The Machinery of Night

A Cunning Plan

The New York Times brings us the shocking (zzz) news that North Korea's nuclear fizzle was a plutonium, rather than uranium, design. I could've told them that: if it had been a uranium bomb, it would've worked. The Trinity test (and subsequent Nagasaki bomb) was a plutonium device. The design of the uranium bomb was considered so simple that there wasn't any need to test it. Plutonium bombs require an explosive lens which must compress the plutonium symmetrically. Else you get an embarrassing pre-detonation and a tiny yield (and the chicks all laugh at you). The problem with uranium bombs is that they require tedious and time-consuming (and expensive) enrichment of the uranium.

Anyhow, this leads me to my brilliant (and cunning) plan for dealing with the North Koreans. The element uranium (atomic number 92) was named for the planet Uranus, discovered eight years earlier. Neptunium (93) and Plutonium (94) were subsequently named for the planets Neptune and Pluto.

Now we all know that Pluto is no longer a planet. But what few people realize is that means plutonium is no longer an element! Which means you can't make bombs with it!

Think about it: has anyone else successfully detonated a plutonium bomb since the IAU met? NO. QED, res ipsa loquitur, caveat emptor et cetera et cetera.

At least, this is what we'll tell Kimmie. Hell, it can't work worse than anything else we've tried.

UPDATE: And if it works on him, we'll try it on the Iranians.