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That an article violates copyright is not a reason to delete the article entirely, but to FIX IT.
It's my experience that editors who just delete wholesale swaths of information on some technical wiki complaint oftentimes aren't so much worried about the technicality, but just don't want the information available at all. Kaz 21:47, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
"it could wipe out millions of people" The term "wipe out" probably wouldn't be found in an encyclopedia. Perhaps "kill" or something similar would be better?
slaugh·ter (slô'ter) n. 1.The killing of animals especially for food. 2.The killing of a large number of people; a massacre: “I could not give my name to aid the slaughter in this war, fought on both sides for grossly material ends” (Sylvia Pankhurst). DV8 2XL 11:48, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
~~MV~~
In order to make the article better, you could perhaps mention that cobalt bombs would be an extra and lingering danger in the area where they explode, but that however, the amount of cobalt required to cause the effect that Szilard described is enormous and not practical.
+besieged
"originally proposed by physicist Leó Szilárd, who suggested that it would be capable of destroying all life on Earth," is totally without reference (not to mention the idea is preposterous anyway). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Besieged ( talk • contribs) 13:29, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
My physics teacher described a Cobalt bomb to us one day. What he describes was not a "dirty bomb" at all but the use of consecutive shells of elements ending in Cobalt. All of these shells would be wrapped around a standard hydrogen bomb. The basic idea is that energy release from one shell would be enough to start fusion in the next element, all the way to Cobalt. I forget the exact amount of energy released, but it would be enough to destroy the Earth.
---
'Critics of the cobalt bomb concept point out that the mass needed would still be unreasonably large: 1 gram of 60Co per square kilometer of Earth's surface is 510 tonnes, and fallout does not reach all areas in equal proportions and dispersement (winds, etc.) [2]. While the sheer size and cost of such a weapon makes it unlikely to be built, it is technically possible because there is no maximum size limit for a thermonuclear bomb. However, the effects of nuclear weapons, including blast, physical damage and fallout, do not scale up linearly with weapon size or yield; the magnitude of these effects increases more gradually than the energy released by the nuclear detonation.'
Surely then if you get more bang relatively speaking from a smaller bomb, would making several smaller Cobalt bombs result in needing a smaller overall total mass of bomb? If so, what's the optimal mass for one? You could also reduce the effects of dispersion if you had lots of smaller explosions rather than relying on one big one to explode evenly across the globe.
I don't advocate anyone tries this of course, but surely it's the more logical approach. Arbitrary Logic ( talk) 12:04, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
Article states: The fallout of other nuclear weapons has the appearance of sand or ground pumice, which falls back to the ground in short time, and can be filtered by even a handkerchief, unlike cobalt-60 COMMENT: This badly needs needs a ref. How do YOU know what cobalt metal processed through a nuclear fireball would come out physically? A similar oxidized particulate to what the rest of fallout is described as, is MY guess. Sbharris 20:03, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
I think that this article should be merged with the Salted bomb article. This is on a subset of that article, and doesn't really need its own page. -- Apyule 14:56, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
Use In Science Fiction -
The second Planet Of The Apes Film featured a doomsday weapon that was said to have a Cobolt caseing.
It appears that Salted bomb article doesn't exist anymore. Just wonderful. All info about non-cobalt (gold, zinc) bombs is deleted... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 195.212.29.187 ( talk) 10:59, 6 February 2007 (UTC).
This page should have been merged into the Salted Bomb article rather than vice versa. 131.111.103.224
some version saved @: http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salted_bomb 74.12.96.200 06:53, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
Exactly how much is an "exceedingly large and impractical" amount? -- Noclevername 23:50, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
What is a salted bomb ? It's not explained here. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 87.65.138.108 ( talk) 20:00, 5 May 2007 (UTC).
