Dude, you're just a flat-out nutcase.

Uhh - I know my own mind. There's nothing wrong with me.

The link in your first post just shows comparative energy levels in different atomic materials; nothing more

.

There's an error in your statement right there. I asked you to look at graphs; these display two different quantities. So there is more, just by virtue of being graphs. The graphs I asked you to look for have energy levels for neutrons, OK, that's an atomic material, but the y-axis on the cross sections shows the apparent area of the nucleus to a neutron. It's measured in barns and is an area, 10^-24 cm^2 = one barn. Areas are not energy levels.

Similarly, the average number of neutrons given off per fission, aka "nubar", which is also a graph, has the energy of the incident neutrons on the x-axis but has the average number of neutrons given off per fission on the y-axis. It doesn't give the energy of the emitted neutrons you can find that elsewhere.,

Y'know, if you're going to go out and visit beautiful wind-carved slot canyons anyway, just to make a challenging climb (which is what SummitPost is all about), it takes little or no effort to bring a Geiger counter with you. That's all you need, besides a brain that can follow water and drainage patterns, etc.

... the probability of finding that much uranium (or its thorium precursor, as the article mentions) concentrated in one area is incredibly small to not even be statistically relevant. Kind of like going out looking for gold and expecting to find a 2lb/1kg chunk of it just lying on the ground ready for you to pick up.

From Wikipedia:

In literature, there are two nuggets that claim their status as the biggest gold nuggets in the world: the Welcome Stranger with the Canaã nugget being the largest surviving natural nugget. Considered by most authorities to be the biggest gold nugget ever found, the Welcome Stranger was found at Moliagul, Victoria, Australia in 1869 by John Deason and Richard Oates. It weighed gross, over 2,520 troy ounces (78 kg; 173 lb) and returned over 2,284 troy ounces (71.0 kg; 156.6 lb) net.[6] The Welcome Stranger is sometimes confused with the similarly named Welcome Nugget, which was found in June 1858 at Bakery Hill, Ballarat, Australia by the Red Hill Mining Company. The Welcome weighed 2,218 troy ounces (69.0 kg; 152.1 lb). It was melted down in London in November 1859.

The quantities mentioned would be a bare sphere critical mass of U-234. Reseach before posting, or better yet, go out and find the stuff.

You have erroneously declared me mentally ill without consulting the Diagnostic Service Manual. Then you go on to declare that anybody who tries to find this is also mentally ill. Unsupported assertions of mental illness is an ad-hominem argument, a logical fallacy or misleading argument.

I hope somebody posts who has actually challenged these slot canyons to comment on this, post pictures, and take a fresh look without any preconceptions.

I have mentioned David Hahn and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan deposit. This particular deposit had sunk to "lowest probability without being a confirmed dud" because that particular deposit is only 11,000 years old, well below the half life of uranium 234, 2.45 X 10^5 years ( sorry for the typo on an earlier post, obviously forgot to push the "shift" key.) So I was a little surprised at Sheriff Dunlap's call.

He appointed Deputy Daune Smith Special Deputy for Homeland Security. I wrote him before the call and told him what I knew up to that point. He e-mailed me back, "I want to know where there's a warehouse full of this stuff." I told him it was east of his county along U.S. 2, and the nearby Hiawatha National Forest, which is legendary amongst Boy Scouts.

The stuff's out there. Be a hero and intercept a nuclear weapon before it has a chance to explode. You're looking at those areas anyway.

I have mentioned a bare sphere critical mass of about 60 kg. That's an extremely crude estimate and could be off a lot either way.

From one of my letters to Deputy Smith:

This is the link to the experiment that I want done when you find this stuff, it's called the criticality experiment, aka "the Dragon's Tail". Harry K. Daghlian was a hero who fell for his country doing this experiment. Louis Slotin was killed shortly after WWII doing this experiment, and that accident seriously injured Edward Teller, inventor of the H-bomb. He should have known better. My uncle Charlie watched that same core that was used for those two experiments sink the Japanese Navy after WWII:

https://www.epj-conferences.org/articles/epjconf/pdf/2013/03/epjconf_wond2013_05003.pdf

Actually most of the ships sunk during Operation Crossroads Test Baker (Uncle Charlie missed test Able) were American. The Navajos had already sunk most of the enemy fleet by decoding Japanese radio messages, besides, we had complete blueprints of all our old/obsolete ships which made Uncle Charlie's job (boiler inspection) easier.

