Talk:2006 North Korean nuclear test

Uranium or Plutonium?
The article does not state whether the device was a uranium or plutonium bomb. North Korea clams to have both programs. If the test was confirmed by detection of radiation, then it should be known which. -- Petri Krohn 23:16, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Almost certainly plutonium. They are producing plutonium from the Yongbyon reactor.  If it was a uranium bomb it probably wouldn't have been a fizzle.  Very broadly, plutonium is more readily obtainable but technologically challenging to make into a bomb, while highly enriched uranium is harder to obtain but easier to make into a bomb. If you had a whole bunch of U235 and didn't care much about your health, you could build a fission bomb in your garage... Raymond Arritt 00:45, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Do we have a source for this speculation? If so, we should add it to the article. -- Petri Krohn 16:21, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
 * P.S. We should also add the speculation of the high-tech "mini-bomb". How much plutonim is need for 4kT, if 100% efficiency is achieved? -- Petri Krohn 16:25, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Extrapolating from footnote 13 here, about 228g. It may be theoretically possible to get such a small mass to go critical ("only a few hundred grams" ). I doubt it would work with current tech. The US has declassified the fact that 4kg of Pu can form a critical mass. Jakew 17:12, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
 * "A few hundred grams" of plutonium can go critical if dissolved in water. This AfD has ruled that it would be WP:OR to call the resulting "steam explosion" a moderated nuclear explosion. I believe less than 228g of plutonium in plutonium hydride could produce something similar to a uranium hydride bomb, provided the hydrogen was deuterium. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 12:00, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
 * P.S. - You may be speculating that it must have been plutonium based on the assumption it fizzled. If it was intended to be small, it could have just as well have been uranium. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 12:03, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

us lies-NOT
As has been reported by many monitoring countries since, and the subsequent 2009 small-yield North Korean test of a few kilotons, N. Korea does indeed have a nuclear weapons capability.

the us might be lying about the test failing and it could just be propaganda.


 * If the North Koreans really had a nuclear bomb, they would test it in such a way as to remove all doubt, i.e. it would have been a much larger explosion with a clear radioactive signature. Such a small explosion is at best a fizzle, probably a hoax. Kauffner 08:40, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

What is this?
Is this a video of the nuclear test that North Korea did?




 * The footage looks pretty old, circa 1960s. But it's hard to say for sure with such a tiny snippet of footage. It looks like two different tests to me, though. --24.147.86.187 01:46, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:North Korean nuclear test October 3, 2006.jpg
Image:North Korean nuclear test October 3, 2006.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

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BetacommandBot 04:20, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:KCT nuclear testing.PNG
Image:KCT nuclear testing.PNG is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

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BetacommandBot (talk) 18:12, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:KCT nuclear testing.PNG
Image:KCT nuclear testing.PNG is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to ensure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

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BetacommandBot (talk) 23:06, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Contradiction in Intro
98.228.12.24 (talk)I'm not familiar with Wikipedia but doesn't the first sentence of the page, saying they gave a six day warning, contradict the later information, saying they gave a 20-minute warning? there's some real need for clarity here. thank you98.228.12.24 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 02:50, 23 January 2011 (UTC).


 * This is confusing, and hard to resolve since the citations for the two facts (6-day and 20-minute warnings) are dead links. Could someone recover them? NPguy (talk) 04:14, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Range of yield estimates
Due to recent edits, the article now reads as though a single estimate in a published scientific article is the definitive yield value of 0.48 kilotons. This is far too precise a figure to be definitive, as there are numerous sources of uncertainty, including the measurement uncertainty in the seismic magnitude, uncertainty about the depth of the explosion, and local geological factors. Other sources cited in the article give different estimates. I'm not an expert on yield estimates, but some correction is needed. NPguy (talk) 16:03, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
 * The estimate is from here. Is there another paper that has been published on this subject? A peer reviewed paper that a group of scientists spend years putting together should certainly be more accurate than the seat-of-the-pants estimates that were made at the time. Kauffner (talk) 08:51, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm not aware of other peer reviewed articles, but it's not clear that the fact that it is peer reviewed trumps other published estimates, which you dismiss as "seat of the pants." I would have expected a peer reviewed scientific assessment to provide not just a central value or the yield but also the uncertainty range.  The abstract does not do that, but perhaps the full article does.  Unfortunately, it's not freely available online, so I can't check.  In any case there is no single accepted model for estimating yield, so this article simply cannot be definitive. NPguy (talk) 03:20, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

I think it is better to put the yield at the middle estimate of 1,000 tons. This is because 500 tons as shown currently is the lowest accepted range, and the 2,000 tons is on the upper range of the likely yield. I have found one report that states various estimates from different source, including USA (Where the government estimated at 1,000 tons), South Korea (500 tons, where the estimate is highly likely to be deflated in an attempt to contain the fears over the South Koreans / propaganda against North Korea which is their arch rivals), China (1,000 tons by experts / planned 4,000 tons by the relevant diplomat channels).

Source: [] / []

ussr_1991 (talk) 01:58, 15 February 2015 (UTC + 8)

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