I think the merge needs to be reverted (is this possible, I cant find much information on reverting merges) and the cobalt bomb article made a part of the salted bomb article as was stated earlier. Edd17 20:32, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
Or the salted bomb article could be recreated and then this article could be merged into it. Edd17 20:45, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
So this article would be named Salted Bomb and Cobalt Bomb would redirect here? some of the text would need to be altered and the information on other types of bomb found as well (particularly the table). Edd17 20:14, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
It appears that the statement mentioned here needs a fact check:
http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Cobalt_bomb&diff=250458634&oldid=250274935
I'm not sure about it. Perhaps somebody knowledgeable about the topic and having lots of sources can go at it? Cornince ( talk) 02:09, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
Australian peace activist and atmospheric scientist Brian Martin, in "The global health effects of nuclear war," Current Affairs Bulletin, Vol. 59, No. 7, December 1982, pp. 14-26. http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/pubs/82cab/#n1 has covered this issue indirectly in the section of his paper "Overkill," in which he describes the fallacy of linear extrapolation of nuclear weapons effects to the world population at large succinctly. Earlier in the paper (the section "Fallout") Dr. Martin distinguishes between the sorts of fallout produced by differing sorts of nuclear detonations in terms of the dose of fallout delivered to nearby and worldwide populations.
The matter is covered in much more detail, but with similar conclusions to Dr. Martin's, in The Effects of Nuclear Weapons, Samuel Glasstone and Philip J. Dolan (editors), United States Department of Defense and Department of Energy, Washington, D.C., http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/www/effects/, considered the definitive technical work on the subject of nuclear weapons effects.
Their chapter on nuclear fallout http://www.alternatewars.com/WW3/WW3_Documents/Weapon_Effects/Effects_1977_09.pdf discusses in great detail the highly irregular deposition of fallout on the surface of the Earth after nuclear detonations. -- vfrickey ( talk) 05:43, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
I have placed citations supporting these criticisms of the "overkill" and "doomsday machine" concepts in the text of the article. loupgarous 19:51, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
"The British did test a bomb that incorporated cobalt as an experimental radiochemical tracer (Antler/Round 1, 14 September 1957). This 1 kt device was exploded at the Tadje site, Maralinga range, Australia. The experiment was regarded as a failure and not repeated." http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Nwfaq/Nfaq1.html#nfaq1.6 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.76.37.154 ( talk) 01:08, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
"Critics" of the bomb say it won't destroy all life on the planet? Seriously? Do they see the destruction of all life as a desirable goal? Serendi pod ous 09:18, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
present version cites Brian Martin. It seems to me though that the Martin article does not discuss the cobalt bomb, only "ordinary" nuclear bombs. — fnielsen ( talk) 22:19, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
The article cites the radioactive nuclide present in gold bombs as 197Au, which in fact is the only stable isotope of gold (curiously nobody discovered that mistake over so many years). It seems to me that 195Au with a half-life of 186 days is probably what the original author meant. Zhieaanm ( talk) 12:13, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
I recommend this (pages 290-292) as the source for the article- it's evaluation of Szilard claims....
http://books.google.pl/books?id=_Q0AAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA290&lpg=PA290&dq=Hydrogen-Cobalt+Bomb+in+bullletin+arnold&source=bl&ots=_W7CkxJQRk&sig=MWKbUTyq3tOIbM7H5kaVcBsEMBU&hl=pl&ei=ofG5TbG_C4ODOruypP0O&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBkQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.25.0.13 ( talk) 11:19, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
I don't really understand why people keep coming back to this "510 tons" number. That's a mind experiment only: "How much cobalt would I need to bring 1 gram of cobalt to every square km of earth's surface?". What Szilárd was talking about when he thought up the cobalt bomb is that it would also kill the people in the target area who survived the initial blast. From a human standpoint, you only "need" to irradiate the arable land, which is only a fraction of the 30% of earth's surface that actually are land. And suddenly, you'll see that the ability to destroy all human life on earth is within the reach of an "arsenal of cobalt bombs".
Not that we need cobalt bombs (or any other "big bang" stuff) for that. We're doing a fine job exhausting natural resources and poisoning the ground just by negligence. To quote T.S. Eliot, the world will end with a whimper, not a bang. -- DevSolar ( talk) 09:23, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
Consider: "Leó Szilárd [...] suggested that an arsenal of cobalt bombs would be capable of destroying all human life on Earth." (Emphasis mine to point out plural.) The next two paragraphs go on blurbing about a single (singular) bomb, about how the effects wouldn't "scale".
