I am pretty sure the sun fuses just standard one proton hydrogen. So why do we need to use deuterium and tritium for our bombs?
In: Physics
We use those because they fuse more easily. Technically you can fuse ANY element that is lighter than iron and gain energy from it, but for example to fuse carbon you need MUCH more extreme conditions than for hydrogen fusion.
Protium (standard hydrogen) has MUCH more coulomb force per weight (1 charge per particle), wich means the initial force required to get them close enough together for fusion is a multiple of the force needed to push bigger particles with the same charge together.
It’s a bit like “playing billard with magnetically repulsive balls”. The lighter the balls are the harder it is to get them to actually collide
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