Post #2524040
2026-05-13 00:47 UTC
'Plutonium has been described as a physicist’s dream and an engineer’s nightmare because of its superb nuclear properties and confounding physical properties. Compared to uranium, plutonium is more efficient at fission...But it has six different phases, or crystalline forms, that vary in density by up to 25 percent, and modest changes in temperature or pressure can provoke it to go from being as malleable as aluminum to as brittle as glass'
#nuclearScience #history #metalurgy #20thCentury
https://www.lanl.gov/media/publications/1663/a-phase-of-its-own
Replies (1)
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@oscarjiminy@aus.social 2026-05-13 00:48
'Virtually nonexistent in nature, plutonium was first synthesized in late 1940 and was the Manhattan Project’s first-choice material for an atomic bomb...But as Lab scientists desperately tried to work with it, plutonium’s weird behavior, defying basic metallurgy and common sense, was slowing progress down'