I repeat my accusation: That's not "providing a point of reference", that's smoke and mirrors. I suggest removing the two paragraphs in question, and - if necessary or desirable - replace it with some technical information on how much irradiation would result from a bomb of so-and-so much yield and so-and-so much cobalt and what the effects would be. But this "510 tons" blurb is simply misleading. -- DevSolar ( talk) 11:45, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
Additional information. The actual paper where Szilárd makes his statements is the April 1950 issue of the "Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist".
I.e., the very crude calculations he makes in a footnote to the article (or the ones James R. Arnold does in the October issue to ridicule the concept) might be for a global Doomsday devices, but that's only because they had yet to hear about ICBMs, or Assymetric warfare, and thought about global nuclear determent only. A Cobalt bomb might be built to be a doomsday device, but it might just as well be built to fit in the trunk of your car (or a MIRV warhead) to render a Metropolitan area uninhabitable. -- DevSolar ( talk) 13:20, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
The concept of using cobalt bombs as doomsday machines isn't completely impractical. even distribution of the cobalt 60 can be accomplished by using numerous bombs detonated in low sub orbit. The clouds of vaporized material would travel great distances and expand broadly before falling to the ground. Simple calculations can be made for how many bombs, and how much cobalt required. Based on expectations of loss of material thrown to escape velocity and trajectories, time to fall, and air resistance to get the ideal altitude and speed to detonate the bombs for maximal dispersion to get to the minimal amount of 510 tons of cobalt 60 evenly distributed. 98.164.65.148 ( talk) 08:37, 25 March 2017 (UTC)
Another thing wrong with the 510 ton figure is that ir's a "back of the notebook" figure. It's based on the fact that 1 gram of CO60 at 1 meter is lethal in a matter of minutes. The "back of the notebook" figure simply scaled that amount to the square meterage of the Earth. But if the earth was evenly covered with CO 60 there would only need be less for than 510 tons. A target person exposed would be exposed to 1 gram on the meter he is standing on plus the 8 grams on the surrounding 8 meters plus the 16 grams on the meterage surrounding that and so on to the horizon. In fact the material doesn't have to fall to the ground. If the material was uniformly distributed high in the atmosphere the entire arc of the sky would irradiate the ground target with even more than a target person would get if he were standing on a ground covered in it, and only getting the amount recieved from the arc below his feet to the horizon. "Back of the notebook calculations" with this consideration is that 510 tons is an order of magnitude more than needed. Ten times more than needed. 51 tons would have the same effect. That is the effect of 1 gram at 1 meter being lethal in a few minutes. 98.164.91.12 ( talk) 14:59, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
I've once red that a hydrogen bomb covered with a cobalt shield would make the bomb up to a 1000 times more powerful, but not more radioactive thow. I think the source was "Guiness World Records" (swedish edition) 1974 or 1975. Boeing720 ( talk) 19:24, 5 July 2012 (UTC)
The paragraph which compares fission product gammas to C0-60 seems a bit off to me. It reads as if the fission products would be a more serious radiation hazard but this is only the case if the mass of fission products was equal to the mass of cobalt-60 produced. In reality the Cobalt will be the biggest contributor to dose from day 1. Hairykrishna ( talk) 10:18, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
An extremely relevant paper would seem to be this one; http://journals.lww.com/health-physics/Abstract/1960/04000/Cobalt_60_Bombs.8.aspx Unfortunately pay walled and I don't have access. The abstract suggests he has done the calculations for various scenarios. Hairykrishna ( talk) 16:32, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
In this article, this passage concerns me:
"In 2015, a Russian nuclear-armed torpedo design was apparently leaked. It has been speculated that the warhead would be a cobalt bomb, designed for "creating wide areas of radioactive contamination, rendering them unusable for military, economic or other activity for a long time". [1]
The preceding paragraph states "As far as is publicly known, no cobalt bombs have ever been built", yet we give the Russian government space in this article to claim they've done just that thing.
I don't want to take unilateral action, but I would like other editors, especially experienced ones either in wikipedia ethical issues or in nuclear weapons design-related issues, to comment on whether mention of a supposed Russian cobalt warhead torpedo violates our guidelines WP:SOAPBOX or WP:PROMOTION.
