Atomic Hand Grenade?

This is coolbert:

"You can't say that civilization don't advance, however, for in every war they kill you in a new way." - - Will Rogers, 1929.

In the October 2006 edition of "Scientific American" is an article entitled " Far-Out Physics".

Opens with such statements as, "Hand grenades that pack a nuclear punch."

Has a photo evidently of a GI in Iraq with a pile of neatly laid out conventional hand grenades. The caption under the photo says, "grenades might someday pack kiloton yields."

Kiloton as in a nuclear detonation? An atomic bomb?

What is this? Atom hand grenades for everybody. The common soldier will be equipped with his own belt of atomic hand grenades that pack the wallop of a tactical nuclear weapon? Is this so?

Of course not. This is not at all the case [probably thank GOD for it too!!].

[These sort of alarmist remarks and headlines don't do anyone any good at all!!]

What is being spoken about is the so-called hafnium-bomb. Bombard the sub-atomic particles of the element hafnium with a "triggering energy" will reputedly, according to "questionable" physics theory, release just extraordinary amounts of energy, mostly in the form of gamma ray radiation.

[this is based upon questionable science?? Or is it? This is not entirely clear!!]

Like I said, questionable science [??] is behind this. NOBODY was able, ever to "trigger" such an energy response, at least until 1998, when:

"a leading proponent [Carl Collins] claimed in 1998 to have employed a dental x-ray machine to "trigger" the release of energy from isomers of the element hafnium."

"a Texas scientist [Collins] turned nuclear Don Quixote, who convinces Pentagon and Energy Department officials to spend millions on his jousts with the laws of physics. The fact his windmill-tilting relies on a second-hand X-ray machine, taken from a dentist's office [is of no concern]"

Based upon these initial results, the U.S. Department of Defense [DoD] did sponsor a study, spending $10 million in the process, in an attempt to replicate the results obtained with a dental x-ray machine. NO ONE was able to replicate the original experiment and obtain the same results.

"Using DARPA's sponsorship, McDaniel and his colleagues conducted a series of separate experiments, including three at a high-tech X-ray source at Louisiana State University over the past year. According to McDaniel, one experiment 'seemed to corroborate Carl's results very well" and with fewer errors than previous Collins work. Another experiment proved difficult to measure, he said. A third experiment has been conducted, but he hasn't yet had time to assess the data.'"

YES?? NO??

That this sum of money is spent in this manner is absurd to many observers. One physicist who reviewed the hafnium bomb project stated:

"It's not enough to say it's 'out of the box,' it's got to be plausibly out of the box."

The military of course has it's own take on such research"

[with regard into a study the Air Force conducted as to the feasibility of "teleportation".]

"The Air Force defended that expense by claiming the need to turn over every rock, just in case."

[I also noticed this while researching the whole question of the hafnium-bomb.

"Darpa chief Tony Tether . . . Tether and others in Defense Department woke up every morning convinced that the Russians were about to have a hafnium bomb."

NOT entirely unfounded. I came across the name of Bruno Pontecorvo as being one of the two original researchers that experimented with hafnium in 1939. The other researcher may have been Leo Szilard who co-authored with Einstein the famous letter warning President Roosevelt of the danger that atomic weapons would pose if the German developed them first. Pontecorvo later studied, worked and did significant research in the U.S. before defecting to the Soviet Union, where he got his own lab to conduct research as he saw fit.

"Energize Mr. Sulu".

coolbert.