Everyone knows Einstein’s equation. He probably had more than one, maybe even four, but E=MC-squared (can’t do superscripts on an i-pad) must be the most famous equation in the world. Its on t-shirts, record covers, mugs, posters, everyone knows it. But most don’t bother to understand it. President Kim (funny little fat boy in North Korea) understands it perfectly. Energy = Mass x the square of the speed of light, which is the ‘c’ bit. You only need to know that light travels pretty damn quick. In fact it travels at almost 300million metres per second. That’s faster than Usain Bolt, faster than a Ferrari, faster than absolutely, literally, everything. So if you take that speed as a number, and multiply it by itself (‘squared’) the resultant number is verging on the infinite. Its fucking humungous. So the what Einstein’s equation tells us is that the energy you can get from even the tiniest, half a milligram, of matter, once you multiplied it by the ‘c-squared’, will become immense. If this was a general rule there’d be a problem. Eat half a Mars bar (mass) and the energy produced (calories are a measure of energy), would be in the zillions. We’d all be fatter than we even are now! But the equation only works for nuclear matter. Atomic particles. Its an expression of the massive energy levels produced by the tiniest of particles when you split them (fission) or force them together (fusion). And its dangerous shit.

So dangerous that its Kim Jong-un’s mission to build them and use them to threaten the world with. Robert Oppenheimer, who devised the processes which enabled ‘atomic bombs’ later killed himself, knowing that he couldn’t live with the shit-storm he’d innocently invented in a physics lab. A shit-storm which killed 200,000 Japanese when unleashed on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And they were ‘atom bombs’, which is what we call fission bombs.

The bomb North Korea tested (the new euphemism for ‘threatened with’) on Saturday was a ‘hydrogen’ or fusion bomb. Which is why his little tester was about 12 times more powerful than the bombs dropped on Japan in the war. Fusion is neater, more potent and you literally get more ‘bang for your buck’.

But there are other benefits. Atom bombs produce masses of nuclear fallout, the real, longer-term evil that rises in the ‘mushroom cloud’ and then contaminates everything for centuries. Whereas Kim’s hydrogen bomb is much more ‘environmentally friendly’. I’m just gonna let that one sit there for the full irony to sink in…

If the Green Party did bombs, they’d be hydrogen ones. Much cleaner, safer. (Safe? ISSA FUCKING BOMB!!!!!)

So North Korea now has proven nuclear capability and proven delivery systems. Not quite as efficient as Amazon but they’re getting there. And Trump can brag and puff out his chest all he likes, he’s not likely to strike first.

God help us all

Happy Monday

A xxxx