Specifically, the "leaked" assertion seems to contradict other statements in this article which are based on citations from secondary sources which are reviews of the literature on salted nuclear weapons (such as Glasstone and Dolan's classic work The Effects of Nuclear Weapons which, over several editions spanning decades, has been the standard reference work for the US military and other agencies charged with preparation for nuclear war consequences).
Are we giving the Russian government a soapbox in this article from which to make exaggerated claims for one of their nuclear weapons systems by including the blockquoted text in the article's third paragraph?
"In 2015, a Russian nuclear-armed torpedo design was apparently leaked. It has been speculated that the warhead would be a cobalt bomb, designed for "creating wide areas of radioactive contamination, rendering them unusable for military, economic or other activity for a long time". [2]
References
I propose to remove the phrase "Furthermore the triple "taiga" nuclear salvo test, as part of the preliminary March 1971 Pechora–Kama Canal project, produced substantial amounts of Co-60, with this fusion generated neutron activation product being responsible for about half of the gamma dose now (2011) at the test site, with photosynthesizing vegetation existing all around the lake that was formed". There are two references, both of them say nothing that any cobalt bomb test or something like this was performed there. One of these articles notes (with many examples) that "many decades after detonation, radionuclides such as 60Co, 137Cs, 152Eu, 154Eu and 241Am may be considered as rather common long-lived man-made γ-ray emitters detectable at the sites of the tower, ground surface or underground nuclear explosions." The authors explain the presence of Co-60: "We assume that the high level of the ground contamination by 60Co might be associated with neutron activation of large quantities of metals used for creation of the wells (bore-holes) <...> and the nuclear devices. This assumption is in agreement with the opinion of Lurie (2002) who supposes that the 60Co contamination at the “Taiga” site has originated from the constructive materials of the explosive devices." No need to note here any site contaminated by Co-60. -- V1adis1av ( talk) 18:35, 2 December 2015 (UTC)
It is necessary to write about the project "Status-6", is a full article http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Статус-6, no accidental leaks do not happen, cobalt filling as one of the variants of the torpedo
109.252.20.154 ( talk) 08:34, 28 April 2016 (UTC) military secrets don't want to release. you want to see top-secret development and know technical specifications ? not that ! for several years, if ever ! technical data of such systems will always be top secret. your assertion that this is just a leak about a sensation, it is not factual. apparently none of you speaks Russian and can not read and understand the texts. on the Russian page is given a lot of links, including links to government contracts, example: https://zakupki.kontur.ru/31502576410 . in addition there is a very interesting site http://militaryrussia.ru/ and for example the data on the apparatus "SKIF" http://militaryrussia.ru/blog/topic-746.html . if you search the site militaryrussia.ru you can find information about many things and references to the sources.
The statement "In a fission bomb, it has been suggested, the weapon's tamper could be made of cobalt. In a fusion bomb the radiation case around the weapon, normally made of 238U, could be made of cobalt. These changes would reduce the explosive power (yield) of the weapon somewhat." is unsourced.
Unless someone can supply a secondary source for this statement (which makes assertions not common knowledge) I'll remove it after a few days. loupgarous ( talk) 05:13, 19 May 2016 (UTC)
This looks like its written from an urban point of view which incorrectly sees the world only as a collection of cities. In reality, the destruction of urban centers, much like the fall of Rome, would benefit humanity and greatly develop the world. 63.152.59.249 ( talk) 11:39, 28 May 2016 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure "overkill" refers to the diminishing returns from more fire, or larger shells, at the same targets. For example, Clark, Keefer, and Walton, "Foe: A Model Representing Company Actions" uses "overkill" in that sense in 1960. 173.66.5.216 ( talk) 20:43, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
Would it be worth mentioning that the Cobalt bomb has been used as a doomsday bomb in fiction? -- 2606:A000:7D44:100:1C02:4825:EBE2:C72C ( talk) 11:55, 3 April 2018 (UTC)
SNAAAAKE!! ( talk) 08:04, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's
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That an article violates copyright is not a reason to delete the article entirely, but to FIX IT.
