Why Yugoslavia Failed to Get the Bomb
Вставка
- Опубліковано 6 жов 2024
- I want to thank Dr. Marko Miljković of the Institute of Economic Sciences in Belgrade, Serbia for his work and time for helping with this video.
Links:
The Asianometry Newsletter: www.asianometr...
Patreon: / asianometry
Threads: www.threads.ne...
Twitter: / asianometry
just from the title i learned something new lmao
I was just a little kid living with my parents in Vinca back then. When the accident occurred and the five irradiated workers headed to France for their marrow transplants, my dad happened to be off that day. I have some memories from our time in Vinca; we lived in a big two-story apartment on the institute grounds. The family above us was a Russian scientist's, and I remember their daughter, Olivera, who I used to play with. We had a cleaning service, and I can still picture the really spacious storerooms in the basement. Life seemed pretty good for the institute employees. Since my dad wasn’t part of the Communist Party, he eventually left the institute, and it took him a whole year to get a passport because of his job. But he finally got it, and we moved to Africa in the early sixties. My dad had two close friends at work, one of whom was one of the irradiated technicians. None of them were in the Communist Party, and they had a nickname: 'The Black Troika.' Just thought I’d share some trivia, and thanks for the well-researched, informative, and entertaining video!
You probably don't know about the second programme to develop the bomb - after Tito had died. In the late 80s the Yugoslav army came to the leading institutes in Yugoslavia (including the IJS - Jožef Stefan Institute) and more or less ordered them to start the work again. The uranium would come from the now closed RUZJ (Uranium Mine at Žirovski Vrh), enrichment would be done in, IIRC, Croatia and the work would be spread over other republics. The funds for this were not insignificant and the IJS (the leading staff of which reminisced about this in my presence) built a modern annex from it. In the end, luckily nothing came of it, also because the Yugoslavia collapsed not long after this.
We did not know that dude.
just the thought of a nuclear-armed Balkans during the 90s civil war.
We dodged a bullet on that one, considering the hell it already was.
If they'd just kept megalomaniac serb entryists in-check, the Croatian radikals would have been happy with a federal state.
@@olivere5497 true. Up until the very end even the most hard core croatian nationalists hoped to preserve Yugoslavia as a confederation.
what about the rumors of black market nukes after the fall of the Soviet Union?
@@biosurveillance It's been over 30 years since USSR fell.
Not only has nobody used of those, but even if somebody DID get their hands on one, it's highly likely that it stopped working by now.
@@biosurveillance a heavily investigated rumour which ultimately leads to nothing. But black market heavy metal (not the music) from research institutes were a concern for the US gov as well.
Pyotr Kapitsa was the one who discovered superfluidity in supercooled gases, particularly helium which he cooled to 1.4K using an apparatus of his own design. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics for this work. He was also credited with convincing Molotov to spare the physics genius Lev Landau from Stalin's purges
I don't think I ever knew they even had a weapons program.
This is exactly my kind of autism. 📺🍿😁
A small correction - autunite is, rather than being a 'weak' uranium ore, probably one of the most uranium rich minerals known next to pure uraninite and coffinite themselves. Along with torbernite and carnotite it is easily one of the most U rich secondary ores in existence. It is also the most brilliantly fluorescent.
they also had a railgun project back in like the 70s.
This is so interesting. Thanks for collecting the information and presenting it in such a straightforward way. I am from Serbia, and here, public only knows vague outlines of the story since things are not thought as part of history in school nor are really preseted in clear ways in media. Thank you for also other stories about Yugoslavia. All are so interesting to learn about.
"Zero energy reactor" has a curiously prophetic name....imagine a criticality so intense that one smelled ozone!
Reminds me of that old Tom Lehrer song, "Who's Next?"
A reactor is effectively at “zero power” when the fission reactions are producing so little
heat that what is produced is lost to the environment and not detectible by temperature changes in the coolant. Every time power plants are refueled, they undergo what are called Zero Power Physics Testing to verify the core is loaded as designed and that the temperature coefficients, control rod strength and other parameters meet the safety requirements. When power is raised, the reactor core will eventually produce enough heat in the coolant that it will be detected by temperature sensors. This is called the Point of Adding Heat.
