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From: Quetzil Castaneda <Quetzil@xxxxxx>
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Date: Mon, 06 May 1996 02:41:23 -0500 (CDT)
At 02:55 PM 5/5/96 +1000, you wrote:
>
>On Sat, 4 May 1996, D Hugh-Jones wrote:
>
>Maybe Quetzil's being a bit cheeky, but he has a point.
>
>To conceive of making an A-bomb one needs to have thought of the idea of
>dropping explosive things on top of each other, to have some idea of how
>to deliver it, and to know that if you get enough U235 together it will
>explode. In principle you don't need a lot of quantum theory, though in
>this case because U235
yes, thanks for fleshing out my "cheeky" comment. in other words, its not
quark theory, but the culture of war, and politics of that specific war that
had to do with constructing that "actual past" of destruction.
>A simpler example would be gunpowder, which was used long before we had
>theories about oxygen and combustion.
it is a more effective example.
>
>As I recall, quarks weren't "discovered" until after the bombs had been
>built, so that "knowledge" was apparently not necessary.
neither to the destruction nor to the meaning of the event.
cheers.
q.