16th July 1945, Alamogordo, New Mexico, just 16 milliseconds after Trinity was triggered. The really explosive stuff started the size of an apple. This fireball is already the size of an Olympic stadium.

There’s been a lot of international concern recently about Iran and North Korea possibly building their own atomic bombs. The latest worry is Iran’s creation of a second ‘uranium enrichment’ plant. Why is there so much fuss about what sounds like just one trivial stage in doing something the world has known how to do for over sixty years?

Amongst other projects, I’m working on ‘Subversive Ramblings 2′ which is an off the wall look at algebra. The obvious starting point was Einstein’s most famous whatever it’s called:

e = mc²

This is illustrated by looking at our first ever nuclear explosion, Trinity. Why? Because it’s more interesting than how school text books introduce algebra.

Naturally I couldn’t leave it there, so one of the Extra Bits (aka appendices) is called ‘Build Your Own Atomic Bomb’. I’ve put part of it below, taking you as far as uranium enrichment. Hopefully this will give you helpful and interesting background to current international concerns. Obviously the pictures/cartoon haven’t been included yet. Comments welcomed.

There are people in the world who swing into a blind panic whenever they hear something like this is on the web, so three points need to be made. Firstly all if this is already on the web, and very very easy to find. Secondly I admit it, this would work. Thirdly the article has a point. If it makes you panic then you’ve missed that point. Feel free to e-mail me and ask.

I’m bunging this extract straight in as a cut and paste from Word so the footnotes come through with it. (In the final book they’ll be sideboxes rather than footnotes). If your browser scrambles this up and you’d like access to a downloadable pdf version just let me know.

Extract from first draft of ‘Subversive Ramblings 2′ (copyright (c) Nigel Leech 2009) :

Extra bit B: Build Your Own Atomic Bomb

Important: if you are under the age of 18 please be sure to get permission from a parent or guardian before attempting this at home.

 This is really quite straightforward. Just follow these simple steps:

• find some uranium ore,

• mine it,

• get the uranium out of the ore,

• get rid of as much of the wrong type of uranium as possible,

• put two large chunks at either end of a gun barrel and wham them together hard enough that they don’t just fizzle.

I should add that the procedures suggested here are probably the simplest approach. For some reason people are awfully secretive about the details of modern ways of doing this, so I’ve picked methods that will require the least experimentation. 

1. Find a source of uranium ore

It shouldn’t take you long on the internet to find where most of the known locations are. Of course some people may have found deposits they’re keeping quiet about. Then again you could send out your own team of geologists looking for somewhere new to mine. People say uranium is rare but actually it is more common in the earth’s crust than silver or gold.

If like me you live in the UK your best bet is Orkney¹, but even Margaret Thatcher couldn’t persuade the environmentalists to allow mining there.

Here is a picture of a chunk of uranium ore. It doesn’t always look like this, so either study geology or hire in an expert. 

2. Get the ore out of the ground

You have some choices here but probably the simplest is to dig it out. Of course there is the risk of rock fall, and uranium ore is a bit radioactive. You might want to pay someone else to do this for you.

Depending on how good the ore is you’ll need between 800 and 8,000 tons of it. I would recommend you do not store it in your garden shed.

Here is a picture of a very small part of the Shinkolobwe uranium mine in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It’s alleged that Iran has been buying uranium from this mine. Maybe. How else are the locals going to make enough to stay alive? 

3. Mill the uranium out of the ore

Uranium doesn’t occur naturally as just uranium, which is probably just as well. The ore you now have probably contains uranium as one of its oxides (compounds² with oxygen), and this will be a very small percentage of the total rock you’ve had dug up. You’ll need to have it ground down to a fine powder and chemically treated³ to separate out the uranium from the junk. What you’ll get is called ‘yellowcake’ but will probably not be yellow. You should end up with under a hundred tons of this stuff. It’ll only be about 90% pure, and only about 7 parts in a thousand of the pure bit are what you really want.

Be careful. Yellowcake is rather more radioactive than the rock it came from. At this point definitely pay someone else to do the close work.

4. Strain out the wrong type of uranium

This is the tricky bit and what causes the most fuss internationally, so try not to let too many people know you’re doing this.

The second Iraq war was in part motivated by the belief that Saddam Hussein’s government were doing this in order to, well, do what you’re trying to do: build an atomic bomb.

Some countries have been hassling Iran and North Korea because they are doing this. Iran says yes but you have to do this in order to have nuclear power stations, and obviously they have no intention of taking the process far enough to produce anything suitable for a weapon. This may be true, although it’s also true that you can run some types of nuclear reactor with just the uranium mix in yellowcake. As I understand it North Korea have responded by asking what we think we can do about it.

The problem you face is that yellowcake contains two types (isotopes⁴) of uranium, and only one of them is useful for our purposes: uranium-235 which has 235 particles in its nucleus⁵ (92 protons and 143 neutrons). Most of the uranium will be uranium-238 (92 protons and 146 neutrons – do the addition). How do you separate two types of virtually identical atoms which mainly differ in that the one you want is very very very slightly lighter than the other? With some difficulty.

What follows isn’t the cheapest or most efficient method, but it is the one you’re most likely to be able to make work unless you’re prepared to employ a network of skilled spies.

Design a membrane with microscopic holes in it just the right size. Be sure to get this right. Jabbing plastic sheeting with a needle will give you holes that are way too large.

