Science and Technology Quiz 3

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The conditions that form the diapirs are similar to the conditions that are required for an atomic bomb to detonate?
 
Right it was just me that thought he was talking about nappies then.
 
Not just you, PS :lol:
I suspected it was something different, based on the spelling, but I had no idea what. I've loved following this question for all the other interesting things it could have been; not least of all the incident with the crossword puzzle! :shifty:
 
@Nonconformist
Interesting things... but nope

@Mise
No, although diapirs rely upon density differences... Which if you speed it up is an explosion... which does drive together the critical mass of Uranium in all good fissile devices. So correctish but not the story here.

@ParadigmShifter
Diapirs are a rock feature; you might have heard of them in the form of salt domes. Also Granite plutons, water escape features and what is going on in a lava lamp.

I'm also offended that, despite my being a good solid Englishman, anyone thinks I could use an americanism like "diaper" :twitch: :p.


EDIT: Note that the final line with the twitch smiley is a joke. Whilst noticeably british I'm not an Earl Grey & God Save the Queen level, neither do I hate americans (although americanisms do incite my murder-rage)
 
Sorry I thought you might be an adult baby or something.
 
@Nonconformist
Interesting things... but nope

@Mise
No, although diapirs rely upon density differences... Which if you speed it up is an explosion... which does drive together the critical mass of Uranium in all good fissile devices. So correctish but not the story here.

@ParadigmShifter
Diapirs are a rock feature; you might have heard of them in the form of salt domes. Also Granite plutons, water escape features and what is going on in a lava lamp.

I'm also offended that, despite my being a good solid Englishman, anyone thinks I could use an americanism like "diaper" :twitch: :p.


EDIT: Note that the final line with the twitch smiley is a joke. Whilst noticeably british I'm not an Earl Grey & God Save the Queen level, neither do I hate americans (although americanisms do incite my murder-rage)

I'm an Earl Gray person... and yet I'm American
 
What? You can get proper tea in the States? I thought there was a countrywide drought regarding proper tea, cheese and marmalade :)
 
Can we get the answer now? Before the thread closes...
 
What? You can get proper tea in the States? I thought there was a countrywide drought regarding proper tea, cheese and marmalade :)

I have to import it from Canada, pretty much all teas made in USA suck
 
Ooops, I think my offhand comment kinda derailed things:blush:

QUESTION
The US military had released photos (to news agencies) which were used in a story. The academic saw the photo & a few days later responded in the letters page "It may interest readers to know that..."

However, more interested than the readers were the US intelligence agency staff. Who rather wanted to understand how a civilian had come to know such a thing and why he was telling everyone about it.

ANSWER
The letter went along the lines of "It may interest readers to know that the nuclear device pictured recently had a power of approx [precise number]Joules"

This was kinda classified information, hence the US came to academic's house to say hi. The academic promptly informed them that this was open information after they'd released the picture. He'd taken a look at the photo, estimated the size of the mushroom cloud and calculated the power of the bomb.

You see, Mushroom clouds are not a magic property of A-bombs. They occur because the bomb greatly heats a large amount of air at ground level, hot air is less dense and thus rises upwards (forming the cloud). This is an example of a Rayleigh-Taylor instability in the same way diapirs are, and the academic thus calculated the bomb power :goodjob:

This story was related by a Uni lecturer who knew the (long retired) academic in question, I can't prove it to be true but I believe it is. The method for bomb calculation is valid and would get a decent ballpark figure.

Done, anyone want a pop at inventing the next question? Open floor.
 
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