lpetrich
Contributor
Now to what might be in the Mar-a-Lago about nuclear weapons, a *lot* of things:
Nuclear bombs work by rapidly bringing together pieces of fissile material so that they will make an out-of-control fission reaction. Let's say each neutron releases two neutrons for each fission it causes, and that each neutron causes another fission. Then the resulting chain reaction makes the number of neutrons increase exponentially: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, ...
But if a chunk of fissile material is smaller than a certain size, then many of its neutrons will escape, and it won't be able to sustain a chain reaction. But if it is larger than that size, then even if only a little bit more than one neutron makes a new fission, then it will be able to sustain a chain reaction. That size is the "critical mass".
One has to bring the pieces together as fast as one can, so as to get a big blast.
There are two main ways to do so: gun bombs and implosion bombs. Nuclear weapon design
Gun bombs are relatively simple, but they are not very efficient, and they have seldom been built. However, the Hiroshima bomb was a gun bomb.
Implosion bombs are more complicated, since they require precisely-timed explosions over the entire surface of a hollow sphere of fissile material. However, nearly every nuclear bomb ever built has been an implosion bomb, including the one tested and the Nagasaki bomb.
- How to build a nuclear bomb
- US nuclear bombs and where they are stored and deployed
- Nuclear bombs of other countries, including plans to develop them
Nuclear bombs work by rapidly bringing together pieces of fissile material so that they will make an out-of-control fission reaction. Let's say each neutron releases two neutrons for each fission it causes, and that each neutron causes another fission. Then the resulting chain reaction makes the number of neutrons increase exponentially: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, ...
But if a chunk of fissile material is smaller than a certain size, then many of its neutrons will escape, and it won't be able to sustain a chain reaction. But if it is larger than that size, then even if only a little bit more than one neutron makes a new fission, then it will be able to sustain a chain reaction. That size is the "critical mass".
One has to bring the pieces together as fast as one can, so as to get a big blast.
There are two main ways to do so: gun bombs and implosion bombs. Nuclear weapon design
Gun bombs are relatively simple, but they are not very efficient, and they have seldom been built. However, the Hiroshima bomb was a gun bomb.
Implosion bombs are more complicated, since they require precisely-timed explosions over the entire surface of a hollow sphere of fissile material. However, nearly every nuclear bomb ever built has been an implosion bomb, including the one tested and the Nagasaki bomb.