Yeah, I know, slightly off topic, but when y'all find this stuff, I submit my claim to the experiment. We'll SEE if I'm right, and when the stuff goes off, I want my money.

This brings up Congress thumping on their chests saying they'll pay a million dollars if you intercept a nuclear weapon, even AFTER it explodes if you catch the guys who did it.

Guess what ?

IT'S PONY TIME!!!!! Ha, ha, they thought you'd have to infiltrate a terrorist cell. They didn't think about a natural process almost as simple as making tea.

I think the IAEA should administer these rewards and they should be standardized. To foil collectors they should pay a price per gram, I would recommend $150.00 per gram, which is the price of artificial protactinium 231. It needs to be worth the searcher's while. Any comments on the reward?

How about paying the owner for the material? I have asked President Trump, since he's a real estate agent, to look at this aspect of the problem. The rewards must be an offer you simply cannot refuse. He will probably invoke Mad Dog Mattis (Secretary of Defense).

Speaking of Secretaries, I have to be able to explain this to Rick Perry, Secretary of Energy, in terms he can understand. He did not know that about half the budget of the Department of Energy concerns the nuclear weapons program. I recently (about a month and a half ago) fled the Banana Republic of Texas where Sec. Perry was Governor.

-Michael C. Emmert

I spent a few weeks roaming around the Colorado Plateau recently. Should I be concerned about my Vibram soles? Do they need good washing or should I just toss them?

Tonka wrote:I spent a few weeks roaming around the Colorado Plateau recently. Should I be concerned about my Vibram soles? Do they need good washing or should I just toss them?

Toss'm, toss'm. You don't want the soles of your shoes to explode on you.

You can't just toss em, those things need proper disposal. You better call the local sheriff so we can get those things sent to Yucca Mountain.

Howdy, guys;

Tonka, what's Vibram? Since I don't know, you can see how much experience I have climbing.

Marc Soltan, shoe bombs are made out of a completely different material usually made from hydrogen peroxide. If you make those you can expect to have drinks poured on you, plus get tied to your chair with neckties. Or a tree.

Hi, stinkysox77,

Disposal of nuclear explosives is a comprehensive subject that needs close examination. The United States is in big diplomatic trouble: we promised the Russians that we would destroy 35 tons of plutonium. The Russians built expensive hot neutron reactors to do just that, and we DID NOT. Boy were they mad. They shut the reactors off and put the plutonium back into missiles.

New missiles. Moore's law missiles. Newer missiles than the ones they were taken out of.

Yucca mountain doesn't work. The stuff still exists. People like Bruce Ivins (the anthrax murderer) could still get ahold of it and blame his attack on Saddam Hussein or Hillary Clinton.

The main problem with nuclear energy is that it produces nuclear explosives. It's really the only problem with nuclear energy, which otherwise is cleaner, safer, and cheaper than other forms of energy, even solar (manufacturing solar panels involves toxic substances like arsenic and requires a lot of land and sometimes water.) Manufacture of nuclear explosives is such a serious problem, however, that it's enough to kill the program.

A design needs to be certified as not leaking radioactive substances and that is already being done. Admiral Hyman Rickover was very successful at this. One of his designs, the USS Thresher, suffered an accident apparently from the crew exceeding the maximum allowable depth, and the submarine was crushed. The hydrophone crew said it sounded like a lightbulb popping. They thought it would be easy to find the wreck, just follow the radioactive trail, but the reactor held and it took years to find it.

And a design needs to be certified as not manufacturing nuclear explosives. It can't be just disposed of as waste, Bruce Ivins II would love that. The waste needs to be destroyed as the reactor runs as part of the operation of the reactor.

