The Associated Press reporter in Vienna, George Jahn, wrote a rather stupid story about a Graph suggests Iran working on bomb.
The graph in that story suggest nothing like what Jahn's (Israeli) sources suggest.
It is a showing two plots. A bell-curve shaped energy release and the integral of the release that sums up the total. During my university studies I once plotted a similar looking graph for the theoretical energy release in a small laser pulse. When someone tweeted the story my response was therefore "1st semester physics". But the case is even worse. It is "failed 1st semester physics".
As real nuclear scientists pointed out:
The image released to the Associated Press shows two curves: one that plots the energy versus time, and another that plots the power output versus time, presumably from a fission device. But these two curves do not correspond: If the energy curve is correct, then the peak power should be much lower — around 300 million ( 3×108) kt per second, instead of the currently stated 17 trillion (1.7 x1013) kt per second. As is, the diagram features a nearly million-fold error.
This diagram does nothing more than indicate either slipshod analysis or an amateurish hoax.
Gareth Porter provides a good write up of the above and other debunking of the graph.
Caught spreading obvious propaganda with fake documents George Jahn today doubled down:
A senior diplomat familiar with the probe of Iran by the IAEA told the AP on Friday that the agency suspects that Iranian scientists calculating a nuclear yield intentionally simplified the diagram to make it comprehensible to Iranian government officials to whom they were presenting it. He said that when the right data are plugged in, the yield is indeed 50 kilotons.
So if one corrects the errors in the graph than the graph has no errors. That's obvious. But how would have miscalculating the graph "simplified" it? Simply changing the dimensions does not simplify or complicate anything in it.
Jahn's sources are just spouting stupid nonsense and that Jahn is eating it up is just showing that he is in no way a serious reporter. AP should fire him immediately.
Aside from that, people looking at the graph often miss the bigger picture. A few points on that.
- Even if the charts and alleged other simulations were correct, which they are not,
- even if they were from Iran, which is in serious doubt,
- even if they were at a more sophisticated level than 1st semester physics, which they again are not,
- even if they showed high level bomb research, which they do not,
- they would be perfectly legal and sensible to make if one wants to learn about proliferation issues and the effects of nuclear weapons.
There is nothing, like zero, in Iran's or any other country's obligation towards the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, that forbids theoretical research into nuclear physics or nuclear weapons.
It makes perfect sense for any state to do such nuclear weapon research. If there is even the smallest chance that you might get hit with some weapon you will want to know how it works and what it does. Besides that, anyone studying general nuclear physics will at some point learn enough about how nuclear weapons work and will be able to create a numerical and graphical simulation of their functioning. There is nothing nefarious in doing that.
The AP's Jahn will, of course, not tell you such. His mission is to transport Israeli anti-Iran propaganda into the international media. As his second piece on this hoax graph proves, defying logic and common sense is no hindrance to him doing that. But that probably was the really important requirement when he was chosen for his job.