Plutonium & Uranium

Plutonium (pronounced ploo-toh-nee-uhm)

A radioactive chemical element that is artificially derived from uranium, plutonium is a highly toxic metallic transuranic element.  It occurs in trace amounts in uranium ores and is produced in a nuclear reactor by neutron bombardment of uranium-238. The most stable and important isotope, plutonium-239, readily undergoes fission and is used as a reactor fuel in nuclear power stations and in nuclear weapons. Symbol: Pu; atomic no: 94; half-life (plutonium 239): 24,360 years; valency: 3, 4, 5, or 6; relative density (alpha modification): 19.84; melting point: 1184°F (640°C); boiling point: 5846°F (3230°C); specific gravity 19.84.  Its longest-lived isotope is Plutonium 244 with a half-life of 77 million years.

1941: The construct was Pluto (the (now dwarf-) planet), +–ium (the element ending suffix from the Latin -um (neuter singular morphological suffix) and based on Latin terms for metals such as ferrum (iron).  The –ium suffix (used most often to form adjectives) was applied as (1) a nominal suffix (2) a substantivisation of its neuter forms and (3) as an adjectival suffix.  It was associated with the formation of abstract nouns, sometimes denoting offices and groups, a linguistic practice which has long fallen from fashion.  In the New Latin, as the neuter singular morphological suffix, it was the standard suffix to append when forming names for chemical elements.  Plutonium was discovered at the University of California, Berkeley and so named because it follows the recently discovered neptunium in the periodic table and, at the time, Pluto followed Neptune in the Solar System.  The name plutonium earlier had been proposed for barium and was used sometimes in this sense early in the nineteenth century.

Pluto was from the Latin Plūtō, from the Ancient Greek Πλούτων (Ploútōn) (god of the underworld”).  In Greek mythology & Roman mythology, Pluto is remembered as the Greco-Roman god of the underworld but the ultimate origin was the Greek Ploutōn (god of wealth), from ploutos (wealth, riches (thought probably used originally in the sense of “overflowing”), from the primitive Indo-European root pleu- (to flow); the alternative Greek name Hades is also related to wealth because it is from beneath the earth that lie valuable metals & precious gems.  Although some have expressed doubt, the accepted history is it was then eleven year old Ms Venetia Burney (1918–2009) who suggested the name Pluto for the newly discovered (then) planet, aware of the procedure apparently because her uncle had earlier nominated Phobos and Deimos as names for the moons of Mars.  In 2006, the humorless International Astronomical Union (IAU) made its scandalous decision to declare, on highly technical grounds, that Pluto was not a planet but a mere dwarf and this inspired the American Dialect Society to coin the verb "to pluto" meaning "to demote or devalue something".

Uranium (pronounced yoo-rey-nee-uhm)

A white, lustrous, radioactive, metallic element, it has compounds used in photography and in coloring glass, the 235 isotope used in atomic and hydrogen bombs and as nuclear fuel in fission reactors.  A radioactive silvery-white metallic element of the actinide series, it occurs in several minerals including pitchblende, carnotite, and autunite.  Symbol: U; atomic no: 92; atomic wt: 238.0289; half-life of most stable isotope (uranium 238): 451 × 10⁹ years; valency: 2-6; relative density: 18.95 (approx.); melting point: 2075°F (1135°C); boiling point: 7473°F (4134°C); specific gravity 18.95.

1789: The construct was Uranus + (the planet) the –ium.  The element was named (using the conventions of Modern Latin) because the discovery of the planet had recently been announced.  Uranus was from the Latin Ūranus, from the Ancient Greek Οὐρανός (Ouranós), from οὐρανός (ouranós) (sky, heaven).

Uranus Fudge Factory, 14400 State Hwy Z, St Robert, Missouri 65584, USA.

Nuclear Weapons

Of the first three atomic bombs built in 1945, two used plutonium as fissile material while one used uranium.  Two of the many problems faced in the project were (1) production of uranium of the required purity was slow but a bomb of this type was (relatively) simple to produce and (2) plutonium was more abundant but the engineering to create such a bomb was intricate, the results uncertain.  Two designs were thus concurrently developed: a (relatively) simple trigger-type device and a more complex implosion-type.  Trinity, code-name for the world’s first detonation of a nuclear device (New Mexico, July 1945), was one of the latter, an implosion-type plutonium bomb.  It was chosen because this was a genuine test, there being no certainty it would work whereas the trigger-type uranium device, ultimately dropped on Hiroshima a month later, was never tested because the scientists and engineers had such confidence in its design.  After the war, it was assumed the somewhat inefficient trigger mechanism wouldn’t again be used but technical problems saw production temporarily resumed, these stop-gap A-Bombs remaining in service until 1951.

Models of short and medium-range ballistic missiles at DPRK Annual Flower Show, Pyongyang, April 2013.

Lindsay Lohan in mushroom cloud T-shirt.

It’s no longer certain the uranium-based bomb used again Hiroshima in August 1945 remains a genuine one-off.  It’s certain that in the sixty-odd years since Trinity, every nuclear weapon except the Hiroshima device was plutonium-based but, beginning in 2006, the DPRK (the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea)) conducted six nuclear tests and, despite advances in monitoring and detection techniques, it’s not clear what material was used although the consensus is all were fission (A-Bombs) and not fusion (H-Bombs) devices.  The tests, by historic standards, were low-yield, suggesting uranium, but this could be misleading because even a failed test of can produce a nuclear blast called a fizzle (when a detonation fails grossly to meet its expected yield).  The DPRK's programme will have had the odd fizzle but then so has every nation at some stage of the process but by historic standards it must be judged a success.  It was hampered by sanctions and international opposition (Beijing and Moscow as unwilling as Western powers to help the hermit kingdom join the nuclear club) but achieved the  necessary technology transfer by swapping ballistic missile blueprints with Pakistan which had detonated it's first fission device in 1998 but lacked a robust delivery system to counter the "nuclear threat" from India which had tested as early as 1974.  That transaction was illustrative of one of the two concerns the West harbours about the DPRK bomb (1) some sort of accident (and that covers everything from an unplanned detonation in some unfortunate place to a missile launch which malfunctions and hits a populated area) and (2) nuclear proliferation which happens because the technology is used by Pyongyang in the barter economy as a trade for something desirable but not available because of sanctions or other trade restrictions.

Fecund & Fertile

Fecund (pronounced fuh-khunt, fee-kuhnd or fek-uhnd)

(1) Producing or capable of producing offspring, fruit, vegetation, etc in abundance; prolific; fruitful.

(2) Figuratively, highly productive or creative intellectually; innovative.

Circa 1525: From the mid-fifteenth century Middle English fecounde from the Middle French fecund, from the Old French fecund & fecont (fruitful), from the Latin fēcundus (fruitful, fertile, productive; rich, abundant (and related to the Latin fētus (offspring) and fēmina (“woman”)), from fe-kwondo-, an adjectival suffixed form of the primitive Indo-European root dhei or dhe- (to suck, suckle), other derivatives meaning also “produce” & “yield”.  Fē in this case wasn’t a prefix but a link to fetus whereas -cundus was the adjectival suffix.  It replaced the late Middle English fecounde.  The spelling fecund was one of the “Latinizing” revisions to spelling which was part of the framework of early Modern English, (more or less) standardizing use and replacing the Middle English forms fecond, fecound & fecounde.  The Latin root itself proved fecund; from it came also felare (to suck), femina (woman (literally “she who suckles”)); felix (happy, auspicious, fruitful), fetus (offspring, pregnancy); fenum (hay (which seems literally to have meant “produce”)) and probably filia (daughter) & filius (son), assimilated from felios (originally “a suckling”).  The noun fecundity emerged in the early fifteenth century and was from the Latin fecunditatem (nominative fecunditas) (fruitfulness, fertility), from fecundus (fruitful, fertile).  The old spelling fœcund is obsolete.  Fecund is an adjective and fecundity & fecundation are nouns; the noun plural is fecundities.

In his A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926), Henry Fowler (1858–1933) noted without comment the shift in popular pronunciation but took the opportunity to cite the phrase of a literary critic (not a breed of which he much approved) who compared the words of HG Wells (1866-1946) & Horace Walpole (1717–1797): “The fecund Walpole and the facund Wells”.  The critic, Henry Fowler noted: “fished up the archaic facund for the sake of the play on words”.  Never much impressed by flashy displays of what he called a “pride of knowledge”, his objection here was that there was nothing in the sentence to give readers any idea of the change in meaning caused by the substituted vowel.  Both were from Latin adjectives, fēcundus (prolific) and facundus (elegant).

Fertile (pronounced fur-tl or fur-tahyl (mostly UK RP))

(1) Of land, bearing, producing, or capable of producing vegetation, crops etc, abundantly; prolific.

(2) Of living creatures, bearing or capable of bearing offspring; Capable of growth or development.

(3) Abundantly productive.

(4) Conducive to productiveness.

(5) In biology, fertilized, as an egg or ovum; fecundated; capable of developing past the egg stage.

(6) In botany, capable of producing sexual reproductive structures; capable of causing fertilization, as an anther with fully developed pollen; having spore-bearing organs, as a frond.

(7) In physics (of a nuclide) capable of being transmuted into a fissile nuclide by irradiation with neutrons (Uranium 238 and thorium 232 are fertile nuclides); (a substance not itself fissile, but able to be converted into a fissile material by irradiation in a reactor).

(8) Figuratively, of the imagination, energy etc, active, productive, prolific.

1425–1475: From the Late Middle English fertil (bearing or producing abundantly), from the Old French fertile or the Latin fertilis (bearing in abundance, fruitful, productive), from ferō (I bear, carry) and .akin to ferre (to bear), from the primitive Indo-European root bher (to carry (also “to bear children”)).  The verb fertilize dates from the 1640s in the sense of “make fertile” although the use in biology meaning “unite with an egg cell” seems not to have been used until 1859 and use didn’t become widespread for another fifteen years.  The noun fertility emerged in the mid-fifteenth century, from the earlier fertilite, from the Old French fertilité, from the Latin fertilitatem (nominative fertilitas) (fruitfulness, fertility), from fertilis (fruitful, productive).  Dating from the 1660s, the noun fertilizer was initially specific to the technical literature associated with agriculture in the sense of “something that fertilizes (land)”, and was an agent noun from the verb fertilize.  In polite society, fertilizer was adopted as euphemism for “manure” (and certainly “shit”), use documented since 1846.  The noun fertilization is attested since 1857 and was a noun of action from fertilize; it was either a creation of the English-speaking world or a borrowing of the Modern French fertilisation.  The common antonyms are barren, infertile and sterile.  Fertile is an adjective, fertility, fertilisation & fertileness are nouns, fertilize fertilized & fertilizing are verbs.  Technical terms like sub-fertile, non-fertile etc are coined as required.

The term “Fertile Crescent” was coined in 1914 was coined by US-born University of Chicago archaeologist James Breasted (1865-1935); it referred to the strip of fertile land (in the shape of an irregular crescent) described the stretching from present-day Iraq through eastern Turkey and down the Syrian and Israeli coasts.  The significance of the area in human history was it was here more than ten-thousand years ago that settlements began the practice of structured, seasonal agriculture.  The Middle English synonym childing is long obsolete but the more modern term “at risk” (of falling pregnant) survives for certain statistical purposes and was once part of the construct of a “legal fiction” in which the age at which women were presumed to be able to conceive was set as high as 65; advances in medical technology have affected this.

The difference

So often are “fecund” & “fertile” used interchangeably that there may be case to be made that in general use they are practically synonyms.  However, the use is slanted because fertile is a common word and fecund is rare; it’s the use of fertile when, strictly speaking, fecund is correct which is the frequent practice.  Technically, the two have distinct meanings although there is some overlap and agriculture is a fine case-study: Fertile specifically refers to soil rich in nutrients and able to support the growth of plants.  Fecund can refer to soil capable of supporting plant growth but it has the additional layer of describing something capable of producing an abundance of offspring or new growth.  This can refer to animals, humans, bacteria or (figuratively), ideas.  Used interchangeably, expect between specialists who need to differentiate, this linguistic swapping probably doesn’t cause many misunderstandings because the context of conversations will tend to make the meaning clear and for most of use, the distinction between a soil capable of growing plants and one doing so prolifically is tiresomely technical.  Still, as a rule of thumb, fertile can be thought of as meaning “able to support the growth of offspring or produce” while fecund implies “producing either in healthy volumes”.

Ultimate fecundity: Fast breeding

Although there are differences in meaning, fertile and fecund tend to be used interchangeably, especially in agriculture.  As adjectives, the difference is that fecund means highly fertile whereas fertile is the positive side of the fertile/infertile binary; capable of producing crops or offspring.  Fecundity may thus be thought a measure of the extent to which fertility is realised.  In nuclear physics, fertile material is that which, while not itself fissile (ie fissionable by thermal neutrons) is able to be converted into fissile material by irradiation in a reactor.  Three basic fertile materials exist: thorium-232, uranium-234 & uranium-238 and when these materials capture neutrons, respectively they are converted into uranium-233, uranium-235 & fissile plutonium-239.  Artificial isotopes formed in the reactor which can be converted into fissile material by one neutron capture include plutonium-238 and plutonium-240 which convert respectively into plutonium-239 & plutonium-241.

Obviously fertile and recently fecund.  In July 2023 Lindsay Lohan announced the birth of her first child.

Further along the scale are the actinides which demand more than one neutron capture before arriving at an isotope which is both fissile and long-lived enough to capture another neutron and reason fission instead of decaying.  These strings include (1) plutonium-242 to americium-243 to curium-244 to curium-245, (2) uranium-236 to neptunium-237 to plutonium-238 to plutonium-239 and (3) americium-241 to curium-242 to curium-243 (or, more likely, curium-242 decays to plutonium-238, which also requires one additional neutron to reach a fissile nuclide).  Since these require a total of three or four thermal neutrons eventually to fission, and a thermal neutron fission generates typically only two to three neutrons, these nuclides represent a net loss of neutrons although, in a fast reactor, they may require fewer neutrons to achieve fission, as well as producing more neutrons when they do.

Fast breeder (fusion) reactors have existed in labs for decades but, because of the need to contain sustainably very high temperatures, the challenge has always been to build something which (1) produces more energy than it consumes and (2) does so indefinitely.  On paper (and physicists admit the design is now so well understood a conceptual diagram can be sketched on a sheet in minutes) the science and engineering works so all that stands in the way is economics.  The lure of the fast breeder reactor is that, theoretically endlessly, one can produce more fissile material than it consumes (they're constructed using fertile material either wrapped around the core or encased in fuel rods).  Because plutonium-238, plutonium-240 and plutonium-242 are fertile, their accumulation is more manageable than that produced in conventional thermal reactors.  On planet Earth, the economics remain un-compelling, practical application of the technology having been thirty years off since the mid-1950s.  One proposal however transcends economics because it solves an otherwise insoluble problem.  If a facility for the manufacture of fissile material for spacecraft nuclear propulsion could be located on a space facility located at a point beyond the gravitational pull of Earth, it would be safe both to transport fertile materials to the facility and there manufacture fissile material which could provide the energy required for space exploration.

Sponge

Sponge (pronounced spuhnj)

(1) Any aquatic, chiefly marine animal of the phylum Porifera (also called poriferan), having a porous structure and usually a horny, siliceous or calcareous internal skeleton or framework, occurring in large, sessile (permanently attached to a substrate and not able independently to move) colonies.

(2) The light, yielding, porous, fibrous skeleton or framework of certain animals or colonies of this group, especially of the genera Spongia and Hippospongia, from which the living matter has been removed, characterized by readily absorbing water and becoming soft when wet while retaining toughness: used in bathing, in wiping or cleaning surfaces, etc.

(3) Any of various other similar substances (made typically from porous rubber or cellulose and similar in absorbency to this skeleton), used for washing or cleaning and suited especially to wiping flat, non-porous surfaces; bat sponge, car-wash sponge etc).

(4) Used loosely, any soft substance with a sponge-like appearance or structure.

(5) Use loosely, any object which rapidly absorbs something.

(6) As “sponge theory” (1) a term used in climate science which tracks the processes by which tropical forests "flip" from absorbing to emitting carbon dioxide and (2) one of the competing ideas in the configuration of the US nuclear arsenal which supports the retention of the triad (intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), submarine launched ballistic missiles (SLMB) and those delivered by strategic bombers).

(7) A person who absorbs something efficiently (usually in the context of information, education or facts).

(8) A person who persistently borrows from or lives at the expense of others; a parasite (usually described as “a sponger” or one who “sponges off” and synonymous with a “leech”.

(9) In disparaging slang, a habitual drinker of alcohol who is frequently intoxicated (one who is more mildly affected said to be “spongy” (a synonym of “tipsy”).

(10) In metallurgy, a porous mass of metallic particles, as of platinum, obtained by the reduction of an oxide or purified compound at a temperature below the melting point; iron from the puddling furnace, in a pasty condition; iron ore, in masses, reduced but not melted or worked.

(11) In clinical medicine, a sterile surgical dressing of absorbent material, usually cotton gauze, for wiping or absorbing pus, blood, or other fluids during a surgical operation.

(12) In hospitals and other care institutions, as sponge bath, a method of hygiene whereby a patient is cleaned with a sponge (usually with soap & water) while in a chair or bed.

(13)In cooking (baking), dough raised with yeast before it is kneaded and formed into loaves and after it is converted into a light, spongy mass by the agency of the yeast or leaven.

(14) In cooking, a light, sweet pudding of a porous texture, made with gelatin, eggs, fruit juice or other flavoring ingredients; popular as a cake, often multi-layered with whipped cream (or similar) between.

(15) In birth control, a contraceptive made with a disposable piece of polyurethane foam permeated with a spermicide for insertion into the vagina.

(16) As “makeup sponge” or “beauty sponge”, a device for applying certain substances to the skin (most often blusher and similar products to the face).

(17) In ballistics, a mop for cleaning the bore of a cannon after a discharge, consisting of a cylinder of wood, covered with sheepskin with the wool on, or cloth with a heavy looped nap, and having a handle, or staff.

(18) In farriery, the extremity (or point) of a horseshoe, corresponding to the heel.

(19) In the slang of the nuclear industry, a worker routinely exposed to radiation.

(20) To wipe or rub with or (as with a wet sponge), to moisten or clean.

(21) To remove with a Usually moistened) sponge (usually followed by off, away, etc.).

(22) To wipe out or efface with or as with a sponge (often followed by out).

(23) To take up or absorb with or as with a sponge (often followed by up).

(24) Habitually to borrow, use, or obtain by imposing on another's good nature.

(25) In ceramics, to decorate (a ceramic object) by dabbing at it with a sponge soaked with color or any use of a sponge to render a certain texture on the sirface.

(26) To take in or soak up liquid by absorption.

(27) To gather sponges (from the beach or ocean).

(28) In marine biology (in behavioral zoology, of dolphins), the description of the use of a piece of wild sponge as a tool when foraging for food.

Pre 1000: From the Middle English noun sponge, spunge & spounge, from the Old English noun sponge & spunge (absorbent and porous part of certain aquatic organisms), from the Latin spongia & spongea (a sponge (also (the “sea animal from which a sponge comes”), from the Ancient Greek σπογγιά (spongiá), related to σπόγγος (spóngos) (sponge).  At least one etymologist called it “an old Wandewort” while another speculated it was probably a loanword from a non-Indo-European language, borrowed independently into Greek, Latin and Armenian in a form close to “sphong-”.  From the Latin came the Old Saxon spunsia, the Middle Dutch spongie, the Old French esponge, the Spanish esponja and the Italian spugna.  In English, the word has been used of the sea animals since the 1530s and of just about any sponge-like substance since the turn of the seventeenth century and the figurative use in reference to one adept at absorbing facts or learning emerged about the same time.  The sense of “one who persistently and parasitically lives on others" has been in use since at least 1838.  The sponge-cake (light, fluffy & sweet) has been documented since 1808 but similar creations had long been known.  Sponge is a noun & verb, sponged & sponging are verbs, Spongeless, spongy, sponginess, spongable, spongiform & spongelike are adjectives and spongingly is an adverb; the noun plural is sponges.

The verb emerged late in the fourteenth century as spongen (to soak up with a sponge) or (as a transitive verb) “to cleanse or wipe with a sponge”, both uses derived from the noun and presumably influenced by the Latin spongiare.  The intransitive sense “dive for sponges, gather sponges where they grow” was first documented in 1881 by observers watching harvesting in the Aegean.  The slang use meaning “deprive someone of (something) by sponging” was in use by at least the 1630s, the later intransitive sense of “live in a parasitic manner, live at the expense of others” documented in the 1670, the more poetic phrase “live upon the sponge” (live parasitically, relying on the efforts of others) dating from the 1690s; such folk described as “spongers” since the 1670s.  However, in the 1620s, the original idea was that the victim was “the sponge” because they were “being squeezed”.  The noun sponge in the general sense of “an object from which something of value may be extracted” was in use by circa 1600; the later reference to “the sponger” reversed this older sense.  In what was presumably an example of military humor, the noun sponger also had a use in the army and navy, referring to the member of a cannon’s crew who wielded the pole (with a sponge attached to one end) to clean the barrel of the weapon after discharge.  It’s not clear when it came into use but it’s documented since 1828.

The adjective spongiform (resembling a sponge, sponge-like; porous, full of holes) dates from 1774 and seems now restricted to medical science, the incurable and invariably fatal neurodegenerative disease of cattle "bovine spongiform encephalopathy" (BSE) the best known use although the public understandably prefer the more evocative "mad cow disease".  The adjective spongy (soft, elastic) came into use in the 1530s in medicine & pathology, in reference to morbid tissue (not necessarily soft and applied after the 1590s to hard material (especially bone)) seen as open or porous.  In late fourteenth century Middle English, there was spongious (sponge-like in nature), again, directly from the Latin.  In idiomatic use and dating from the 1860s, to “throw in the sponge” was to concede defeat; yield or give up the context.  The form is drawn from prize-fighting where the sponge (sitting usually in a bucket of water and used to wipe blood from the boxer’s face) is thrown into the ring by the trainer or second, indicating to the referee the fight must immediately be stopped.  The phrase later “throw in the towel” means the same thing and is of the same origin although some older style guides insist the correct use is “throw up the sponge” and “throw in the towel”.  To the beaten and bloodied boxer, it probably was an unnoticed technical distinction.

Sea sponges.

In zoology, sponges are any of the many aquatic (mostly sea-based) invertebrate animals of the phylum Porifera, characteristically having a porous skeleton, usually containing an intricate system of canals composed of fibrous material or siliceous or calcareous spicules.  Water passing through the pores is the delivery system the creatures use to gain nutrition.  Sponges are known to live at most depths of the sea, are sessile (permanently attached to a substrate; all but a handful not able independently to move (fully-grown sponges do not have moving parts, but the larvae are free-swimming)) and often form irregularly shaped colonies.  Sponges are considered now the most primitive members of the animal kingdom extant as they lack a nervous system and differentiated body tissues or organs although they have great regenerative capacities, some species able to regenerate a complete adult organism from fragments as small as a single cell.  Sponges first appeared during the early Cambrian Period over half a billion years ago and may have evolved from protozoa.

Of sponges and brushes

Dior Backstage Blender (Professional Finish Fluid Foundation Sponge).

Both makeup brushes and makeup sponges can be used to apply blush or foundation and unless there’s some strong personal preference, most women probably use both, depending on the material to be applied and the look desired.  Brushes are almost always long-bristled and soft sometimes to the point of fluffiness with a rounded shape which affords both precision and the essential ability to blend at the edges.  Brushes are popular because they offer great control over placement & blending (users debating whether a long or short handle is most beneficial in this and it may be that both work equally well if one’s technique is honed).  Brushes can be used with most varieties of formulation including powders and creams.

Lindsay Lohan in court, October 2011.

This not entirely flattering application of grey-brown shade of blusher attracted comment, the consensus being it was an attempt to create the effect of hollowed cheekbones, a look wildly popular during the 1980s-1990s and one which to which her facial structure was well-suited.  However, the apparently “heavy handed” approach instead suggesting bruising.  The “contoured blush look” is achieved with delicacy and Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881, UK prime-minister 1868 & 1874-1880) might have called this: “laying it on with a trowel”.  It’s not known if Ms Lohan used a brush or a sponge but her technique may have been closer to that of the bricklayer handling his trowel.  Makeup sponges (often called “beauty blenders” are preferred by many to brushes and are recommended by the cosmetic houses especially for when applying cream or liquid products.  They’re claimed to be easier to use than a brush and for this reason are often the choice of less experienced or occasional users and they create a natural, dewy finish, blending the product seamlessly into the skin and avoiding the more defined lines which brushes can produce.  When used with a powder blush, sponges produce an airbrushed, diffused effect and are much easier to use for those applying their own make-up in front of a mirror, a situation in which the “edging” effect inherent in brush use can be hard to detect.  For professional makeup artists, both sponges and brushes will be used when working on others, the choice dictated by the product in use and the effect desired.

Sponge theory

The awful beauty of our weapons: Test launch of Boeing LGM-30G Minuteman III ICBM.

Ever since the US military (sometimes in competition with politicians) first formulated a set of coherent policies which set out the circumstances in which nuclear weapons would be used, there have been constant revisions to the plans.  At its peak, the nuclear arsenal contained some 30,000 weapons and the target list extended to a remarkable 10,000 sites, almost all in the Soviet Union (USSR), the People’s Republic of China (PRC) the Baltic States and countries in Eastern Europe.  Even the generals admitted there was some degree of overkill in all this but rationalized the system on the basis it was the only way to guarantee a success rate close to 100%.  That certainly fitted in with the US military’s long established tradition of “overwhelming” rather than merely “solving” problems.

US nuclear weapons target map 1956 (de-classified in 2015).

Over the decades, different strategies were from time-to-time adopted as tensions rose and fell or responded to changes in circumstances such as arms control treaties and, most obviously, the end of the Cold War when the USSR was dissolved.  The processes which produced these changes were always the same: (1) inter-service squabbles between the army, navy & air force, (2) the struggle between the politicians and the top brass (many of who proved politically quite adept), (3) the influence of others inside and beyond the “nuclear establishment” including the industrial concerns which designed and manufactured the things, those in think tanks & academic institutions and (4) the (usually anti-nuclear) lobby and activist community.  Many of the discussions were quite abstract, something the generals & admirals seemed to prefer, probably because one of their quoted metrics in the early 1950s was that if in a nuclear exchange there were 50 million dead Russians and only 20 million dead Americans then the US could be said to have “won the war”.  When critics pursued this to its logical conclusion and asked if that was the result even if only one Russian and two Americans were left alive, the military tended to restrict themselves to targets, megatons and abstractions, any descent to specifics like body-counts just tiresome detail.  This meant the strategies came to be summed-up in short, punchy, indicative terms like “deterrence”, “avoidance of escalation” & “retaliation” although the depth was sufficient for even the “short” version prepared for the president’s use in the event of war to be an inch (25 mm) thick.  What was describe varied from a threat of use, a limited strike, various forms of containment (the so-called "limited nuclear war") and sometimes the doomsday option: global thermo-nuclear war.  However, during the administration of Barack Obama (b 1961; US president 2009-2017) there emerged a genuine linguistic novelty: “sponge theory”.

US Air Force Boeing B-52 Stratofortress (1952-, left) and Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit (1989-, right).

The term “sponge theory” had been used in climate science to describe a mechanism which tracks the processes by which tropical forests "flip" from absorbing to emitting carbon dioxide (a la a sponge which absorbs water which can be expelled when squeezed) but in the matter of nuclear weapons it was something different.  At the time, the debates in the White House, the Congress and even some factions within the military were about whether what had become the traditional “triad” of nuclear weapons ((1) intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), (2) submarine launched ballistic missiles (SLMB) and (3) those delivered by strategic bombers) should be maintained.  By “maintained” that of course meant periodically refurbished & replaced.  The suggestion was that the ICBMs should be retired, the argument being they were a Cold War relic, the mere presence of which threatened peace because they encouraged a "first strike" (actually be either side).  However, the counter argument was that in a sense, the US was already running a de-facto dyad because, dating from the administration of George HW Bush (George XLI, 1924-2018; US president 1989-1993), none of the big strategic bombers had been on “runway alert” (ie able to be scrambled for a sortie within minutes) and only a tiny few were stored in hangers with their bombs loaded.  Removing the ICBMs from service, went the argument, would leave the nation dangerously reliant on the SLMBs which, in the way of such things, might at any time be rendered obsolete by advances in sensor technology and artificial intelligence (AI).  The British of course had never used ICMBs and had removed the nuclear strike capability from their bombers, thus relying on a squadron of four submarines (one of which is on patrol somewhere 24/7/365) with SLMBs but the British system was a pure "independent nuclear deterrent", what the military calls a "boutique bomb".  

Test launch of US Navy Trident-II-D5LE SLBM.

There was also the concern that land or air to submarine communications were not wholly reliable and this, added to the other arguments, won the case for the triad but just in case, the Pentagon had formulated “sponge theory”, about their catchiest phrase since “collateral damage”.  The idea of sponge theory was that were the ICBMs retired, Moscow or Beijing would have only five strategic targets in the continental US: the three bomber bases (in the flyover states of Louisiana, Missouri & North Dakota) and the two submarine ports, in Georgia on the south Atlantic coast and in Washington state in the Pacific north-west.  A successful attack on those targets could be mounted with less than a dozen (in theory half that number because of the multiple warheads) missiles which would mean the retaliatory capacity of the US would be limited to the SLMBs carried by the six submarines on patrol.  Given that, a president might be reluctant to use them because of the knowledge Moscow (and increasingly Beijing) could mount a second, much more destructive attack.  However, if the 400 ICBMs remained in service, an attack on the US with any prospect of success would demand the use of close to 1000 missiles, something to which any president would be compelled to respond and the US ICBMs would be in flight to their targets long before the incoming Soviet or Chinese missiles hit.  The function of the US ICBM sites, acting as a sponge (soaking up the targeting, squeezing the retaliation) would deter an attack.  As it was, the 400-odd Boeing LGM-30 Minuteman ICBMs remained in service in silos also in flyover states: Montana, North Dakota and Wyoming.  After over fifty years in service, the Minuteman is due for replacement in 2030 and there’s little appetite in Washington DC or in the Pentagon to discuss any change to the triad.

