The difference between an nuclear bomb and a hydrogen bomb.
In: Engineering
There are two types of nukes: Spitting atoms and fusing atoms. The latter needs a lot of start energy, so they need a regular nuke to prime a hydrogen nuke.
Imagine you’ve got a red balloon that pops so well, it can’t stay together long enough for it to pop properly. Now imagine you have a green balloon of a different material that’s *really* hard to pop, but when it does pop, it pops a whole lot better than the red balloon.
What you do is use the red balloon to pop the green balloon. If you are completely crazy, [you can use a red balloon to pop a green balloon, which in turn pops an even bigger red balloon.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba).
EDIT: Red balloon = Nuclear (fission) bomb, Green balloon = Hydrogen (fusion) bomb.
There are two basic ways that you can generate energy using nuclear reactions. And bombs are basically explosions of energy.
You can trigger a big atom to split into 2 smaller atoms: this is called fission, and it is the easier way.
For this method, you use elements that have fairly big atoms (as far as atoms go: they are still very tiny).
That usually means Uranium or Plutonium. For bombs, it always means Uranium or Plutonium.
You can also smash two smaller atoms together so that the form one bigger atom: this is called fusion, and it is much harder.
For this method you use small atoms. In fact, it generally means smashing hydrogen atoms (the smallest atoms) together to make helium atoms (the second smallest atoms). The only real exceptions to that is the fusion that happens in stars.
Fusion is harder both because it takes more starting energy to make it work, and because it’s harder to get everything to go just right once you have the energy available.
But if you can do it, it makes a LOT more energy – which for a bomb, means a bigger boom.
A “normal” nuclear bomb generally refers to a fission bomb.
A hydrogen bomb is a fusion bomb that gets enough energy to make fusion happen by having a fission (normal) bomb go off to make the energy needed.
There is not currently, to my understanding, any design for a fusion bomb that works without having a fission bomb go off to get it enough energy to go. If some country were to figure out how to build one, it would be called a “pure fusion weapon.” It’s not likely anyone will figure this out soon. We do know ways to make fusion happen other than using fission first, but none of them will really work for a bomb.
There are also things called “hydrogen-enriched bombs” or “boosted fission bombs.” For, these, you add some hydrogen that does undergo fusion, but that fusion only provides a tiny amount of energy to the explosion compared to the fission explosion. Instead, the smaller amount of fusion that happens primarily contributes by making the fusion explosion more efficient.
These are easier hydrogen bomb, but not quite as easy as a normal fission bomb.
There are two types of nuclear bombs.
The first kind invented create their explosion based on the energy released through fission, which is when you break an atom apart into several pieces. These bombs are usually made of plutonium.
The second kind of bomb is called a fusion bomb. This creates an explosion from the energy of forcing two atoms to combine into a single atom. These bombs use a form of hydrogen called duterium, which is why they are called hydrogen bombs.
Fusion bombs were invented about 10 years after fission bombs. Fusion bombs can create a more powerful explosion than fission bombs. In order to set off a fusion bomb, you need to “trigger” it with a fission bomb, so fusion bombs are sort of a combination of fission then fusion.
Starting in 1945, the first nuclear bombs were fission of uranium alone, later ones were fission of plutonium, which came with higher yields.
ALL fission weapons produce fallout basically proportional to their explosive yield. Pure fission weapons are limited in possible yield at about 500 kilotons, because the weapon will disassemble itself before using more fuel.
Hydrogen bomb (aka “H-bomb”, “thermonuclear bomb”) was first detonated in 1952. These start with nuclear fission, but use the energy to spark fusion in hydrogen fuel. The fusion energy itself is not very significant part of the yield- the real purpose it to generate more neutrons to cause *more fission in the fission fuel* than a pure fission device.
As such, H-bombs are not “cleaner”. Since only a small amount of the bomb is clean fusion, there is basically the same amount of dirty fission fallout per kiloton of yield. You might think “well in a campfire, a hotter flame makes a cleaner burn of fuel”, but it is nothing like that. Any portion of “unburned” uranium fuel that fails to undergo fission is basically nothing to worry about. A greater yield does not in any way “burn up” the fallout it is making.
The one exception was the Soviet’s Tsar Bomba, a political stunt where they built by far the largest bomb ever, 50Mt that was almost pure fusion and produced very little fallout. However, the bomb was comically large, 27,000kg and the size of a small bus. Too large to ever drop on anything.
I’m no nuclear physicist but there is no window for “can you do the same nearly pure fusion weapon in a small 200kg package?” I don’t think you can.
I just so happen to be 5, and here’s how it’s been explained to me.
Iron is very stable. Anything that has less or more atoms than iron wants to become iron.
When these things change into iron, it causes an explosion.
Things that are smaller than iron that turn into iron make the biggest explosions. Things that are bigger than iron that turn into iron makes a smaller explosion.
Uranium is a very big thing that turns into iron. We call this explosion a “nuclear” explosion.
Hydrogen is the smallest thing that can turn into iron. And since this is the smallest thing that can turn into iron, it makes the biggest explosion. That’s why it’s called a Hydrogen Bomb.
a hydrogen bomb **IS** a nuclear bomb. There are two types of nuclear bomb: *fusion* and *fission*
*Fission*: everything is made of proton and neutron. these two are like universe’s building Lego. If it fits, you can make a building but it’s not a guarantee that the building will stand strong. It’s also the case with atoms. There are a lot of combination you can make with protons and neutrons, but most will just break down and not stay for long. Fission bombs work by adding another piece to a fairly stable ‘Lego building’, which turns it unstable and fall, breaking into smaller pieces that are more stable. During this process, it also releases energy which causes the boom
*Fusion*: Hydrogen bombs are fusion bombs. For fusion bombs, it releases energy when you put two ‘Lego pieces’ together, instead of when you take them apart. Imagine a room with these ‘Lego pieces’ floating around. It’s really difficult for them to find the right position to click and form a bigger piece if they’re moving slow or if the room is far bigger than the pieces. So the only way to get them form a bigger piece is by speeding it up (giving the atoms energy by heating it up) so there will be more crashes (and hopefully some will click) or simply by making the room smaller (increasing pressure of the atoms). When two pieces finally click and form a bigger one, it releases energy and causes the boom for fusion bombs. Two hydrogen forms a helium
Everything in nature has side effects. For example you have car engine which needs oil because combustion of petrol creates friction between parts so you have to smooth process as possible. Entire created energy does not fulfil only direct work. As may you draw some picture, shavings of pencil are left as side product.
The same logic goes in molecular level. When you heat steal, it becomes red because electrons leave atoms and side product is waves of color red. The more heat steal absorbs the produced colour wave is shorter with higher energy till reach violet colour and it suggest that electrons come from layers of atoms nearer the nucleus.
So nuclear bomb is when unstable atoms start to collapse because they are big and less energy is needed to initiate reaction and byproduct is everything destroying energy.
Hydrogen bomb is atom fusion bomb (analogy to draw picture and energy is shavings) to initiate atom fusion (to make hydrogen atoms to fuse in hellum you need a lot of energy, the same reaction is going in the sun) so you first blow nuclear bomb to initiate hydrogen fusion bomb and the yield also destructive energy as the way sun produces its energy.
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