I think those who say it cannot be done are wrong. They suffer pessimism, kind of like phydeux. If a design cannot be certified and get a safety inspection certificate unless it meets this standard, then the designers will make sure it does not produce nuclear explosives.

Briefly, one solution is the good old fashioned atom smasher that's been around since the 1930's and before. The first waste you run into in most fuel cycles is neptunium 237. Neutrons do not destroy it as an actinide, they just make it into another actinide (Pu-238). If you whack it hard enough with a proton, that will destroy it and will release enough neutrons to make the reactor run, even if you relax materials requirements, which are normally strict enough to make the reactors expensive.

I could write on and on, but the topic here is mountain climbing and other vertical adventures.

-Michael C. Emmert

SP isn't truely dead. Case in point: Pete Y. has just been reincarnated as Mike...

Howdy, all;

I found a great link about slot canyons on - get this - summitpost.org :

http://www.summitpost.org/technical-slot-canyons-of-the-colorado-plateau/178925

This is by Scott. Thank you, Scott There is a warning about flash floods in the article. Let me quote it, because it gives you some idea of the amount of carnotite that might be soaked in water in one of these canyons:

Most of these canyons drain huge slickrock area, and often there is no soil or vegetation to absorb the water. Sometimes you will noticed logs wedged 100 feet up between canyon walls. Want to guess how they got there?

My earlier surveys of these kinds of areas uncovered "cave bombs", which are slot canyons with a roof overhead. Usually there are large layers of carnotite sandwiched in between tougher layers of lava. There is a drainage pattern on the lower layer of lava which washes the soft carnotite away. The carnotite is undermined, which forms a cave. Cave bombs are really a class of slot canyon, and I now think they are in the minority.

I sure hope Scott sees this and has some comment on it.

If you do decide to look for uranium 234, it probably washes some distance downstream from the slot canyon. There are also features within the canyon itself, such as keeper potholes and flooded silos. If a lot of plant material grows while these features are flooded, then there may be some organic material at the bottom which would cause the uranium to condense into pitchblende.

Scott says these canyons can be pretty challenging, so be careful.

-Michael C. Emmert

Howdy all;

Protactinium 231 and thorium 230 are also nuclear explosives. U-234 is more dangerous and is accessible to mountain climbers. Although thorium does form pebbles in stream beds, I did find a large source. And this was my most embarrassing interception. I missed such a huge clue.

I was watching the New England Patriots playing the Indianapolis Colts in a playoff game. A Colt pass defender grabbed a Tom Brady pass out of the air, cut short his celebration, motioned the referee over, pointed to the football, and squeezed. Then they cut the camera.

During the commercial, I thought "There's something wrong with the football. Somebody tried helium in the kicking football several years ago (forgot who). The only source of helium on Earth is cooled alpha particles from radioactive materials such as these nuclear weapons minerals." What was so embarrassing was that it took well over two years to think of this clue, and it took the deflated football scandal to do it. Why not, say, the Goodyear Blimp? Or the birthday party with balloons? I don't know.

So I went out looking for whoever it was who was selling helium and came up with Air Products, Inc. of Doe Canyon, Colorado, who says on their website that they are the nation's largest supplier of helium gas. I also notified Sheriff Martin and, of course, Dr. Charles Teal of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, my Federal contact. And the Denver Broncos when they defeated the Patriots. And the Goodyear Blimp.

Well, I missed this one for quite a while. So if anybody can come up with other clues, post it here. Thanks.

-Michael C. Emmert

Fascinating!! It saved my day.

I really look forward to Project Apollo, or maybe Project Iuno or whatever Greek god(ess) you may choose. Keep the fire burning!

Howdy folks;

Project Zeus went international quite some time ago. I went to pay the rent and looked up at the landlady's calendar. There was an area depicted there with gigantic piles of yellow sand; it was a Chinese National Park. I lived in Taiwan when I was a little kid (Army brat) and climbed the mountain at Sun Moon Lake, they built stairs there (about 500 steps) a long time ago. But today I speak 17 words of Chinese, and ten of them are numbers. China has numerous dialects so the ten numbers are all that are useful to me.

