# Shays claims "Home Depot" nuke possible. Really? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 14, 2006, 9:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shays-claims-home-depot-nuke-possible-really/372658 "2006-09-14T09:43:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Eleusis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Eleusis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eleusis)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2006, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shays-claims-home-depot-nuke-possible-really/372658/21 "2006-09-14T11:37:27Z")
[QUOTE=samclem] **Moderator steps in** Don’t MAKE me turn this thread around. 🙂 Let’s both stop the arguing and get back on track. **samclem** [/QUOTE] Sorry I called you camlem, **samclem**. I had it written out SamClem then messed up the fixing. But seriously, on track? There never was an “on track” here for GQ. I already answered the “GQ”. This thread has no business here. He wants to debate somebody’s intentions. ---
**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2006, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shays-claims-home-depot-nuke-possible-really/372658/22 "2006-09-14T11:41:08Z")
[QUOTE=Tuckerfan] Again, it’s how technical you want to get, and how long you want to take. There’s a series of books out that (actually, several, now that I think about it) which tell you how to build your own machine shop out of scrap materials. Other than the books, you can get all the supplies you’d need from Home Depot (of course, buying up aluminum furnature, simply to melt it down to make castings is a bit absurd). The electronics could be cannibalized out of various items that Home Depot sells.. [/QUOTE] But you need such inordinate _precision_ in your machine tools and other production and engineering equipment that I cannot accept that you could buy the necessary materials, including such things as the exotic metals you’d need, from Home Depot (assuming, of course, that one possessed all the skills necessary). As you know, even with billions of 1940’s dollars, the Manhattan scientists and engineers faced nearly insurmountable difficulties. To do what you suggest is essentially equivalent to building an entire high-tech, industrialized civilization from scratch using nothing but what you could buy from Home Depot. But I do understand that you’re deliberately stretching hypotheses to extremes pretty much as an exercise rather than arguing that it’s genuinely possible in the real world to make a nuke from Home Depot parts. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2006, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shays-claims-home-depot-nuke-possible-really/372658/23 "2006-09-14T11:48:11Z")
Leaving aside the partisan wrangling, I’d have to dispute the initial assertion. I suspect that the original claim was that you could build a nuclear bomb using parts commonly available at a hardware store (why give \*Home Depot[/i a free plug? I’ll bet Lowe’s would be as good. Or your neighborhood hardware store) _except_ for the fissile material. And, unless your bomb was a fairly crude “gun” type (uses a lot of fissile material, but it works and is relatively easy to make), I doubt if you could get all the parts you’d need at a hardware store – you can’t walk into my local Home Depot and get explosives, so you’d be making your own or concatenating them from teeny sources. This is not the way to put together sensitive shaped charges for implosions and the like. There was the case of the Princeton student who wrote a bachelor’s thesis on building a bomb about 20 years ago (but he replied on commercial specialty explosives, if memory serves), or the magazine article on how to build a bomb from 25-30 years ago. Heck, pick up Rhodes’ books on the atomic and hydrogen bomb, or Tom Clancy’s novels and you’ll find a lot of the details in there. But not everything, and some steps require fine machining and designed explosives and sometimes special radioactive initiators (like polonium). So saying that you can build one using parts from a hardware store is hyperbole, like the physicist I knew who claimed anyone could build a grating spectrograph from scratch in his basement. “How?” I asked. “Well, first you get a nail and a piece of glass and make a diffraction grating…” ---
**Author:** ![Jinx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Jinx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jinx)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2006, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shays-claims-home-depot-nuke-possible-really/372658/24 "2006-09-14T11:53:36Z")
[QUOTE=Tuckerfan] Actually, in _theory_ one _might_ be able to do such a thing…In short, there’s really no practical way that you could get what you need from Home Depot to build a nuke. [/QUOTE] One must understand what is meant by a dirty bomb vs. a “nuke”. A dirty bomb is a device that can pepper an area (doesn’t have to be a huge area) with nasty stuff, often using radiological materials. ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2006, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shays-claims-home-depot-nuke-possible-really/372658/25 "2006-09-14T12:11:19Z")
[QUOTE=Fear Itself] [Yeah, nobody would ever do that…](http://www.dangerouslaboratories.org/radscout.html) [/QUOTE] Gotcha! By 3 whole minutes too. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![ShibbOleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@ShibbOleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShibbOleth)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2006, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shays-claims-home-depot-nuke-possible-really/372658/26 "2006-09-14T12:47:15Z")
[QUOTE=Rick] Well guys, a [Boy Scout](http://www.dangerouslaboratories.org/radscout.html) working for a merit badge, built a breeder reactor using old smoke detectors and batteries. Both of which are available at HD. [/QUOTE] I’m glad I never had to go for _that_ merit badge. (WTH is there an Atomic Energy merit badge?!?) ---
