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unionised
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Uranium is roughly twice as abundant in the earth's crust as tungsten.
Under the sort of conditions that occcur in armour piercing shells the metals behave pretty much like liquids; their tensile strengths are very much
smaller than the forces involved. The thing that makes the difference is momentum and therefore density.
It's better at sheilding because it has a higher nuclear charge.
"I am thinking of sort of a quantum computer. "
OK, let's run with this idea.
A quantum computer (so far as I understand it and that's not very far) relies on the production of a superposition of states.
The only thing that uranium does that's interesting (in this field) is that it decays.
If I have a collection of uranium (If my maths is right it's about a miligram) and wait a second one atom decays (on average) so I then have a
superposition of one ground state (the one that decayed) with roughly a bilion bilion excited states.
To get this production of a superposition to happen at roughly the same rate as the clock in my rather slow computer (1GHz) I need enough uranium that
it decays aboout a billion times a second. If I get the maths right again (and frankly I don't care if I have lost track of a zero or two) I need
roughly 100Kg of uranium. Somewhere randomly generated in that, there will probably be a superposition of a decayed and undecayed state every
nanosecond or so.
Just as soon as I work out how to find it in among a huge block of uranium and then work out what to do with it I can build a computer withan
effective clockrate rather less than I could buy in the local charity shop.
Of course, if you were to use enriched uranium the larger decay rate would help. You might get away with roughly 10Kg of enriched uranium.
Be very very careful what shape you make this computer.
When you said "I am thinking of sort of a quantum computer.", just how much thinking had you actually done?
For what it's worth the decay of radioactive materials is a really good random number generator. With a few exceptions (mainly to do with k capture)
there is absolutely nothing that can be done to alter the rate of decay. How do youpropose to "program" the computer?
All the uranium atoms will do exactly as they please so the outcome will be random, predictable in the same way as lottery numbers, but not a lot of
use.
[Edited on 15-8-2006 by unionised]
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franklyn
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Einstein reportedly said one time, " I don't know what weapons will be used
in a third world war, but I know what weapons will be used in the fourth,
sticks and stones. I take it those of you who decry the marshall uses of DU
have a preference for pouring boiling oil on the barbarians at the gate.
For a peaceful use and one which has unexploited potential, is the legendary
and infamous little green pill. Uranium Carbide in contact with water produces
octane,better known as gasoline. The oxide can be recycled to obtain the carbide
once more in a closed cycle. Adaption of this to a process that can work just on
the surface without the bulk processing would go a long way for commercialization.
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Mr_Benito_Mussolini
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"I take it those of you who decry the marshall uses of DU
have a preference for pouring boiling oil on the barbarians at the gate."
There are no barbarians at the gate. Describing those you wish to conquer as savages in need of civilisation is an old trick, providing the moral
justification for imperialism on a vast scale from Roman times to the current day.
"Uranium Carbide in contact with water produces octane,better known as gasoline."
Where are you going to get the energy to drive this process, from fossil fuels perhaps?
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Marvin
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Aparently the infamous little green pill is so infamous that I haven't heard of it.
So, which carbide of uranium would that be? The monocarbide produces mainly hydrogen and methane with some messy products of C2 to C6, or to C8
according to some reports, and the sesquicarbide produces mixed hydrogen and C2 to C8 hydrocarbons. From the descriptions the actual amount of C8
hydrocarbons is very small with nothing in the abstracts specifically identified as octane.
As far as I can see it the most logical route to make octane from uranium carbide involves its use as nuclear fuel. If the implication is you can
carry a small amount of uranium carbide, add water and get useful amount of burnable fuel, then this is laughable.
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franklyn
International Hazard
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| Quote: | Originally posted by Mr_Benito_Mussolini
Where are you going to get the energy to drive this process, from fossil fuels perhaps? |
Of course , how else do you convert coal to lquid fuel ?
| Quote: | Originally posted by Marvin
Aparently the infamous little green pill is so infamous that I haven't heard of it. If the implication is you can carry a small amount of uranium
carbide, add water and get useful amount of burnable fuel, then this is laughable.
As far as I can see it the most logical route to make octane from uranium carbide involves its use as nuclear fuel. |
It's a very old scam, dates to just after the first world war.
Certainly that would have been an implication.
There are better routes to gasification, see my post here ->
http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=5923&a...
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