It's my experience that editors who just delete wholesale swaths of information on some technical wiki complaint oftentimes aren't so much worried about the technicality, but just don't want the information available at all. Kaz 21:47, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
"it could wipe out millions of people" The term "wipe out" probably wouldn't be found in an encyclopedia. Perhaps "kill" or something similar would be better?
slaugh·ter (slô'ter) n. 1.The killing of animals especially for food. 2.The killing of a large number of people; a massacre: “I could not give my name to aid the slaughter in this war, fought on both sides for grossly material ends” (Sylvia Pankhurst). DV8 2XL 11:48, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
~~MV~~
In order to make the article better, you could perhaps mention that cobalt bombs would be an extra and lingering danger in the area where they explode, but that however, the amount of cobalt required to cause the effect that Szilard described is enormous and not practical.
+besieged
"originally proposed by physicist Leó Szilárd, who suggested that it would be capable of destroying all life on Earth," is totally without reference (not to mention the idea is preposterous anyway). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Besieged ( talk • contribs) 13:29, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
My physics teacher described a Cobalt bomb to us one day. What he describes was not a "dirty bomb" at all but the use of consecutive shells of elements ending in Cobalt. All of these shells would be wrapped around a standard hydrogen bomb. The basic idea is that energy release from one shell would be enough to start fusion in the next element, all the way to Cobalt. I forget the exact amount of energy released, but it would be enough to destroy the Earth.
---
'Critics of the cobalt bomb concept point out that the mass needed would still be unreasonably large: 1 gram of 60Co per square kilometer of Earth's surface is 510 tonnes, and fallout does not reach all areas in equal proportions and dispersement (winds, etc.) [2]. While the sheer size and cost of such a weapon makes it unlikely to be built, it is technically possible because there is no maximum size limit for a thermonuclear bomb. However, the effects of nuclear weapons, including blast, physical damage and fallout, do not scale up linearly with weapon size or yield; the magnitude of these effects increases more gradually than the energy released by the nuclear detonation.'
Surely then if you get more bang relatively speaking from a smaller bomb, would making several smaller Cobalt bombs result in needing a smaller overall total mass of bomb? If so, what's the optimal mass for one? You could also reduce the effects of dispersion if you had lots of smaller explosions rather than relying on one big one to explode evenly across the globe.
I don't advocate anyone tries this of course, but surely it's the more logical approach. Arbitrary Logic ( talk) 12:04, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
Article states: The fallout of other nuclear weapons has the appearance of sand or ground pumice, which falls back to the ground in short time, and can be filtered by even a handkerchief, unlike cobalt-60 COMMENT: This badly needs needs a ref. How do YOU know what cobalt metal processed through a nuclear fireball would come out physically? A similar oxidized particulate to what the rest of fallout is described as, is MY guess. Sbharris 20:03, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
I think that this article should be merged with the Salted bomb article. This is on a subset of that article, and doesn't really need its own page. -- Apyule 14:56, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
Use In Science Fiction -
The second Planet Of The Apes Film featured a doomsday weapon that was said to have a Cobolt caseing.
It appears that Salted bomb article doesn't exist anymore. Just wonderful. All info about non-cobalt (gold, zinc) bombs is deleted... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 195.212.29.187 ( talk) 10:59, 6 February 2007 (UTC).
This page should have been merged into the Salted Bomb article rather than vice versa. 131.111.103.224
some version saved @: http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salted_bomb 74.12.96.200 06:53, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
Exactly how much is an "exceedingly large and impractical" amount? -- Noclevername 23:50, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
What is a salted bomb ? It's not explained here. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 87.65.138.108 ( talk) 20:00, 5 May 2007 (UTC).
