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
In: 0
“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.
Latest Answers