Today is the anniversary of the Little boy being dropped on Hiroshima now I’m pretty sure they were both dropped today, I could be wrong on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But why do I always hear more about the Little Boy and not much about Fat Man, and what is the difference between the two, how does an atomic bomb work
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They were August 6th and August 9th respectively. People always talk about the first instance, it was a sensation and a first, the second one was just part of the new normal.
Little Boy was first atomic weapon ever used, which is why you hear about it more.
Little Boy was an enriched Uranium bomb, and detonated by shooting a smaller piece at a bigger piece. Fat man was a Plutonium bomb, and detonated by compressing a solid sphere.
Atomic bombs work by triggering a chain reaction of splitting atoms. Both Uranium and Plutonium atoms are prone to splitting, and release particles when they do so that cause neighbouring atoms to also split. If you get enough of them squeezed together close enough, then they split fast enough to cause a large explosion.
Little Boy was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Fat Man was dropped on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. Why more about Little Boy? It was first.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Boy?wprov=sfti1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_Man?wprov=sfti1
The difference between the two is that they used different designs and different fuel. Little Boy was a “gun-type” bomb, which worked by slamming two masses of uranium together to make a critical mass. Fat Man was an “implosion-type” bomb, which worked by compressing a sphere of plutonium and bombarding it with neutrons from a beryllium-polonium initiator, setting off a chain reaction that way.
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“Little Boy” was simply the first ever dropped in anger, which is why it’s better-known.
Little Boy used an explosive charge to fire one sub-critical mass of Uranium-235 into another mass of Uranium-235, combining the two into a supercritical mass fast enough to release a devastating amount of energy before the supercritical mass could tear itself apart.
Fat Man used explosives to squeeze a subcritical mass of Plutonium-239 much smaller, achieving the same result.
They were dropped on the 6th and the 9th.
Hiroshima (little boy) had about twice the number of casualties but most importantly it was first and had a few days head start to sink into the zeitgeist.
So it had more victims (living and dead) and more press.
Fat boy was actually the larger and more efficient bomb. So if you look at bomb photos of the areas Hiroshima looks worse than Nagasaki unless you compare it to what it looked like before (which wasn’t done). Nagasaki had stuff that was just gone. Hiroshima looked like a bombed out hellscape. Hiroshima played better visually because people couldn’t quite comprehend a single bomb just leveling everything completely. I would assume that the US government also probably tried to down play some of the impacts but that’s just a guess.
The bombs were completely different. Little boy was uranium and day man was plutonium. Fat man was about 10 times more efficient when you compare material. Little boy was equivalent to 15k tons of tnt and fat man was over 20k tons of tnt.
>how does an atomic bomb work
I will of you really want me to be I’m gonna need a drink.
What do we know about the people flying the planes that dropped the bombs? That’s an enormous amount of pressure
Little Boy was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6. Fat Man was dropped on Nagasaki on August 9.
Little boy was the Very 1st atomic weapon deployed in combat hence why it has more notoriety.
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