**Author:** ![Stan\_Shmenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/94ad74/32.png) [@Stan\_Shmenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stan_Shmenge)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2006, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shays-claims-home-depot-nuke-possible-really/372658/27 "2006-09-14T13:07:12Z")
The problem is that when you are trying to check out your bucket of Plutonium, the SKU is not in the computer system. After the nineteenth page for a price check from the fissile materials aisle, you give up in disgust and begin culturing biological weapons from the “Hometown Buffet” cole slaw. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2006, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shays-claims-home-depot-nuke-possible-really/372658/28 "2006-09-14T13:24:48Z")
> [@](#): > > Quote: > Originally Posted by Rick > Well guys, a Boy Scout working for a merit badge, built a breeder reactor using old smoke detectors and batteries. Both of which are available at HD. > > I’m glad I never had to go for that merit badge. (WTH is there an Atomic Energy merit badge?!?) 1.) Yes, there is (or at least _was_, back when I was a oy Scout) an Atomic Energy merit badge. There was no experimental section, though. 2.) IIRC, a lot of the radioactive material that Bot Scout got was actually from a bottle of radium paint, meant for touching up the luminous paint on clock hands, that he found inside one of the radium-dialed clocks at a flea market. Trying to collect a lot of radioactive material by collectingf strips of Americium from smoke detectors requires a _lot_ of gathering. A whole bottle of radium paint gets you plenty of pre-reg curies at once. ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2006, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shays-claims-home-depot-nuke-possible-really/372658/29 "2006-09-14T13:57:33Z")
[QUOTE=CalMeacham] 1.) Yes, there is (or at least _was_, back when I was a oy Scout) an Atomic Energy merit badge. There was no experimental section, though. 2.) IIRC, a lot of the radioactive material that Bot Scout got was actually from a bottle of radium paint, meant for touching up the luminous paint on clock hands, that he found inside one of the radium-dialed clocks at a flea market. Trying to collect a lot of radioactive material by collectingf strips of Americium from smoke detectors requires a _lot_ of gathering. A whole bottle of radium paint gets you plenty of pre-reg curies at once. [/QUOTE] [nitpicks] A. I never said he was doing experiments for his merit badge. You assumed that. B. Guess you missed the second line of my post > [@](#): > > He did use other stuff which isn’t available from HD. [/nitpicks] ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2006, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shays-claims-home-depot-nuke-possible-really/372658/30 "2006-09-14T14:04:39Z")
> [@](#): > > Quote: > Originally Posted by CalMeacham > 1.) Yes, there is (or at least was, back when I was a oy Scout) an Atomic Energy merit badge. There was no experimental section, though. > > 2.) IIRC, a lot of the radioactive material that Bot Scout got was actually from a bottle of radium paint, meant for touching up the luminous paint on clock hands, that he found inside one of the radium-dialed clocks at a flea market. Trying to collect a lot of radioactive material by collectingf strips of Americium from smoke detectors requires a lot of gathering. A whole bottle of radium paint gets you plenty of pre-reg curies at once. > [nitpicks] > A. I never said he was doing experiments for his merit badge. You assumed that. > B. Guess you missed the second line of my post > Quote: > He did use other stuff which isn’t available from HD. > > [/nitpicks] [nitpicks nitpicks] I was responding to **Shibboleth’s** citing of your quote. \*He’s the one who brought meritb badges in. Guess you missed the last line of the quoted post before my comment. [/nitpick nitpick] ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2006, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shays-claims-home-depot-nuke-possible-really/372658/31 "2006-09-14T14:05:51Z")
> [@](#): > > Quote: > Originally Posted by CalMeacham > 1.) Yes, there is (or at least was, back when I was a oy Scout) an Atomic Energy merit badge. There was no experimental section, though. > > 2.) IIRC, a lot of the radioactive material that Bot Scout got was actually from a bottle of radium paint, meant for touching up the luminous paint on clock hands, that he found inside one of the radium-dialed clocks at a flea market. Trying to collect a lot of radioactive material by collectingf strips of Americium from smoke detectors requires a lot of gathering. A whole bottle of radium paint gets you plenty of pre-reg curies at once. > [nitpicks] > A. I never said he was doing experiments for his merit badge. You assumed that. > B. Guess you missed the second line of my post > Quote: > He did use other stuff which isn’t available from HD. > > [/nitpicks] [nitpicks nitpicks] I was responding to **Shibboleth’s** citing of your quote. _He’s_ the one who brought merit badges in. Guess you missed the last line of the quoted post before my comment. [/nitpick nitpick] ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2006, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shays-claims-home-depot-nuke-possible-really/372658/32 "2006-09-14T14:05:43Z")