Delivery

Delivery (pronounced dih-liv-uh-ree (U) or dee-liv-er-ree (non-U))

(1) The carrying and turning over of letters, goods, etc to a designated recipient or recipients.

(2) A giving up or handing over; surrender.

(3) The utterance or enunciation of words.

(4) Vocal and bodily behavior during the presentation of a speech.

(5) The act or manner of giving or sending forth.

(6) The state of being delivered of or giving birth to a child; parturition.

(7) Something delivered.

(8) In commerce, a shipment of goods from the seller to the buyer.

(9) In law, a formal act performed to make a transfer of property legally effective.

(10) In printing, the part of a printing press where the paper emerges in printed form (also called delivery end).

(11) The act of rescuing or state of being rescued; liberation.

(12) In various ball sports, the act or manner of bowling or throwing a ball

(13) In machinery design, the discharge rate of a compressor or pump.

1400–1450: From the late Middle English delyvere & delyvery from the Anglo-Norman delivrée, from the Old French delivrer, from the Latin līberō, from līber (free), from the Old Latin loeber, from the Proto-Italic louðeros, from the primitive Indo-European hléwdheros, from hlewdh- (people) + the prefix de- (from the Latin dē-, from the preposition dē (of, from).  It was cognate with the Ancient Greek ἐλεύθερος (eleútheros), the Sanskrit रोधति (ródhati), the Dutch lieden, the German Leute and the Russian люди (ljudi) (people); the Old English æf- was a similar prefix.  The word was a noun use of the feminine past participle of delivrer (to deliver) with the suffix assimilated to –ery.  Delivery, deliverer, deliveree, deliverance & deliverability are nouns, deliver & delivered are verbs & adjectives, deliverable is a noun & adjective, delivering is a noun & verb; the noun plural is deliveries. 

Delivery systems

The definition of delivery systems tends to be elastic, ranging from simple, single-se devices to entire trans-national human and industrial processes.  A hypodermic syringe can be thought a delivery system for a vaccine yet that vital machine is just one, small, inexpensive part in the delivery system for a vaccination programme in response to a pandemic.  Such a global programme demands a delivery system with many human and mechanical components: research, development, testing, multi-jurisdiction legal & regulatory compliance, production, distribution, software, hardware, refrigeration, storage and administration, all before the first nurse has delivered even one injection.

The Manhattan Project's uranium-based Little Boy (left & dropped on Hiroshima) and the plutonium implosion-type Fat Man (right & dropped on Nagasaki).  So confident was the project team in the reliability of the uranium bomb it wasn't tested prior to use while the worlds first nuclear explosion was the "Trinity Test" conducted in the New Mexico desert on 16 July 1945 when a plutonium device was detonated.  For decades, as a uranium device, the Hiroshima was a genuine one-off, all the nuclear weapons built using plutonium but it's possible that more recent entrants to the club such as the DPRK (North Korea) and Pakistan may have been attracted to uranium because of the speed and simplicity of construction. 

Delivery systems can thus be very expensive and it's not uncommon for the cost vastly to exceed whatever it is they were created to deliver.  The Manhattan Project (1942-1947) which produced the first nuclear weapons officially cost some two billion dollars ($US2,000.000,000) at a time when a billion dollars was a lot of money.  Expressed as pre-pandemic (2018-2019) money, the A-bomb project probably cost the equivalent of some US$30 billion and somewhat more once adjusted for recent inflation.  Given the physics and engineering involved, the cost seems not unexceptional but remarkably, the development of the best-known component of the bomb's delivery system was more expensive still.  Between the first studies in 1938 and its eventual commissioning in 1944, Boeing’s B29 Superfortress absorbed over three billion dollars even though, unlike the bomb which was revolutionary and startlingly new, conceptually, the bomber was an evolution of the existing B17.  It was however a collection of challenges in engineering which grew in extent and complexity as the project progressed and it was soon realized the initial specifications would need significantly to be upgraded to produce a machine which reliably could carry the desired bomb-load at the necessary altitude over the vast distances missions in the Pacific would demand.

The Boeing B29 (Enola Gay) used to deliver "Little Boy" to Hiroshima.  It was one of the "Silverplate" run which integrated a number of weight-saving measures and aerodynamic improvements as well as the modified bomb-bay.

It was the B29's engines which were the cause of much of the effort.  Early modelling suggested the use of six or even eight engines was viable in terms of a flyable airframe but the approach would so compromise the range and load capacity it would render the thing useless for the intended purpose so the four-engine configuration had to be maintained.  Jet engines would have been the answer but at that stage of their development, they lacked power, reliability and their fuel consumption was too high so a new piston engine was needed and that it would need to be of larger capacity was obvious.  However, it needed also to be of a design which didn't significantly increase frontal area so the only solution was effectively to couple two engines, one sitting behind the other.  That delivered the necessary power and the weight increase could be tolerated but induced a tendency to overheat because the rearward components received so much less of the cooling air-flow.  What made the consequences of that worse was the use of so much weight-saving but highly combustible magnesium and although ameliorated during development and in service, the inherent problem was never entirely solved and it was only in the post-war years when a different engine was fitted that the issue vanished.  As a quirk of history, although now thought of as the A-bomb's delivery system, the B29 was obviously never designed with it in mind and when the time came, it was found it didn't fit in the bomb-bay.  The Royal Air Force's (RAF) Avro Lancaster could have carried it but the US military declined to consider that option and a special run (the "Silverplates") of B29s was constructed with the necessary modifications.

