My understanding is that in an implosion-type bomb, the core of fissile material was surrounded by separate explosive charges that all needed to be detonated within a microsecond of each other.
Since electrical signals travel at roughly half of light speed, timing the explosion should be trivial. There wouldn’t be anything near a microsecond delay due to the length of wires going from one side of the bomb to another.
So generate the “time to explode” signal anywhere on the bomb, let the wires carry it to each detonator, and enjoy the show!
There obviously must be more too it, since that technology is one of the key components of building a working nuclear bomb, but I don’t know what’s missing.
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> Since electrical signals travel at roughly half of light speed,
And the speed of light is roughly one foot per nanosecond. If it matters, put the same length wire to each detonator.
The real trick is getting the explosion front to converge on the center of the bomb. They did that with wedges of two explosives, with different speeds. So the front takes the same time to get to the inside of the explosives, whether it goes straight in from a detonator or goes the longer distance to points between detonators.
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