> [@](#): > > Quote: > Originally Posted by CalMeacham > 1.) Yes, there is (or at least was, back when I was a oy Scout) an Atomic Energy merit badge. There was no experimental section, though. > > 2.) IIRC, a lot of the radioactive material that Bot Scout got was actually from a bottle of radium paint, meant for touching up the luminous paint on clock hands, that he found inside one of the radium-dialed clocks at a flea market. Trying to collect a lot of radioactive material by collectingf strips of Americium from smoke detectors requires a lot of gathering. A whole bottle of radium paint gets you plenty of pre-reg curies at once. > [nitpicks] > A. I never said he was doing experiments for his merit badge. You assumed that. > B. Guess you missed the second line of my post > Quote: > He did use other stuff which isn’t available from HD. > > [/nitpicks] [nitpicks nitpicks] I was responding to **Shibboleth’s** citing of your quote. _He’s_ the one who brought merit badges in. Guess you missed the last line of the quoted post before my comment. [/nitpick nitpick] ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2006, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shays-claims-home-depot-nuke-possible-really/372658/33 "2006-09-14T15:05:07Z")
My sister and I are off to Home Depot this morning. This being the North (Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario), we may be able to find some …interesting… stuff there. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2006, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shays-claims-home-depot-nuke-possible-really/372658/34 "2006-09-14T15:13:23Z")
Ahhhh!! Sorry about that multipost [Chekhov]Must be the radiation[/Chekhov] ---
**Author:** ![spingears](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@spingears](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spingears)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2006, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shays-claims-home-depot-nuke-possible-really/372658/35 "2006-09-14T15:14:27Z")
[QUOTE=Eleusis] They don’t sell uranium or plutonium at Home Depot. [/QUOTE] You might find a little 'ore there though. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2006, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shays-claims-home-depot-nuke-possible-really/372658/36 "2006-09-14T15:49:26Z")
I think they _meant_ a Radiological Device, & the Congresscritter got confuzzled. 😃 And I’m _utterly certain_ you could, on simple reflection of what they keep there. And a big shout-out to the NSA Boys who are doubtless peeing in their jodhpurs whilst they peruse this Thread. Send me a post card from Texas, boys! 😃🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2006, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shays-claims-home-depot-nuke-possible-really/372658/37 "2006-09-14T16:10:52Z")
[QUOTE=CalMeacham] Ahhhh!! Sorry about that multipost [Chekhov]Must be the radiation[/Chekhov] [/QUOTE] OK, I get it. I’m sorry I mixed you guys up. 😃 OK, I get it. I’m sorry I mixed you guys up. 😃 [This is a test of the new hamster friendly multipost] ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2006, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shays-claims-home-depot-nuke-possible-really/372658/38 "2006-09-14T17:11:11Z")
First you buy a [10 million smoke detectors](http://www.uic.com.au/nip35.htm). The rest is just engineering. > [@](#): > > Americium > > The vital ingredient of household smoke detectors is a very small quantity (\<35 kBq) of americium-241 (Am-241). This element was discovered in 1945 during the Manhattan Project in USA. The first sample of americium was produced by bombarding plutonium with neutrons in a nuclear reactor at the University of Chicago. > > Americium is a silvery metal, which tarnishes slowly in air and is soluble in acid. Its atomic number is 95. Its most stable isotope, Am-243, has a half-life of over 7500 years, although Am-241, with a half-life of 432 years, was the first isotope to be isolated. > > Americium oxide, AmO2, was first offered for sale by the US Atomic Energy Commission in 1962 and the price of US$ 1500 per gram has remained virtually unchanged since. One gram of americium oxide provides enough active material for more than 5000 household smoke detectors. > > Americium (in combination with beryllium) is also used as a neutron source in non-destructive testing of machinery and equipment, and as a thickness gauge in the glass industry. However, its most common application is as an ionisation source in smoke detectors, and most of the several kilograms of americium made each year is used in this way. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2006, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shays-claims-home-depot-nuke-possible-really/372658/39 "2006-09-14T17:15:18Z")
According to the scientific literature, the fissionable materials are sold separately, and should be obtained from your local terrorist organization or perhaps the Junior Achievement in your neighborhood. ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2006, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shays-claims-home-depot-nuke-possible-really/372658/40 "2006-09-14T17:22:31Z")
[QUOTE=ambushed] My understanding is that a few respected workers _claim_ to have produced trivial but genuine cold fusion, but that claim is very hotly(!) disputed by the larger scientific community. Do you have a cite in the peer-reviewed literature that acknowledges that such claims _have_ been accepted by the majority of physicists? I remain _extremely_ skeptical. [/QUOTE] What **kanicbird** was referring to has little in common with Pons-and-Fleischman kind of cold fusion. When electrons are replaced by heavier muons, the smaller atoms have reduced coulomb repulsions between them. Luis Alvarez produced “cold” fusion this way in the 1950s. It’s not really cold, but it requires temperatures much lower than traditional fusion. In order to give the atoms a decent chance of meeting each other before the muons decay, the temperature has to be pretty high (several thousand kelvins, IIRC). There appears to be little practical use for the effect, since it costs more energy to produce the muons than you get back from the fusion. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shays-claims-home-depot-nuke-possible-really/372658.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shays-claims-home-depot-nuke-possible-really/372658.md?page=3)