I think the merge needs to be reverted (is this possible, I cant find much information on reverting merges) and the cobalt bomb article made a part of the salted bomb article as was stated earlier. Edd17 20:32, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
Or the salted bomb article could be recreated and then this article could be merged into it. Edd17 20:45, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
So this article would be named Salted Bomb and Cobalt Bomb would redirect here? some of the text would need to be altered and the information on other types of bomb found as well (particularly the table). Edd17 20:14, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
It appears that the statement mentioned here needs a fact check:
http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Cobalt_bomb&diff=250458634&oldid=250274935
I'm not sure about it. Perhaps somebody knowledgeable about the topic and having lots of sources can go at it? Cornince ( talk) 02:09, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
Australian peace activist and atmospheric scientist Brian Martin, in "The global health effects of nuclear war," Current Affairs Bulletin, Vol. 59, No. 7, December 1982, pp. 14-26. http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/pubs/82cab/#n1 has covered this issue indirectly in the section of his paper "Overkill," in which he describes the fallacy of linear extrapolation of nuclear weapons effects to the world population at large succinctly. Earlier in the paper (the section "Fallout") Dr. Martin distinguishes between the sorts of fallout produced by differing sorts of nuclear detonations in terms of the dose of fallout delivered to nearby and worldwide populations.
The matter is covered in much more detail, but with similar conclusions to Dr. Martin's, in The Effects of Nuclear Weapons, Samuel Glasstone and Philip J. Dolan (editors), United States Department of Defense and Department of Energy, Washington, D.C., http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/www/effects/, considered the definitive technical work on the subject of nuclear weapons effects.
Their chapter on nuclear fallout http://www.alternatewars.com/WW3/WW3_Documents/Weapon_Effects/Effects_1977_09.pdf discusses in great detail the highly irregular deposition of fallout on the surface of the Earth after nuclear detonations. -- vfrickey ( talk) 05:43, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
I have placed citations supporting these criticisms of the "overkill" and "doomsday machine" concepts in the text of the article. loupgarous 19:51, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
"The British did test a bomb that incorporated cobalt as an experimental radiochemical tracer (Antler/Round 1, 14 September 1957). This 1 kt device was exploded at the Tadje site, Maralinga range, Australia. The experiment was regarded as a failure and not repeated." http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Nwfaq/Nfaq1.html#nfaq1.6 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.76.37.154 ( talk) 01:08, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
"Critics" of the bomb say it won't destroy all life on the planet? Seriously? Do they see the destruction of all life as a desirable goal? Serendi pod ous 09:18, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
present version cites Brian Martin. It seems to me though that the Martin article does not discuss the cobalt bomb, only "ordinary" nuclear bombs. — fnielsen ( talk) 22:19, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
The article cites the radioactive nuclide present in gold bombs as 197Au, which in fact is the only stable isotope of gold (curiously nobody discovered that mistake over so many years). It seems to me that 195Au with a half-life of 186 days is probably what the original author meant. Zhieaanm ( talk) 12:13, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
I recommend this (pages 290-292) as the source for the article- it's evaluation of Szilard claims....
http://books.google.pl/books?id=_Q0AAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA290&lpg=PA290&dq=Hydrogen-Cobalt+Bomb+in+bullletin+arnold&source=bl&ots=_W7CkxJQRk&sig=MWKbUTyq3tOIbM7H5kaVcBsEMBU&hl=pl&ei=ofG5TbG_C4ODOruypP0O&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBkQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.25.0.13 ( talk) 11:19, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
I don't really understand why people keep coming back to this "510 tons" number. That's a mind experiment only: "How much cobalt would I need to bring 1 gram of cobalt to every square km of earth's surface?". What Szilárd was talking about when he thought up the cobalt bomb is that it would also kill the people in the target area who survived the initial blast. From a human standpoint, you only "need" to irradiate the arable land, which is only a fraction of the 30% of earth's surface that actually are land. And suddenly, you'll see that the ability to destroy all human life on earth is within the reach of an "arsenal of cobalt bombs".
Not that we need cobalt bombs (or any other "big bang" stuff) for that. We're doing a fine job exhausting natural resources and poisoning the ground just by negligence. To quote T.S. Eliot, the world will end with a whimper, not a bang. -- DevSolar ( talk) 09:23, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
Consider: "Leó Szilárd [...] suggested that an arsenal of cobalt bombs would be capable of destroying all human life on Earth." (Emphasis mine to point out plural.) The next two paragraphs go on blurbing about a single (singular) bomb, about how the effects wouldn't "scale".
