Talk:A-bomb

Article creation
A new article called A-bomb has been created. This is a separate article from those on nuclear weapons, and nuclear weapon design in wikipedia. I am watching this site. Any edits will be evaluated by me on their merits. You may post your remarks here if you have any. I have presented only the bare minimium information required to understand the principles of devices such as the Origional Little Boy, and Fat man A-bombs.If any one edits the article A-bomb they should post their reason for doing this, and their remarks here.

Why do we think that "A-bomb" is anything different from an atomic bomb which is in turn a redirect to nuclear weapon? DJ Clayworth 21:05, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Here are some references where "a-bomb" is used outside of the context mentioned here. DJ Clayworth 21:11, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Alternatively this could be merged with nuclear weapon design. DJ Clayworth 21:13, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I think a merge to nuclear weapon design would probably be a good bet; I don't know enough about the subject to try it myself, or I would. Either way, A-bomb should redirect to atomic bomb or its target (currently nuclear weapon). Having A-bomb and atomic bomb different makes absolutely no sense. CDC  (talk)  00:18, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I'll add my voice to those who are urging merging this with nuclear weapon design. Seems that a good guage of whether or not this is an appropriately titled stand-alone article is what would logically link here. I just don't see an A-bomb link intending to hit this article. In fact, I checked out the "what links here" and all of those five articles were referring to the broader topic of nuclear weapons, rather than bomb design. (I've revised those links to go to the Nuclear Weapon page). So, what will link here and is 'A-Bomb' the right title for that link? I don't think it is. Tobycat 21:07, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

To Tmayes
I believe an alpha particle is a particle containing two protons and two electrons. It is equivalent to a He4 nucleus, but an He3 nucleus is completely different (it lacks a neutron) and is not an alpha particle. Likewise a beta particle is an electron, not a positron. Unless you know differently of course. DJ Clayworth 20:49, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I moved some stuff on Project Orion to that article (though it has yet to be merged) because it really belongs there. DJ Clayworth 21:07, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

This article really needs to be merged with nuclear weapon or nuclear weapon design. Now you may argue that this article is more complete, but that doesn't change the fact. It just means that the stuff here should be merged in to make the final article even more complete. DJ Clayworth 28 June 2005 13:59 (UTC)
 * MERGED AND REDIRECTED to Nuclear weapons

Please Keep
I want A-bomb to be restored as a stand alone article - Tim
 * I have restored it - can you do some work on it now? cf the attention tag. :) ...en passant! 05:54, 13 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Can somebody please explain why this article should exist and not be redirected to one of our other relevant articles? --Fastfission 13:55, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
 * I asked the same question over at Talk:Nuclear weapon when the existence of this article was pointed out. DV8 2XL 14:07, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Problems
This article has nothing in it which is not reproduced in other articles or could not be present in other articles. Along with this, is has a number of problems: I see no reason to even bother doing this sort of fix-up work since all of this information is already present in more correct forms in other articles. I don't think there is any reason to have a separate article on this, and I think the article title of "A-bomb" is extremely amateurish at best (if there was a need to split off fission weapon information, it should have a title more along the lines of "Fission weapons"). --Fastfission 14:09, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
 * It deliberately restricts itself to fission weapons though then claims that they are the most destructive weapons made by man. Aside from being questionable in general, clearly fusion based weapons are more destructive than fission based ones, and produce more fallout, etc. Arguments could be made that biological weapons are far worse, if one wanted to get into a question "what could kill more and how awfully", which I think is a stupid argument to get into.
 * It seems to confuse e=mc^2 with meaning that a 1kg of fuel would get completely converted into mass. This is not true -- e=mc^2 does not apply to the entire mass of nuclear fuel, but to the binding energy released by fissioning. It is a significant difference, and confusing the two has lead to a lot of misconceptions about how to use e=mc^2 in relation to nuclear reactions. (See E=mc2)
 * The "gun-type" description reads like it is trying to give instructions on how to create your own. This is not encyclopedic style in the slightest and is very amateurish. The rest of the "design" section is equally rambling. I don't see any advantage here over the information in Nuclear weapon design.
 * Blatant historical factual errors include:
 * Wrong date of the last US weapons test (says 1994, was 1992). (see Nuclear testing)
 * Rampant misspellings (Alamogardo -> Alamogordo; Smith report -> Smyth report)
 * Stockpile values greatly inflated (says 100,000 weapons, actual number around 20,000; see List of countries with nuclear weapons).
 * Per this and other comments, I'm changing A-bomb into a redirect to nuclear weapon. If it gets reverted again, it can be put up on Articles for Deletion so that the inevitable "merge and redirect" vote can be backed up by admin authority. For now, I don't see the point. --Christopher Thomas 21:58, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Notice of Request for Arbitration
As it does not appear that an amicable solution to the contention over A-bomb will appear, I've filed for a Request for Arbitration. Tmayes1999, Christopher Thomas, Fastfission, and DV8 2XL are named as involved parties. --Christopher Thomas 04:13, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Notice of Request for Comment
I've added the following request to Requests for comment/Maths, science, and technology:

Talk:A-bomb and Talk:Nuclear weapon - Should a separate A-bomb article exist, or is it better merged with Nuclear weapon and/or Nuclear weapon design?

Please discuss this question here and on Talk:Nuclear weapon. --Christopher Thomas 21:14, 16 November 2005 (UTC)