The problem with using uranium for a bomb is the enrichment process using the technology of the time (gaseous diffusion) is that it is very energy intensive and requires a large infrastructure which is easily detected. The Chinese obviously did not care about this. (There are suggestions that the US considered a preemptive strike on China’s nuclear infrastructure in the early 1960s) Israel originally went the plutonium route with France providing both the reactor and the plutonium reprocessing technology. When this effort was delayed due to technical, political or financial problems, they ended up stealing 98% enriched uranium from a plant producing fuel elements for the US Navy in Pennsylvania in the early 1960s. Israel had two land-based bombs on standby before the 1967 war as a doomsday option if the war went bad and Egypt was in a position to invade Israel. I believe the USS Liberty was attacked because Israel knew or suspected that the Liberty intercepted communications that reveled the existence of these bombs. The attack was covered up and classified as an accident to prevent a nuclear arms race in the middle east and hide the embarrassing theft of uranium from the US as well as domestic political considerations which were present way backthen asthey are to this very day.
What you have posted is a baseless conspiracy theory that ignores the later conclusions that the material wasnt diverted but was lost to the surrounding environment due to negligence, bad practices, and previously unknown loss mechanisms.
from Wiki:
A later investigation was conducted by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (successor to the AEC) regarding an additional 198 pounds (90 kg) of uranium that was found to be missing between 1974 and 1976, after the plant had been purchased by Babcock & Wilcox and Shapiro was no longer associated with the company. That investigation found that more than 110 pounds (50 kg) of it could be accounted for by what was called "previously unidentified and undocumented loss mechanisms", including "contamination of workers' clothes, losses from scrubber systems, material embedded in the flooring, and residual deposits in the processing equipment." Hersh further quoted one of the main investigators, Carl Duckett, as saying "I know of nothing at all to indicate that Shapiro was guilty."
so you do not like j ews got it
that's the funny thing about israil, is that they most certainley have nukes, but they just won't say it, which is weird because most of the utility of nukes is deterence, which doesn't work if the enemy doesn't know you have them. the fact that israil shouldn't have been able to get nukes on their own I think explains perhaps why they won't admit it, because doing so would raise the question; "how?". To which the answer is "we stole them.", then has israil not only developed nukes without the consent of their main political sponsor (the us), but they went so far as to steal it from them. Israil truley is the most spoiled states in recent history, to be given so much and yet take even more, to be turned a blind eye only to spit into it, I find it facinating, the mentality behind it, honestley.
@@tirushone6446 This is complete nonsense - it is very obvious (and supported by lots of data) that Israel made its nukes using plutonium from the France-supplied reactor in Dimona.
Classic Israeli move, taking other people's stuff.
No mention of Krsko (krshko) nuclear plant in Slovenia? Maybe not related to weapons ...
It's not. Krsko is an American reactor built by Westinghouse, I think in 1980s. It's one of only two of it's type, there is a copy of Krsko in Brazil.
Plainly Difficult did an okay video on the criticality event and the international effort to recreate the accident with weird looking saltwater filled dummies filling in for the workers who had been present. It's interesting but only focuses on the accident and the internation response. Thanks for ur videos they're so interesting and don't shy away from explaining the hard stuff. I really hate how most videos on here are like made for idiots by idiots or made by super subject specific gurus who seem more interested in showing how smart they are rather than actually sharing their knowledge and insights. You seem to have an adequate if not expert understanding of all the topics you cover and present them in way that anyone can understand while still having something to offer for the more advanced viewer..etc...
The Yugoslav Wars would be very different if this happened
probably wouldn't even happen
One hopes that they would have had the sense to not nuke their neighbors that were all well within the fallout zone of each other. But the it would have made the UN and then later NATO intervention much more... complicated.
@@obsidianjane4413I doubt Nato would intervene if it would risk close allies like Greece Italy getting Nuke threats
In that nightmare scenario, what would be the status of Posavina's golden wheat and/or status of Turkish pies.
@@felipea1399 Perhaps. Or it would have prompted a full scale "intervention" to secure the weapons as soon as Yugoslavia fell apart.
Thanks for covering Yugoslavian tech history. I was raised and lived my young years and it was a great period until the war.
Wow, I didn't they even had reactors, let alone tried to make a bomb. It would've been a very different war in the 90s had they succeeded.
...and even if such weapons weren't developed, the crap left after mining, milling and mixing uranium and it's daughter products would have been a nightmare to clean up, just like it has been everywhere else in the world....
Great content!
There was also Yugoslav space programm, near Bihać, B&H.
And pyramids also in central Bosnia 😂😂😂
The J in Kardelj is not silent and it's not Cardell 😂😂😂
Of course it is. It is pronounced exactly the same as if the J were not there. Only if the word continues (e.g., Kardeljeva ploščad - loosely translated as The Kardelj Square) is he J pronounced. Source: a native speaker.
