Jump to content

Talk:Ralph Lapp

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

WikiProject class rating

[edit]

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as stub, and the rating on other projects was brought up to Stub class. BetacommandBot 14:36, 9 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Nuclear reactors

[edit]

Did Dr Lapp coin the phrase "The China Syndrome"? If so, then credit should be given to him. A comment on IMBD--in regard to the film by that name produced by Michael Douglas in 1979--states that Dr Lapp did coin the phrase. If so, it may have been in an article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, because I remember reading articles in the Bulletin in the early '70s about the China Syndrome dealing with the question of whether a nuclear reactor whose core was exposed would melt through the earth to China or would instead hit the water table and then explode into the atmosphere and render a large part of the earth permanently uninhabitable, as the Chernobyl reactor did.
rumjal 20:20, 28 April 2008 (UTC)— Preceding unsigned comment added by rumjal (talkcontribs)

   For the record, while i don't regularly see BotAS, i've known a subscriber who surely would have spoken differently about it if it had discussions like whether it "would melt through the earth to China". I respect it as the sort of pub that might discuss how far toward the center of the earth a meltdown could progress. Imputing to it discussions that took comic-book physics seriously is an intellectual crime; on the positive side, it's also kinda like not noticing that you sat down in a pool of your murder victim's blood.
--Jerzyt 23:33, 28 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]