I repeat my accusation: That's not "providing a point of reference", that's smoke and mirrors. I suggest removing the two paragraphs in question, and - if necessary or desirable - replace it with some technical information on how much irradiation would result from a bomb of so-and-so much yield and so-and-so much cobalt and what the effects would be. But this "510 tons" blurb is simply misleading. -- DevSolar ( talk) 11:45, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
Additional information. The actual paper where Szilárd makes his statements is the April 1950 issue of the "Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist".
I.e., the very crude calculations he makes in a footnote to the article (or the ones James R. Arnold does in the October issue to ridicule the concept) might be for a global Doomsday devices, but that's only because they had yet to hear about ICBMs, or Assymetric warfare, and thought about global nuclear determent only. A Cobalt bomb might be built to be a doomsday device, but it might just as well be built to fit in the trunk of your car (or a MIRV warhead) to render a Metropolitan area uninhabitable. -- DevSolar ( talk) 13:20, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
The concept of using cobalt bombs as doomsday machines isn't completely impractical. even distribution of the cobalt 60 can be accomplished by using numerous bombs detonated in low sub orbit. The clouds of vaporized material would travel great distances and expand broadly before falling to the ground. Simple calculations can be made for how many bombs, and how much cobalt required. Based on expectations of loss of material thrown to escape velocity and trajectories, time to fall, and air resistance to get the ideal altitude and speed to detonate the bombs for maximal dispersion to get to the minimal amount of 510 tons of cobalt 60 evenly distributed. 98.164.65.148 ( talk) 08:37, 25 March 2017 (UTC)
Another thing wrong with the 510 ton figure is that ir's a "back of the notebook" figure. It's based on the fact that 1 gram of CO60 at 1 meter is lethal in a matter of minutes. The "back of the notebook" figure simply scaled that amount to the square meterage of the Earth. But if the earth was evenly covered with CO 60 there would only need be less for than 510 tons. A target person exposed would be exposed to 1 gram on the meter he is standing on plus the 8 grams on the surrounding 8 meters plus the 16 grams on the meterage surrounding that and so on to the horizon. In fact the material doesn't have to fall to the ground. If the material was uniformly distributed high in the atmosphere the entire arc of the sky would irradiate the ground target with even more than a target person would get if he were standing on a ground covered in it, and only getting the amount recieved from the arc below his feet to the horizon. "Back of the notebook calculations" with this consideration is that 510 tons is an order of magnitude more than needed. Ten times more than needed. 51 tons would have the same effect. That is the effect of 1 gram at 1 meter being lethal in a few minutes. 98.164.91.12 ( talk) 14:59, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
I've once red that a hydrogen bomb covered with a cobalt shield would make the bomb up to a 1000 times more powerful, but not more radioactive thow. I think the source was "Guiness World Records" (swedish edition) 1974 or 1975. Boeing720 ( talk) 19:24, 5 July 2012 (UTC)
The paragraph which compares fission product gammas to C0-60 seems a bit off to me. It reads as if the fission products would be a more serious radiation hazard but this is only the case if the mass of fission products was equal to the mass of cobalt-60 produced. In reality the Cobalt will be the biggest contributor to dose from day 1. Hairykrishna ( talk) 10:18, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
An extremely relevant paper would seem to be this one; http://journals.lww.com/health-physics/Abstract/1960/04000/Cobalt_60_Bombs.8.aspx Unfortunately pay walled and I don't have access. The abstract suggests he has done the calculations for various scenarios. Hairykrishna ( talk) 16:32, 22 October 2014 (UTC)
In this article, this passage concerns me:
"In 2015, a Russian nuclear-armed torpedo design was apparently leaked. It has been speculated that the warhead would be a cobalt bomb, designed for "creating wide areas of radioactive contamination, rendering them unusable for military, economic or other activity for a long time". [1]
The preceding paragraph states "As far as is publicly known, no cobalt bombs have ever been built", yet we give the Russian government space in this article to claim they've done just that thing.
I don't want to take unilateral action, but I would like other editors, especially experienced ones either in wikipedia ethical issues or in nuclear weapons design-related issues, to comment on whether mention of a supposed Russian cobalt warhead torpedo violates our guidelines WP:SOAPBOX or WP:PROMOTION.
