pur-ee!pur-phy!els
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Date: 4 Aug 1982 03:16:58-PDT
From: pur-ee!Physics.els at Berkeley
Subject: Artillery accuracy
Is there such a thing?? I have a friend who is an F.O. and he
tells me that with modern artillery you can hit stationary targets
within just a few yards on the first try. If the Israeli army is so
ultramodern, why is so much damage being done in Beirut? Can't they
tell where the PLO is firing from? Maybe the PLO gunners move too
much, but that's what I thought heli- copters and some jets were for.
els [Eric Strobel]
pur-ee!pur-phy!els
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End of Arms-D Digest
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