Ciro Santilli @cirosantilli 37

Because you can generate plutonium-239 from uranium-238 in a breeder reactor, and then separate the plutonium-239 from the Uranium simply by using chemistry methods because you've created an element with different valence electrons.

Isn't it somewhat funny that it is easier to purify a synthetic element than a naturally occurring one?

This isotope shows up as an inevitable contaminant in Plutonium-239 for nuclear weapons, because it emits neutrons too fast and makes it harder to assemble the critical mass without fizzle.

It is the presence of this contaminant that made implosion-type fission weapon a necessity: Section "Gun-type fission weapons don't work with plutonium".

Wikipedia explains that Pu-240 is formed by Pu-239 Neutron capture:so its presence is inevitable.

This is the isotope that is produced for nuclear weapons by irradiating Uranium-238 with a neutron.

Plutonium-240 is a contaminant.

Strong alpha emitter. Can be used as an atomic battery.

These are neutrons that have reached the thermal equilibrium according to the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution after having bounced around many times without undergoing neutron capture.

Good fissile material is material that is able to absorb thermal neutrons and continue the reaction, because that's the type of neutron you end up getting the most of.

This isotope separation method was the first big successful method, having been used in the Manhattan Project, notably in the K-25 reactor.

This method was superseded by the more efficient gas centrifuges.

Apparently there were biweekly reports, that were grouped and published biannually on January and July, each one with a sequential tome number.

For example, both Marie Curie's Polonium paper and Marie Curie's Radium paper were published in the second half of 1898 and fell in tome 127.

Public domain publication list: archive.org/search?query=comptes+rendus+academie+des+sciences&sort=-date&and%5B%5D=collection%3A%22pub_comptes-rendus-hebdomadaires-academie-des-sciences%22 but some years are randomly missing like 1898?

OK from here you can find all of them more clearly: www.academie-sciences.fr/en/Transmettre-les-connaissances/comptes-rendus-de-l-academie-des-sciences-numerisees-sur-le-site-de-la-bibliotheque-nationale-de-france.html

TODO how to download a PDF from? I can't even turn the pages...

Bibliography: