12 minutes ago, Bender said:

This is not quite true, though. To reach the equilibrium, you have to look at the half-life of the decay products, not uranium.

You can only reach an equilibrium because of the long half life and the resulting near-constant decay rate of Uranium. 

Good catch; 30 years or so would do.

It hardly matters.

Serendipity strikes again. I just heard someone who's bus set off a radioactivity alarm because one of the passengers was recently treated with a radioactive iodine pil.

On 5/12/2018 at 3:59 PM, Endy0816 said:

Thinking in terms of launching vs smuggling.

A nuclear missile is launched at a city in Ukraine from beneath the South China Sea. Nobody claims responsibility. Who did it?

Ok you would harldy hit anything in the Ukraine by water from the South China sea. But that aside, 'smuggling' might actually be the way to go if you want to launch a nuclear warhead undetected. I could imagine a nuclear guided torpedo being a serious threat for any coastal City. The question is: how much fuel/battery power do you need to calculate for a nuclear torpedo that can autonomously cross the pacific with a nuclear warhead, and how big would that make the torpedo?

Trident missile can go about 7000 miles. Ukraine is only 5000 miles.

Other characteristics that might help you guess, but from position alone there's no way to tell who launched it. In that case can think of multiple countries with motive, either for territorial gains or to incite a war.

Not sure on UUV fuel requirements.