Very interesting topic indeed! I’m from Slovenia and old enough to remember Yugoslavia times well. There were rumours around in time of Yugoslavia that the country tried to build a nuclear bomb. There was also a joke, that someone from Tito’s close staff asked him something like that: “Okay, when we have the bomb, how should we deliver it to the target? In a suitcase on international flight?”. On thing is to have a bomb, delivering it is a second one. Remember, the Boeing B29 development programme costs more than Manhattan project itself. In Yugoslavia there were numerous military aerospace programs, dealing with planes and missiles, but none of such magnitude that would be capable to carry a bomb far enough. At least I can’t recall of any such project.
Yugoslavia was still interested in energy nuclear programme which resulted in nuclear powerplant at Krško, Slovenija (near Croatian border), Westinghouse has delivered it. Interesting fact is that a second uranium mine was established, Žirovski Vrh uranium mine in Slovenia. It was commercially active for a short period in late 70. and early 80., nevertheless about 3.3 million tons material was excavated, producing 630.000 tons of uranium ore which resulted in 425 tons of uranium concentrate (yellowcake). This concentrate was sent to USA to produce fuel for Krško nuclear powerplant.
Legacy of Yugoslav nuclear bomb are also three institutes (Jožef Štefan, Ruđer Bošković and Vinča), which are still around and active…
You do such great technical histories!
How can he pump out a new complete documentary every three days ???😅
4:16 In the upper-right corner, those Cyrillic letters transliterate to PROLETERI: proletariats.
At 3:31 you've made a mistake. That is a building of Belgrade University administration. Physics department is on the same square, but across the park. It is a part of a large building that houses mathematics, chemistry, astrophysics, physics and physical chemistry departments of the University. The building in your picture is called Kapetan Mišino Zdanje, it houses Rektorat (as it is a seat of the Rector and his staff) and a part of Philosophical College. It has nothing to do with physics on any level. I live in Belgrade and was a student of theoretical and experimental physics, in case the question "how do you know and why should we believe you" is asked.
About the accident you mention, there is a film called Guardians of the Formula, if you are interested. Not bad little film, won several prizes on European film festivals.
Also, one of my grandfathers worked as a miner in a uranium mine near Kalna village (that is mentioned in the video). I, as a kid, played on the banks of the river, near the mine as we had a house in that village. For years I had stone cylinders from the mine probing that were taken from the hills around the mine (like core sampling).
Your pronunciation is not bad, but at one point you pronounced the "ic" like "ik" rather than "ich" which is how it's pronounced in Serbo-Croatian.
No?
Most former Yugoslav last names ending in -ic actually end in -ić or -ič but someone was too lazy to use the accented c. This amounts to „itɕ“ in IPA, which roughly translates to „itch“ in Englisch depending on your accent/dialect
Asianometry is actually pronouncing it really well, basically like a native of the language!
Correct pronunciation of Irène Joliot-Curie: Ee-ren J’ul-yoh Koo-ree (the J’u is pronounced like the ‘su’ sound in the word “treasure”)
All you have to know is that a nuclear institue was named after an economist.
17:58 So basically he states safeguards were disabled, which is the same thing.
They should have just waited a couple decades and had that kid that made one for his science project help them. Was made into an excellent documentary in 1986 starring John Lithgow and that one girl from that New York show. No, not the mannequin one, or the other one, the other other one. 😂😂
It was a movie, not a documentary. The real story is way stranger.
Something new and interesting again 👍🏻
I find PUREX a funny acronym, as it is the name of a Laxative.
Man did the world dodge a bullet with this one
Ivan Supek looks a little bit like Frank Loyd Wright.
Can you explain more failed atomic weapons programs? I know of the South Korean one and the Libyan one. There's allegedly still an Iranian one. I think all stable and sane governments (with that, I mean that dictatorial ones want to keep their power and won't start a war), which can adequately secure nukes, should be allowed to have them. No Russian invasion of the Ukraine if the Ukraine had kept their part of the Soviet stockpile. Japan and Taiwan having them prevent a violent takeover of the Republic of China on Taiwan(which has never declared itself to be a new and in independent country calling itself "The Republic of Taiwan").
There is one country which doesn't have stability and an extremely high percentage of really extreme Muslims of the Deobandi kind: Pakistan. I'd rather trust Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia (at least under the far less extreme "Crown Prince"... how do they keep his dad alive who already had dementia when he became King... the line of succession isn't completely clear )with nukes than Pakistan (and I'd prefer none of them to have nukes.... there is apparently a secret pact for KSA to get nukes from Pakistan in case of a country endangering war.... same with France and West Germany).
South Africa (also cooperated with Israel) maybe Brasil, Iraq? Besides US, UK, France, Germany, Russia, India, Pakistani, North Korea, Israel etc
0:48 dude looks like a *much* healthier kevin smith
Thanks!
I need to corcet you on one small thing Marie Skłodowska-Curie.
