Dragaera

Defender always wins? (Was: Re: on contradictions and s

Fri Feb 11 11:46:10 PST 2005


On Fri, 11 Feb 2005, Howard Brazee wrote:

> On Fri, 11 Feb 2005 11:56:26 -0700, Jeff G. <Log0n5150 at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Your splitting hairs at this point, the difference between an atomic
> > weapon
> > and a nuclear weapons is only of interest to physicists, the end result
> > is the same.
>
> My bachelor's was in physics.   Could you enlighten me on this difference?

Seems to be confusion between the (nominally in this context)
synonymous "atomic" and "nuclear" and the non-synonymous
"fission" and "fusion".  Note that people speak of
"nuclear warheads" and "nuclear weapons" now (referring
for the most part to fusion devices), and that the older
"atomic bomb" does carry some association with "fission"
for me at least, perhaps for historical reasons.