Specifically, the "leaked" assertion seems to contradict other statements in this article which are based on citations from secondary sources which are reviews of the literature on salted nuclear weapons (such as Glasstone and Dolan's classic work The Effects of Nuclear Weapons which, over several editions spanning decades, has been the standard reference work for the US military and other agencies charged with preparation for nuclear war consequences).
Are we giving the Russian government a soapbox in this article from which to make exaggerated claims for one of their nuclear weapons systems by including the blockquoted text in the article's third paragraph?
"In 2015, a Russian nuclear-armed torpedo design was apparently leaked. It has been speculated that the warhead would be a cobalt bomb, designed for "creating wide areas of radioactive contamination, rendering them unusable for military, economic or other activity for a long time". [2]
References
I propose to remove the phrase "Furthermore the triple "taiga" nuclear salvo test, as part of the preliminary March 1971 Pechora–Kama Canal project, produced substantial amounts of Co-60, with this fusion generated neutron activation product being responsible for about half of the gamma dose now (2011) at the test site, with photosynthesizing vegetation existing all around the lake that was formed". There are two references, both of them say nothing that any cobalt bomb test or something like this was performed there. One of these articles notes (with many examples) that "many decades after detonation, radionuclides such as 60Co, 137Cs, 152Eu, 154Eu and 241Am may be considered as rather common long-lived man-made γ-ray emitters detectable at the sites of the tower, ground surface or underground nuclear explosions." The authors explain the presence of Co-60: "We assume that the high level of the ground contamination by 60Co might be associated with neutron activation of large quantities of metals used for creation of the wells (bore-holes) <...> and the nuclear devices. This assumption is in agreement with the opinion of Lurie (2002) who supposes that the 60Co contamination at the “Taiga” site has originated from the constructive materials of the explosive devices." No need to note here any site contaminated by Co-60. -- V1adis1av ( talk) 18:35, 2 December 2015 (UTC)
It is necessary to write about the project "Status-6", is a full article http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Статус-6, no accidental leaks do not happen, cobalt filling as one of the variants of the torpedo
109.252.20.154 ( talk) 08:34, 28 April 2016 (UTC) military secrets don't want to release. you want to see top-secret development and know technical specifications ? not that ! for several years, if ever ! technical data of such systems will always be top secret. your assertion that this is just a leak about a sensation, it is not factual. apparently none of you speaks Russian and can not read and understand the texts. on the Russian page is given a lot of links, including links to government contracts, example: https://zakupki.kontur.ru/31502576410 . in addition there is a very interesting site http://militaryrussia.ru/ and for example the data on the apparatus "SKIF" http://militaryrussia.ru/blog/topic-746.html . if you search the site militaryrussia.ru you can find information about many things and references to the sources.
The statement "In a fission bomb, it has been suggested, the weapon's tamper could be made of cobalt. In a fusion bomb the radiation case around the weapon, normally made of 238U, could be made of cobalt. These changes would reduce the explosive power (yield) of the weapon somewhat." is unsourced.
Unless someone can supply a secondary source for this statement (which makes assertions not common knowledge) I'll remove it after a few days. loupgarous ( talk) 05:13, 19 May 2016 (UTC)
This looks like its written from an urban point of view which incorrectly sees the world only as a collection of cities. In reality, the destruction of urban centers, much like the fall of Rome, would benefit humanity and greatly develop the world. 63.152.59.249 ( talk) 11:39, 28 May 2016 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure "overkill" refers to the diminishing returns from more fire, or larger shells, at the same targets. For example, Clark, Keefer, and Walton, "Foe: A Model Representing Company Actions" uses "overkill" in that sense in 1960. 173.66.5.216 ( talk) 20:43, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
Would it be worth mentioning that the Cobalt bomb has been used as a doomsday bomb in fiction? -- 2606:A000:7D44:100:1C02:4825:EBE2:C72C ( talk) 11:55, 3 April 2018 (UTC)
SNAAAAKE!! ( talk) 08:04, 11 June 2019 (UTC)