Convert your yellowcake into the gas uranium hexafluoride. Under exactly the right amount of pressure, shove this gas through the membrane. Because the 238 particles (molecules) are ever so slightly heavier than the 235 ones you want, what comes through will have just a smidgeon more of the 235.

How big is a smidgeon?

Typically the gas is shoved through several thousand membranes in succession. You may find it best to hire an industrial park to install the mass of tubing and filters. Give consideration to disguising it.

The result from the first run is then shoved through a second time. The process is repeated again and again. It’s called cascading. You have many tons of gas to be repeatedly cascaded. This will take you quite a long time and will be fairly expensive, but don’t stint on it. You need to increase the proportion⁶ of 235 in the gas by something like 120 times, so stick with it. If you don’t then obviously your bomb won’t work, although you could use the uranium you get for fuel in a nuclear power station. The great advantage to the length of this process is you can tell your neighbours it’s okay, you’re only enriching the uranium enough for power station use.

Handle the final output with great care⁷.

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There’s more available here if you’re interested.

Fifteen publishers said no. Recession nerves? Hated the book? Probably both. And recently I passed it to Adam who didn’t like it, but did suggest it be rewritten differently targeted at the teenage market. (The original was not well targeted).

Here is an early-stage version of the new opening page:

Ted is a fictional character who recently started Year 10 at school. I’m playing around with several approaches. One is fantasy with Ted able to skip to other parts of the universe, or other times, and experience things. I’m not sure that feels right. Alternatively I’m working up the plot to a shortish novel in which Ted tries to find out where his girl friend Jess has disappeared to and why – with a scattering of maths bits along the way. That might catch on better, and could then lead in to a weird maths book written by Ted’s teacher (who is loosely based on me in case you didn’t guess). That would basically be Subram1.

There’s a lot of experimentation involved. I think I’m beginning to understand how to create a book, how to figure out a plot and get to know the characters; well, I must have written over a million words in the last forty years. One of the ways I’m trying things out is with another blog written as if by Ted. This is a way of developing his character in detail and who knows, people might actually read it and start to comment. Stranger things have happened. If you don’t believe me check out this video by a guy called Fred(?).  Weird? Now type ‘fred’ into your search engine. I can’t stand him, but this guy is POPULAR. But no, I’m not holding my breath over the popularity of Ted’s blog. And no, there is a completely different reason for Ted’s name, nothing to do with ‘Fred’.

Here’s Ted’s Black Blog on maths. Feel free to comment, bearing in mind I’m trying to write as a fifteen year-old boy with reasonable intelligence and significant attitude. I’m quite sure I haven’t yet got it right, so criticism is welcome.

Will Adam like the new version? He likes the first page.

Will he be willing to publish it given he said he’s interested in ‘true life’ stuff? Well he says Ted is true life, but then Adam’s had a sheltered life.

So that’s where one of the non-fiction books is at. To come: what’s ‘Star’ the novel about, how is it being written, where’s it got to? And what about the book I’m writing with Adam? Catch you after the weekend. (Ted’s off at the Leeds Fest so he won’t be blogging till Monday either. Me, I’d love to be there but with this probable ME I just wouldn’t have the energy to enjoy it. Anyway, Jenny would hate it, and it wouldn’t be much fun without her.)

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Cartoon copyright Miriam Slechter 2009

I received a number of detailed suggestions. Julie Ringrose (Maths teacher) spotted a Maths error and thought the book was weird. Sam Allison (Year 7) was horrified at how long the book was (120 pages with lots of pictures), but has apparently nearly finished it now – mind you took him over a year. Adam Bergen (Year 12) thought it was perfect – once I’d made the changes he suggested – but he already liked Maths.

Trouble is no one at that stage made sweeping constructive criticisms.

At that stage.

Some publishers will not accept submissions except via a literary agent so it makes sense to have one, but they can be tough to find. If they’re taking on new authors at all they’re wisely very selective. Even so I managed to get signed up with one. He likes the book but so far has been unable to place it with any publishers. It is a strange book, publishers are either goin to love it or hate it. And there is a recession on. Joanne Harris (ex colleague) suggested printing off a larger number and trying it out on a range of people. There is new technology available now which makes this really easy and fairly cheap if you know where to look.

So I started to investigate publishing options. Two things became clear.

Firstly there are several companies out there who are very happy to help you publish your book, at a price. They no doubt claim to be genuinely trying to help authors, but in fact they’re just modern-day vanity publishers. You pay them £700 – £2,000 and at the end get maybe a couple of copies for yourself. Your friends and family can then buy their own copies. If you pay enough your book will be available on Amazon – to the few people who know to search for it – and available for Waterstones to stock if it catches their eye – which it won’t.

That leads to the second realisation: publishing is only one stage of the process. Without effective marketing you might as well not bother because the book isn’t going to be read.

More homework, and it became clear the best way to have a book printed and distributed is via Lightning Source. More on them later. The problem was that it’s hard to use them unless you are a publisher.

That was the point at which Adam Warner (with whom I’m already writing a book) told me he wanted a better career direction for his life. He’s 26, and someone had suggested he should get involved in something to do with books.

So I said, “How about setting up a small publishing company that specialises in …”

And he said yes, that sounded good.

So we’re working at preparing to do just that. In the next post I’ll explain what is involved, and show you a second draft design for the cover.

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