This is the scariest thing I've read in a while. Plutonium itself inside of nuclear warheads is unstable?
Water is also unstable, I can't keep track of how many non-hexagonal ice structures exist under some weird pressure and temp diagram. 12 or so, maybe. You put ice under a couple hundred MPa and it gets all funky.
On the topic of allotropes its depressing when you think everything out there has allotropes except thankfully maybe the nobel gasses like helium and then oh God there's liquid helium-II which isn't really an allotrope but its conceptually similar.
It seems that most of learning chemistry is learning nothing is stable and nothing is as it superficially seems. Plutonium is scary creepy but for better or worse its not unusual.
Frankly: this is wikileaks. I'm giving it the side-eye these days.
Jeremy Bernstein
Professor Emeritus, Stevens Institute of Technology; Former Staff Writer, The New Yorker
- https://www.edge.org/response-detail/10660
and:
Bernstein studied at Harvard University, receiving his bachelor's degree in 1951, masters in 1953, and Ph.D. in 1955, on electromagnetic properties of deuterium, under Julian Schwinger. As a theoretical physicist, he worked on elementary particle physics and cosmology. A summer spent in Los Alamos led to a position at the Institute for Advanced Study.[2] In 1962 he became a faculty member at New York University, moving to become a professor of physics at Stevens Institute of Technology in 1967, a position that he continues to hold as Professor Emeritus.[3] He has held adjunct or visiting positions at the Brookhaven National Laboratory, CERN, Oxford, the University of Islamabad, and the Ecole Polytechnique.[4]
He was also involved in Project Orion, investigating the potential for nuclear pulse propulsion for use in space travel.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Bernstein#Education_and...
I didn't check wikipedia's references, but it looks to be worth more than the side-eye.
Would you like to provide any valuable content? I mean [non-alternative] factual content.
Please understand that it is not of interest for the public what you think about wikileaks. Thanks!