There was a really silly argument about Fermi’s 10% estimate , scattered over several threads (which OP talks about). Yudkowsky been arguing that Fermi’s estimate was too low. He came up with the idea that surely there would have been one element (out of many) that would have worked so the probability should have been higher, that was wrong because a: its not as if some element’s fissions released neutrons and some didn’t, and b: there was only 1 isotope to start from (U-235), not many.
Yes. The issue is that the argument “look at periodic table, it’s so big, there would be at least one” requires that the fact of fission releasing neutrons would be assumed independent across nuclei.
There was a really silly argument about Fermi’s 10% estimate , scattered over several threads (which OP talks about). Yudkowsky been arguing that Fermi’s estimate was too low. He came up with the idea that surely there would have been one element (out of many) that would have worked so the probability should have been higher, that was wrong because a: its not as if some element’s fissions released neutrons and some didn’t, and b: there was only 1 isotope to start from (U-235), not many.
Do all elements’ fissions release neutrons?
Yes. The issue is that the argument “look at periodic table, it’s so big, there would be at least one” requires that the fact of fission releasing neutrons would be assumed independent across nuclei.
Gotcha, thanks.