Will Israel launch unilateral air strikes to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities?

[PIMking]

Originally Posted by freedogger

Even if it starts world war three?

“Iran is our neighbor,” Russia's outgoing ambassador to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, told reporters in Brussels. “And if Iran is involved in any military action, it’s a direct threat to our security.”

This won't start ww3. Iran is tryin to flex its muscles and are being called on their bluffs.

[RobotTalk]

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/1754...ng_glass/#more

An interesting article which tries to see things from the Iranian perspective. If you were in their shoes, sitting on one of the largest oil reserves in the world, having been subject to meddling of first the British then the Americans (including the overthrowing of a democratically elected Prime Minister and instillation of a brutal dictator), and were repeatedly threatened with regime change, wouldn't you want to develop nuclear weapons as well? I know that's not a popular viewpoint here but it's an interesting thought experiment nonetheless.

[CaptainCrunch]

That's great and I get what the article is trying to do, but the Iranian involvement in the world terrorism front has bought more attention onto them then anything else.

Most of the Nations in the world probably wouldn't mind seeing Iran squashed because of their use of these proxy groups makes them untrustworthy with Nuclear grad material.

[Gunkle]

Originally Posted by Flames Fan, Ph.D.

I don't have expertise in the uranium issue as it is outside of my training. But your comment about phosphorescence is extremely ill-informed.

From our friends at Wiki - and the beat a dead horse. Tritum (that glowing stuff in your watch) is radioactive and does give off an isotope. It is also controlled material (it is used to make big bangs).

Physics

Tritium illumination is the use of gaseous tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, to create visible light. Tritium emits electrons through beta decay, and when they interact with a phosphor material, fluorescent light is created, a process called radioluminescence.
The tritium in a gaseous tritium light source undergoes beta decay, releasing electrons which cause the phosphor layer to fluoresce. Being an unstable isotope with a half-life of about 12.32 years, tritium loses half its brightness in that period.Legal issues

Because tritium in particular is an integral part of certain thermonuclear devices (though in quantities several thousand[citation needed] times larger than that in a keychain), consumer and safety devices containing tritium for use in the United States are subject to certain possession, resale, disposal, and use restrictions.

[Flames Fan, Ph.D.]

Originally Posted by Gunkle

From our friends at Wiki - and the beat a dead horse. Tritum (that glowing stuff in your watch) is radioactive and does give off an isotope. It is also controlled material (it is used to make big bangs).

Again, tritium is not the glowing stuff. Tritium is not phosphorescent.

The wiki article is correct as is; your first addendum in parentheses is not.

[freedogger]

Originally Posted by PIMking

This won't start ww3. Iran is tryin to flex its muscles and are being called on their bluffs.

Hope not, sure suck if wrong...

[Gunkle]

Originally Posted by Flames Fan, Ph.D.

Again, tritium is not the glowing stuff. Tritium is not phosphorescent.

The wiki article is correct as is; your first addendum in parentheses is not.

If you agree with the wiki quote, they are the ones that say "Being an unstable isotope with a half-life of about 12.32 years, tritium loses half its brightness in that period". It is understood that there are two elements here - creating radio-luminescence. The 'glowing' of the watch is credited to the presence of the tritium, and not the other way around.

[ernie]

As an aside the US government no longer actively manufactures tritium. Instead they rely on harvesting from older weapons and existing stock.

As a result the US government also no longer makes helium-3 (the byproduct of the decay) which is becoming a rather large problem. Helium-3 is used as a neutron abosorber and fins use in every thing from oil and gas exploration to medical imaging. Everyone is needing to switch to different materials.


on the above: tritium is releasing electrons (and helium-3) which then react with a phosphor which then undergoes phosphoresence. The "brightness" has to do with the fact that as tritium decays less and less electrons are released as there is less and less tritium which in turn decreases the amount phosphoresence observed. (unless you continually replace the tritium to keep the concentration the same at all times which is not the case in these devices). Any electron source would cause the glowing provided the phosphor is present. Tritium is the electron source so yes it is required for the system to work but it isn't the glow.

[Gunkle]

Originally Posted by PIMking

This won't start ww3. Iran is tryin to flex its muscles and are being called on their bluffs.

What really sucks about this, is that countries are acting more like business than responsible agents that are mandated to protect their citizens from physical catastrophes.

Iran has been in the middle of a tug of war game between the West and the East for a long while. There are some that want to over throw this regime (perhaps under the auspices of security) to gain access and contracts to the oil and gas fields. There are others that are playing the middle ground to enhance their own opportunities by doing nothing (China / France / Russia).

Putting these games aside, this game is very unerving to the rest of us. Nuclear states have the ultimate bargaining chip. Iran may be developing this capacity to become a regional power - especially in lieu of its declining historical, and Sunni, rival - Iran.

Israel has them (come on, we know you do), India and Pakistan do as well.

This isn't a game that you can lose, and then reset and play again. This is reality, and you have to take the Iranian regime at its word. They're here to kill us. Why sit around and debate their sincerity. No one should be allowed to bully another with that type of rhetoric.

I fear that we may have lost our window of opportunity. If they don't have heavily enriched / weaponized plutonium - they have the material to weaponize a dirty, or yellow bomb.

Hate to sound like a war monger.... but this could go sideways.

[mikey_the_redneck]

Originally Posted by Gunkle

This isn't a game that you can lose, and then reset and play again. This is reality, and you have to take the Iranian regime at its word. They're here to kill us. Why sit around and debate their sincerity. No one should be allowed to bully another with that type of rhetoric.

Hate to sound like a war monger.... but this could go sideways.

LOL.....

You keep repeating that Iran wants to "kill us".

Who is "us"?
The whole western world?

How are they going to pull that off?
What precedent has Iran set for these curcumstances?

You're falling for empty rhetoric/sabre rattling.

[Flames Fan, Ph.D.]

Originally Posted by Gunkle

If you agree with the wiki quote, they are the ones that say "Being an unstable isotope with a half-life of about 12.32 years, tritium loses half its brightness in that period". It is understood that there are two elements here - creating radio-luminescence. The 'glowing' of the watch is credited to the presence of the tritium, and not the other way around.

Unfortunately you haven't grasped what phosphorescence is.

You need a phosphorescent compound for phosphorescence, which is the light you see emitted. That compound usually has a higher energy / excitable state so that the release of that energy can be seen as light; in the case you're referring to, tritium is used as the source of energy to excite the phosphorescent compound. Tritium itself does not "glow." You're conflating two separate entities. The wiki explains it well, but I suspect there is a science gap here that's creating confusion.

If tritium were phosphorescent, then i'd have to find a way to jimmy our laboratory fluorimetre to figure out a way to measure tritium. But we don't. When we label proteins with tritium, we use the scintillation counter as it is a radioactive compound.

===

Edit: didn't read ahead before i typed all this, but ernie explained it well