Talk:North Korea claims it has conducted a nuclear test

Hmm, somewhat infelicitously phrased headline. Successful nuclear test is an oxymoron of the first water.Sjc 04:06, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
 * "Successful nuclear test" is not an oxymoron at all. Some nuclear tests are not successful. --Fastfission 12:31, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
 * That would depend entirely on your perspective on the desirability or otherwise of exploding nuclear devices. Personally, I find nuclear explosions in any shape or form regrettable, a view no doubt shared by most rational people.Sjc 09:35, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Success does not mean "wonderful". --24.147.86.187 17:36, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Is this it? http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/Quakes/ustqab.php
 * Yes. Check out the depth: 0 miles. Earthquakes don't happen at the surface, they happen far underground. Thus, that's a man-made seismic wave, and basically the only thing we have strong enough to do that is a nuke. --68.222.137.151 09:38, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Distance?
Can this bomb reach the coast of California?
 * No. It doesn't even look like they got a very crude one to work properly, much less one that would fit on a long-range missile. And they were unable to get their long-range missiles to work properly either, making it unfathomly unlikely that they could put one of their crude bombs on a crude missile and make it to California (or even Alaska, which is much closer). Now South Korea or Japan might be a different issue. --Fastfission 18:01, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

"Neutron bomb"
I deleted this line:
 * "A source in Beijing who is close to the North Korean regime said Pyongyang may have detonated a low-yield neutron bomb, designed to release larger amounts of deadly radiation than other nuclear weapons."

It didn't look sourced, for one thing, but in any case it seems vastly improbable. A neutron bomb is a very sophisticated form of hydrogen bomb; North Korea barely has shown the ability to use fission technology correctly, and no evidence at all of being anywhere near mastering fusion technology. --Fastfission 18:03, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

What's up with the US non-confirmation of the test
I'm not a scientist but it sure looks like the Bush team is trying to massage the message with their use of "claimed" and "alleged" nuclear test. Russia had no problem being definite...what's going on? any thoughts? 64.229.64.240 19:15, 9 October 2006 (UTC)


 * At the moment there is little to go on except a seismic reading (which is ambiguous) and the North Korean claim. The success of the blast, the yield of the blast, and even the nature of the blast is still not confirmed. The US is not the only one who thinks this — the French Atomic Energy Agency is saying the same thing (see, i.e., and for a good international sense).--Fastfission 20:34, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I see no reason to dispute the russian report as they have a border with NKorea. 65.95.149.200 23:56, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

As far as I know, no one is reading radiation, the one sure sign. Of course, in a proper controlled underground test, there wouldn't be any surface radiation. Therefore, there is no conclusive evidence of a nuclear detonation. Also, it is not unheardof for non-nuclear explosions to reach this size. It is conceivable that North Korea, if unable to actually assemble a nuclear weapon, could pack a coal mine shaft with enough conventional explosives to trigger a seismic event.--SVTCobra 00:45, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Only the USA has been promoting the conspiracy theory that there was no nuclear test
I'm very suspicious of the lack of confirmation from the USA. The Bush admin will lose more votes if it's a big bad test than if it's a possible hoax. They do,after all,lie like rugs. I'll go with the Russians on this one as they don't have an election coming up.64.229.66.244 00:53, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I was checking the Swiss Newspapers ("Neue Zürcher Zeitung", NZZ), which seems not to have much bias. Although, they assert that most expert think that it was indeed a nuclear test. Check: http://www.nzz.ch/2006/10/09/al/newzzET370QQ2-12.html). Argus 04:43, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
 * The US is not going to jump to any conclusions, in this case, without evidence or proof. I am in the US and I find it odd that N. Korea immediatelly agreed to drop their nuclear program IF the US agreed to meet with N. Korea on a 1 on 1 basis. We can speculate all we want whether it happened or not. But that is not a fact. The fact is that 1) N. Korea announced they tested a nuclear bomb, and they say successfully. Proof or not that is a fact. 2) The USGS has the seismic data, which is a fact that the only thing capable of making this magnitude of a blast is a nuclear/atomic explosion, and they released the siesmic data. We do not "need" a confirmation from the US or anyone else yet. The article is supposed to be based on what N. Korea siad and confirmed. If I were the US president, I too would be very quiet about what we think until there is hard data. There is no conspiracy, just fact checking. Jason Safoutin 19:50, 10 October 2006 (UTC)