US Manhattan Project only took something like five years and had to proceed without the benefit of prior knowledge or advanced computers and other technology. How can it take Iran so much longer?
-Alex
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I have no idea. While I solved the mystery of uranium for myself, I could not figure out how the US claims this or that country is five or eight or two years away from some scary benchmark or other.
On speculation, I would say the only way to get a bomb is to start with your own reactor and start making plutonium. Remember the nuclear fuel is just part of it. You've got to design it, build it and test it.
So when the US speculates on some engineering time frame, I don't what they are talking about---since they never explain how they come to their conclusions. ``Based on estimates...blah, blah, blah...''
Five years for the US? Remember the US had the advantage of people like von Neumann, Szilard, Oppenheimer, Lawrence, Seaborg, Fermi, Bethke(?), Teller.... Also giant industrial contractors: GE, Westinghouse, Union Carbide....
In one piece I read, Groves and Oppenhiemer got in a panic when they realized they couldn't get enough U-235 or get it pure enough. So that is when Oppenhiemer decided to test use all the various purification methods in a series building up to the electromagnetic separation as the last step.
CG