Talk:Ralph Lapp

WikiProject class rating

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)

Nuclear reactors

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 (talk • contribs)

   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.
--Jerzy•t 23:33, 28 April 2014 (UTC)