This is https://jim-quinn.blogspot.com/ World Stories
See also https://jim-quinn5.blogspot.com/ Before RR bought us.....
also https://jim-quinn41.blogspot.com/ where you can see the sort of thing, for the disabled here, that WE Engineers did to help the Apollo 13 crew home without CO2 poisoning!
01oct2025 0901 uk bst
1) To cure intense pain, morphine was discovered through research - and is used often after big road traffic crashes
This morning I have a slight headache, so I will take a pain killer - the only one available is morphine, but unfortunately it has significant side effects......... NOBODY EVER DID ANY RESEARCH TO find anything else - so aspirin does not exist.... YET !!
2) Radioactivity occurs naturally in the Earth, and then it was discovered that 90% Uranium enrichment could make a nuclear weapon, so they concentrated all their effort on research for that - to KILL EVERYBODY ON EARTH!! Any "aspirin" thinking here yet? yes, in Iran at 60% ......
just read on, before scoffing at my FMEA!
3) This internet search produced: what can enriched uranium be used for?
Uranium enrichment is used to increase the concentration of the fissile U-235 isotope from its natural level of about 0.7% to a level suitable for its specific application. Most commonly, it fuels commercial nuclear power reactors, requiring enrichment to 3-5% U-235. However, highly enriched uranium (20% or more) is used in research reactors, and weapons-grade uranium (90% or more) is used for nuclear weapons
- The primary use is to create fuel for light water reactors (LWRs), which power the vast majority of the world's nuclear power plants. The higher concentration of U-235 provides the necessary fissile material for the sustained fission reaction that generates heat for electricity.
- Not a mention of medical devices!! So you HAVE to KEEP asking QUESTIONS!
- PLEASE!!
4) asking QUESTIONS: Yes, uranium is indirectly used in medicine, not in the devices themselves, but in the creation of medical isotopes like technetium-99m (Tc-99m), a key radioisotope for diagnostic imaging. Depleted uranium is also used for radiation shielding in some medical equipment, due to its high density. While highly enriched uranium (HEU) was once critical for producing these medical isotopes, there is a global effort to switch to low-enriched uranium (LEU) to reduce nuclear proliferation risks, making the process safer and more sustainable.
5) an extra bit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enriched_uranium :
HEU is also used in fast neutron reactors, whose cores require about 20% or more of fissile material, as well as in naval reactors, where it often contains at least 50% 235U, but typically does not exceed 90%. These specialized reactor systems rely on highly enriched uranium for their unique operational requirements, including high neutron flux and precise control over reactor dynamics. The Fermi-1 commercial fast reactor prototype used HEU with 26.5% 235U. Significant quantities of HEU are used in the production of medical isotopes, for example molybdenum-99 for technetium-99m generators.[19] The medical industry benefits from the unique properties of highly enriched uranium, which enable the efficient production of critical isotopes essential for diagnostic imaging and therapeutic applications.
Also 95% HEU is used in Submarines..... why? Ask.......
nuclear weapons ALSO use 95% then!! NOT the only ones at 95%!!
6) can enriched uranium be cast or forged?
Yes, enriched uranium can be cast and forged. It is important to note that the uranium itself requires specific processes, such as melting in a vacuum induction furnace, to be prepared for casting. The enrichment level is a characteristic of the uranium, and the ability to form it is a manufacturing process.
Doped enriched uranium, specifically the uranium metal itself, melts at approximately 1132 °C (2070 °F), which is about 1405 K. The melting point is not significantly affected by enrichment because enrichment primarily changes the proportion of uranium isotopes, not the fundamental properties of the uranium metal itself.
Uranium is an actinide element, and has the highest atomic mass of any naturally occurring element. In its refined state, it is a heavy, silvery-white metal that is malleable, ductile, slightly paramagnetic, and very dense, second only to tungsten.
Thus enrichment can provide many different possibilities, even small differences may make a "thing" possible - like continuous long lasting power (once proposed for powering human heart devices), not just explosions!
Here is my 1961 Collins Engineers Diary - one page of Steels, not a Reference Book, and there are very many even here. Similarly, 90% HEU is NOT the only possible uranium to use......
R&D is the only way to "FIND OUT"........ Engineers do it with perhaps 15% of Company Profit, as Agreed locally.
7) Why do I Ask these questions - for anything useful or not? BECAUSE I AM CURIOUS, but also because I work for an Engineering Company that makes aero-engines.
I visited Yugoslavia for a couple of days years ago, while discussing their proposed Light Combat Aircraft, and I attended an exhibition which contained one of our engines.
Suddenly, THE AUTHORITIES descended on us for their GEIGER COUNTER SHOWED WE MIGHT BE DANGEROUS - were we carrying what?...... suspicion: of course! Perhaps an hour taken, but OK in the end.
OUR Viper engine had radioactive components within it, for their particular properties which made it suitable for the design and manufacture. Us Engineers are CURIOUS: YOU AGREE? Of course, for we would not have so many modern comforts, like crumple zones in cars, to help you avoid personal injury in a crash (Curiosity explores, investigates, innovates, calculates, iterates, manufactures and there are so very many types of resource....), or even coffee machines that grind beans, with no plastic used (no pods!) .......
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armstrong_Siddeley_Viper no mention of radioactive components - IPR see......8) Jim, what are these all about?:
and lots of other little science facts, but hardly anything engineering useful......
NOWHERE COULD I FIND ANY STRUCTURAL PROPERTIES - is it strong enough to be used ...... with screws to secure something to it? or anything else useful, like: will it fly apart at high G forces? In other words, THE IPR is Restricted to those who need to know, NOT YOU......
9) Just to illustrate what Engineers HAVE TO THINK ABOUT IN OUR COMPLEX WORLD, where mass and strength and manufacturability matter:
10)
So, Has the USA asked ALL the Questions possible? A BIG EMPHATIC NO.
It appears THEY KNOW ABOUT NUCLEAR WEAPONS!! WHAT ELSE? What might Iran find out that the USA does NOT KNOW? Consider their gun laws - 200 hundred years ago, no Police nearby, so rustlers stopped by the gun threat. Today, big towns and cities, everybody lives close to each other, neighbours friendly, kids playing together BUT "I" MUST HAVE A GUN IN CASE MY FRIEND threatens me - so ALL AMERICANS GROW UP THREATENED BY THE BIG GUN LOBBY....... SCARED of their next door friends!
This little mouse can run so quickly and dart in any sudden direction, and MY BIG Old USA Inertia CANNOT KEEP UP,
so
lets tread on it!
JimQ 0901 uk bst 01oct2025 and:
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