What to do? I remember watching (Live!) the Apollo 11 shot; I timed my leave from the Army just to do that. The crew fired the trans-lunar injection burn, then turned around and pointed the camera at Earth.

They were over the Indian Ocean, and one of the crew said, "There's a cyclonic storm off the coast of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh)." And sure enough, there was a hurricane (OK, "cyclone") spinning maybe 400 or 500 miles off the coast. The next five minutes were spent breaking out the camera with the reticle so they could give the coordinates and they read numbers back and forth to each other.

Then somebody asked, "Who are we going to report this to?"

"I don't know, the State Department, I guess."

The State Department speaks Chinese. So I wrote them and asked them to transmit my letter to them.

In response to taunts from neighbors and naysayers of "What are you going to say to Kim Jong Un?" I researched him and found out he has a degree in Physics: "I got a lot less explaining to do." President Kim probably speaks English (he was educated in Switzerland) but I couldn't find his e-mail address. So I HAD to send it through the State Department. That's a no lose situation. If they thought it was dangerous to do that, they just wouldn't send it, that's all.

I asked President Kim to go out and look for this stuff himself, without any help from his staff. I also asked him to set his crew to designing a reactor that does not produce nuclear explosives. I told him I had seen the Blackout and knew what it meant. It means he needs nuclear energy. President Kim currently needs a bargaining chip, he doesn't have any. If he has any of this stuff at all, then if he turns it in, he gets to tell his people that he destroyed as many as a hundred U.S. bombs and (probably) one or no Korean bombs.

President Obama was visiting Hiroshima at about this time, and since the State Department was reading the letter, I asked them to invite President Kim over to talk about it. That didn't happen. I think it would be better done at Nagasaki, since 1500 Korean slaves were killed in that raid. After Hiroshima day I found out that the Japanese think the Nagasaki bomb missed by 5 miles (8km). That's not what "The Secret History of the Atomic Bomb" and Paul Tibbet's autobiography said. It was a dead-square hit on the soccer stadium. There was no game that day. There is a dead spot under the bomb, the most damage is when the distance to the target equals the bursting altitude, 1800 feet in this case. 1800 feet in one direction was the Mitsubishi Aircraft Factory where they were making piloted bombs; 1800 feet in another direction was the Urakami Ordnance Works where they were making piloted torpedos. Both targets were destroyed. Investigators were surprised that the overhead cranes in both factories were still up, however, when tested both proved inoperable and irreparable.

I decided it would be a good idea to find out what other Presidents had a degree in Physics and came up with Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany. I also sent her letter through the State Department. I told her (listen up, selinute01) that German uranium known to me was not porous, therefore I knew of no nuclear weapons minerals in her country.

My "Presidents with degrees in Physics" link listed the Prime Minister of Belgium, but he had been fired in the last election. There was also the President of Egypt, he was in jail.

My buddy who helped me find our first bomb (in FOUR FRICKIN' MINUTES! and he knew where there was MORE!) was a Google Earth tourist. He loved looking around the world at rocks and things. The American election was going in it's early stages, and I voted for Hillary because very few people have seen more of the world than she had. This was, of course, as a U.S. official.

OK, who has toured the world more than Hillary Clinton?

The Queen of England! So I snail-mailed her, as her website recommended. She gets about 80,000 letters a year, and every day her staff selects 10 for her to read. Most of her letters are about soccer, she's a fan, and the year her team won the Championship she got 120,000 letters.

Some mountain climbers are wealthy and can afford a nice vacation in a foreign land. So, good luck. I would recommend you contact your own government first, then the local government.

Part of the "art" of Project Zeus is figuring out which cop to call. It might get complicated in certain foreign situations. Good luck!

-Michael C. Emmert

Mike, you really do deserve some kind of honor for your work in trying to save the world. I hope the Queen does read your letter and realizes the brilliance in your work.