Pioneers
nuclear age was 80 years ago 😭
Most based thing I've ever read. Where would they have tested it??? Macedonia?
D___ fine presentation on a topic that would have been missed by 99% of the everyone
wow didn't know tito actually tried to go nuclear
the "j" in Kardelj is not silent. It's just that LJ is simply a compound character (a "diphthong" in english). Like "ch" in english (as in whiCH), polish or czech. It's pronounced like a soft L, similar to how the english pronounce the *li* in batta*li*on
Not as good looking as Kirstie Alley in her heyday but could probably have still filled the role.
Does this money account for inflation?
Interested in covering communist Romania stuff too?
A.Q. Khan did it with peanuts by comparison for Pakistan, so this is honestly embarassing.
Balkan people are genius
The would have called the first 2 bombs
Maščoba moški
and
Mali fant
Short answer: it failed at everything else too
its so depressing seeing soviet countries just keep failing
Not enough money
Wow!
15:21 Import a bunch of scientists from other countries for your project's key positions -> "National pride" 🙄
You are forgiven!
0:13 no, it isn't silent 😆
you completely mispronounced it
Forget about the bomb, Yugoslavia failed to keep itself together.
The word "Balkanization" exists for a reason. Tito was the strong force holding together the fissile states of the Balkan peninsula. Once he was gone, there was nothing to hold them together.
@@vulpo Yup. Tito was holding it all together with his balls of steel.
Thank you for letting us know. You should write a book.
9:50 Why did you pronounce "allies" so weird right there?
Kosovo would not survive this one.
@12:30 I doubt that is the bomb dropped on Nagasaki.
@21:20 "Stalin's passing largely ended the threat of a Soviet...so Tito canned the program."
Hungarians and Czechoslovaks would probably disagree. There is no way Tito would not have watched those "interventions" and not taken note of what happens to those who wanted to do their own thing.
Its far more likely that Rankovic simply failed to establish a workable bomb program so they "retconned" the story to save face.
What a waste of money.
They also spent today’s equivalent of $4.6 billion building Tito’s bunker in Bosnia.
It was finished in 1979 and Tito died in 1980.
nobody here cares a bit about Tito, only the Nuclear program is interesting.
@@lucasremshut up. We do care
Dont be a hater bro. I doubt you could have unified the 3 ethnicities of spiteful Croats, lazy Bosnians and savage Serbians into the greater ideal of a federalised state.
@@nneeerrrd
Thank you.
$4.6 billion was a massive amount of money for an impoverished country like Yugoslavia.
You could build half the channel tunnel, between the UK and France, for that amount.
But Tito thought this non-productive infrastructure was worth it to save his life.
make one on how pakistan got the bomb
UDBA and not UDB
Uprava Državne Bezbednosti
@@MarkoKraguljac
So, why did they put the A at the end ?
Maybe just to make the acronym pronounceable in one word rather than quoting 3 letters ?
I haven't even watched the video but I know the answer: because they're Yugoslavia.
imagine the breakup wars with nuclear weapons it would be the worst civil conflict ever
Thank you for underestimating us. Greetings from Croatia
You are not Servian? My whole life is a lie
*We live in a world where those who preach that they are "Good" are more evil than those they accuse of being "Evil".*
Yugoslavia would probably still be around.
"The staggering sum of $53 million for the bomb..."
Is "only" $700 million today. Not much as far as nuk'ler wa'pons go.
Or was that supposed to be sarcastic?
Israel’s program was estimated at about $100 million 1960s dollars, about half of which was raised by wealthy individuals overseas.
@@KevinBalch-dt8ot That estimate is nothing but a WAG, much like anything about it that you can read in open-sources.
They did have some Tesla stuff
They had Tesla, he was born in Croatia.
@@toma.3d i meant the tech he had made was I think around
@@Space-DolphinPosadistOh, OK, got it.
@@toma.3d
Tesla died in 1943.
Tesla was a Serb, born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
His parents’ house was destroyed by Croatian soldiers in the Yugoslav wars.
@@jamesdean1143 Last name Tesla does not exist in Srbian, all end in "vic".
First
Bro thought they could make a nuke 😭😭😭☠️ lil bro ur not the ussr
Just 20 years too early. Otherwise they could have just hired Pakistanis like Kim did.
with the bomb they still be one country and not balkanized as the nato didthere
Russian Europe ....
NATO didn't break up Yugoslavia. It was already broken before the UN ever did anything.
A bomb doesn’t hold an amalgamation of hostile ethnic groups together.
The only republics that needed NATO assistance to successfully rebel where Bosnia & Kosovo
@@christianweibrecht6555 Kosovo was not a republic. Good thing you have opinions because as sure as hell you have no knowledge.