<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div><br><br>Sent from my iPhone</div><div><br>On Jan 1, 2014, at 7:32 PM, Phillip Hallam-Baker <<a href="mailto:hallam@gmail.com">hallam@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div dir="ltr"><br><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Jan 1, 2014 at 2:25 PM, John Gilmore <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:gnu@toad.com" target="_blank">gnu@toad.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div class="im">>> The U.S. Government's first priority should be to do this at our nuclear weapons labs, before our bomb design codes (in Fortran, no doubt) wind up on BitTorrent.<br>
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</div><div class="im">> The nuclear codes leaked long ago. I know the navy one from the 60s<br>
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</div>You are talking about two different things.<br>
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The "bomb design codes" are software programs built to simulate<br>
nuclear reactions in particular physical constructions. These have<br>
the original Manhattan Project calculations (done on punched cards,<br>
with tabulators, as described in Feynmann's autobiography) as remote<br>
ancestors.<br>
<br>...<br>Nuclear simulation software in FORTRAN from the '60s would<br>
still be useful in designing nuclear bombs. (Actually building them,<br>
getting them to targets, and detonating them would be big challenges.)<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Look up GEANT.</div><div><br></div><div>The necessary tools have been open source since before the term was coined.</div>
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</blockquote>There is a huge difference between a general purpose particle physics simulation program like GEANT and US bomb design codes that (presumably) deal with all aspects of bomb design, including high explosive lensing, neutron generation initiators, detonation chain timing, manufacturing and assembly tolerances, etc., and, most importantly, have been calibrated and verified through decades of actual testing. <div><br></div><div>Coupled with computer aided design, CNC machining and 3-D printing, none of which was available in the 1940's and '50s, nuclear design code would greatly facilitate manufacture of a bomb, and possibly reduce the quantity highly enriched uranium or Pu-239 required. </div><div><br></div><div>As for delivery, have you seen the submarines that drug smugglers have been building? </div><div><br></div><div>Arnold Reinhold</div></body></html>