“In its natural state,
uranium has 238 atoms and is thus called U-238. Fissile uranium—the stuff that
can make an atom bomb—has 235; therefore, it’s called U-235. The process of
enrichment is done with gas centrifuges, which, by spinning very rapidly, separate
the heavier U-238 isotopes from the lighter U-235 ones.
“About 0.7 percent of
U-238 is naturally fissile.”
—excerpt from footnote to
“Jaw-Jaw
With Iran” on Slate website.
I
know, it’s not hard to figure out what he means; in fact, I might have missed
the errors altogether if I had been just scanning the article. But they are so
elementary, and clearly not typos, that they do make me wonder, what else does
the guy not know?
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