The 18-cylinder, two-row Wright R-3350 Duplex-Cyclone radial used in the war-time B-29s (left) and the 28-cylinder four-row Pratt & Whitney R-4360 Wasp Major radial adopted post-war.    

However, although a wartime necessity, the big piston engines were a military cul-de-sac but an innovation in the B-29 which was influential was the use of what would now be understood as a "computer-directed" (not "computer-controlled" as is sometimes stated) fire control systems which allowed two crew remotely to operate the four-turret defensive armament.  Systems like that, of which there were a few, were a reason the B-29 venture was so expensive but there have been analysts who have looked at the records of both it and the Manhattan Project and concluded the costs of the latter were probably understated because, as something for years top-secret until the bombing of Hiroshima was announced in August 1945, a significant proportion of the real expenses were charged elsewhere (notably distributed among the military's many other activities) to hide things from congressional view, everyone involved knowing that if something needs to be kept secret, the last people who should be told are politicians.  Estimates of the extent of the accounting slight-of-hand have varied but it has been suggested it may have been as high as 25%.  In industry, such thing are far from unknown.  It's long amused some that the failure of Ford's doomed Edsel (1958-1960) could be attributed to it being little more than a superficial variation of existing Ford & Mercury models (sharing engines, transmissions, platforms & assembly plants) yet when the brand was dumped Ford booked a loss of US$250 million (US$2.6 billion in 2023 dollars).  There were all sorts of corporate advantages in stating the loss as it was done and it involved things like charging the cost of developing one of the engines used wholly against the Edsel programme, even though it would serve in millions of Fords and Mercury models until 1976.

Beware of imitations: The US Boeing B-29 and the Soviet Tupolev Tu-4 clone.

One unintended beneficiary of the huge investment in the B29 was the Soviet Air Force.  Three B29s had fallen into Russian hands after emergency landing on Soviet territory and these, despite repeated requests, Moscow declined to return to their rightful owners, instead taking one apart and meticulously, part-by-part, duplicating every piece and from this, assembled their own which was released as the Tupolev Tu-4 (NATO reporting name: Bull).  In production between 1949-1952, the reverse-engineered clone remained on the active list of the Soviet military until 1964 and some were still in service with the Chinese PLA (People's Liberation Army) in 1987.  Although the Tupolev lacked some of the Boeing's advanced electronics, the Russian engineers managed to deliver an aircraft close in weight to the original despite not have access to some of the more exotic metals although it was later admitted to achieve that there were some compromises in the structural redundancies fitted.

The German V2 (one of the Vergeltungswaffen ("retaliatory weapons" or "reprisal weapons")), the worlds first ballistic missile.  As a delivery system, although inaccurate, even in 1945 it would have been effective had a nuclear warhead been available but its small payload limited its application as a strategic weapon and it was able to be produced at scale only because of the use of expendable slave labor. 

In a more conventional use of the spoils of war, the Americans were also the beneficiaries of the development of someone else's delivery system.  Nazi Germany’s big V2 (A4) rockets were (more-or-less) perfected at a cost which after the war was revealed to be higher even than the official number booked against the Manhattan project and that was not surprising given it was in its way just as ambitious.  In what was a hastily organised effort, the Allied occupation forces in 1945 rushed to grab as much of the material associated with the V2 as they could lay their hands on, train-loads of components, drawings, machine tools and test rigs sent westward from territory which, under the terms agreed at the Yalta Conference (February 1945) were to be handed to the Russian.  Just as significantly, there was a major round-up of German scientists, engineers and technicians who has worked on the V2, most of whom were anxious to be "rounded-up" by the Americans, the alternative being a career in Russian "employment".  The round-up (operation paperclip) remains controversial because matters like a Nazi past or complicity in the use of slave labor were often overlooked if an individual's contribution to the Cold War was thought to be of value and the V2 certainly saved the US from having to spend much money and perhaps a decade or more developing its own delivery system for nuclear warheads and not only were the ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles) lineal V2 descendents, so was the Saturn V delivery system for the Apollo missions which enabled a dozen men to walk on the moon.

Post delivery: Lindsay Lohan's nursery in a theme of aquatic blue & white.

In humans, the female of the species is final component of the delivery system and on 17 Jul 2023 Lindsay Lohan announced she had delivered a baby boy, named Luai (an Arabic name which can be translated as “shield” or “protector”).  The child’s career in commerce has already begun, Ms Lohan partnering with Nestig to design not only her nautically-flavored nursery, but also a collection of baby products inspired by the imagery of the sea.  The nursery is a functional space in that the brand’s Wave dresser is adaptable to dual-use as a changing table and Nestig's cloud crib is modular and may later be converted into a toddler bed.

Lindsay Lohan with Nestig Aviator Mobile.  The aviator mobile was said to be “designed in partnership with Lindsay Lohan” and “handcrafted and hand-assembled by artisans in Brazil from wood, felt and locally-sourced wool” each “thoughtfully packaged in a Nestig gift box” (US$85; attachment arm sold separately).