Hi, guys;

Thought I'd post my most controversial interception. That was in Carbon County, not the one in Arizona or Wyoming but the one in Pennsylvania.

I called there because my move from Texas was beginning to look like it was going to be to Pennsylvania and I wanted to see if there was any of this material there. A quick trip to Wikipedia showed carnotite in Carbon County so I went to the original source and found the scientific paper for the deposit, which was written in the 1930's. The material was found as a result of a cut in a hill made for a railroad company. Then I went to the Sheriff's website, but there was no e-mail address listed for the Sheriff's Department. That's too bad, e-mail allows me to shoot a copy to Dr. Teal at the nuclear regulatory commission so that I can prove to the Federal Government that I contacted the Sheriff. So I called the Department on the telephone and, of course, got the dispatcher. I briefly told her why I was calling and she got my name, address, telephone number, etc. Then she asked again why I was calling and I told her uranium 234 was a nuclear explosive -

Some guy grabbed the phone and said, "Now hold on, you need to call these people" and I said

"Well, I'm calling you so let's get this out of the way" and he said,

"Well you need to call those people," and I said

"I need to get your e-mail address so I can prove to the Federal Government that I contacted you," and he said,

"Well you need to call these other people" and I started singing,

"It ain't me,
It ain't me,
I ain't no millionaire star, no, no" (Creedence Clearwater Revival)

And he said, "You need to call the State Nuclear Regulatory Commission." And I said,

"No sir. YOU are the Sheriff. YOU are responsible for the safety of YOUR community. YOU call these people. I am calling the Nuclear Regulatory Commission."

And he said "Well, see if I care." I thought, "He got it all wrong."

So I told him "I asked Dr. Teal to keep a written record of all this and he gets a copy of everything."

THEN he started cooperating. Or seemed to. I never DID get a copy of his e-mail address and instead of sending Dr. Teal a copy, I had to send him a story.

And THIS is going into the movie. I guarantee it.

When I DID move to Pennsylvania, I started asking around about the Sheriff of Carbon County, and I got plenty of roiled eyes laughs shock and embarrassed looks and quickly realized that the Sheriff of Carbon County (Eastern) Pennsylvania was a joke throughout the State.

Guess I'll end this post with another smilie

I've had adventures in mountaineering. These were mostly at the Organ Mountains of New Mexico, where White Sands Missile Range is located. There is an abandoned gold mine up there. The Cox family, who owns most of the vast land that WSMR is located on, abandoned the mine as unprofitable. However, there is water flowing from the Organ Mountains down to the desert plain below.

You could go up there and get about a day's pay at regular wages from panning for gold up there. One GI found a fairly significant nugget, about the size of a golf ball; he was lucky. The gold mine is actually a pleasant place to visit during the summer as heat relief.

One time my brother, a friend of his, and I made the climb to the mine. But Pat and his buddy decided this day to go farther. So I went with them for a while. We came to a place where there was a big 90 degree cliff. Pat and his friend wanted to look over it, but frankly I was scared. Also (actually a more important factor) the Sun had set and night was coming on. I told Pat to come back, but he refused. So I went back myself.

My parents asked where Pat was and I told them. They got scared and called out the MP's to go out and look for them. Pat and his buddy were caught by the night and couldn't come down, just like I told them. Boy did they get it when they got home. I was surprised by my folks' reaction. Pat had camped out all night before; he was a Boy Scout. I was not.

I took my 55cc Yamaha motorcycle that I bought mowing lawns (military base) up to the gold mine several times. Yes, I did get off and push. It was fun. When I went to high school we had moved to Las Cruces and I went up the Organ mountains from the other side. There was a pleasant spring on the other side, too. I didn't bother panning, I make more cutting lawns.

I won the High School PE heavyweight wrestling championship and was asked to join the team, which I did. I didn't find out until the 11th grade that the second most strenuous sport is motocross racing. You're wrestling something that's about 120 times stronger than you are. And if it's a little bike like mine, you are pushing it up mountains. I was built like Superman back then. Wish I was now.