![]() ![]() Larger crossection means higher probability for that even to occur. Now we can quantify the probability of a neutron splitting the nucleus with a thing called crossection. A neutron can be absorbed by the nucleus or pass though or split the nucleus. Uranium can fission is a neutron goes into the nucleus. So lets say you have a sphere of uranium. ![]() The rest simply doesn't have time to react before being vaporized. The human dream of fusion power is to create those same conditions without a giant explosion, so that the energy given off can be used to make electricity instead of rubble.Įdit: fun (?) fact: even though the plutonium core weighs several kg, only a small fraction of it ever splits into lighter elements. It doesn't need a nuke to start, because the intense pressure inside creates the conditions necessary for fusion. ![]() The sun also makes its energy from fusing hydrogen. So the really big bombs get a lot of their yield (explosive energy) from fusing hydrogen. A lot more energy than fission, actually. You see, when very light atoms get hot enough that they can fuse together (join and become heavier atoms), that releases energy as well. Megaton nukes contain a small nuke which creates the temperatures necessary for fusion reactions. That's the official measure by the way: a 1 kiloton nuke explodes with the force of 1000 tons of TNT. The energy in nuclei is much more concentrated than that in chemical bonds, so a few tens of kg of plutonium can release as much energy as thousands of tons of TNT. The ball is normally sub-critical, meaning most neutrons leave without hitting anything, but when it's exploded inwards it becomes dense enough that most neutrons generate more splits and even more neutrons, in a rapidly escalating chain reaction.Įvery time an atom splits, it releases quite a lot of energy per atom, so when a great quantity suddenly does it all at once, a metric fuckton of energy is released all at once. Its atomic nuclei sometimes just break in half by themselves, spitting out neutrons which can make other nuclei break as well. The fissile material is usually plutonium. This is done by a special hollow bomb made from normal explosives, arranged in such a way that it explores inwards in perfect symmetry around the fissile sphere. They're set off by rapidly compressing a sphere of fissile material. There are other forms of nukes than this simple process, but this is the Nuclear Bomb 101 TED talk. All those "heat and lights" add up really quickly to make a LOT OF HEAT AND LIGHT and there you have it. Those cards hit the neighboring houses, knock them over, on and on and on, etc. Then they "fire" a card into the system, a single neutron or something like that, it hits the first house, collapsing it, releasing some heat and light, but also spraying cards (more neutrons) everyway. They basically put the atoms into a ball, surround the ball with dynamite and detonate it so precisely the ball shrinks down into a tiny dot, making all the atoms/houses of cards .each.other. Step 1 in a nuclear bomb is getting all the atoms realllllly close together. Now normally, atoms are REALLY REALLY far apart from each other, imagine two houses of cards on a football field, one falling apart won't affect the other. In doing, they release energy from their "atom-battery" that's a mixture of heat and light, but also the motion-energy of the spraying cards. and the bigger they are, the more likely they are to fall apart spraying cards (protons, electrons, etc) everywhere. When a house of cards collapses, the flying cards can hit a neighboring house, causing it to collapse.Ītoms are like houses of cards, they are made up of smaller things (protons, electrons, etc). When the house of cards collapses, that energy comes back out, in the form of cards flying everywhere, those cards have transformed the energy stored in the "house-battery" into the energy of motion (flying about) and the energy of heat (they blow the air around as they fall, and warm up the air a teeeensy amount). It sort of "Stores" that energy like a battery. ![]() It's made up of smaller things (cards) and the bigger they are, the more unstable they are.īuilding a house of cards takes energy, you need to pick up the cards with your hands and arms, burning calories, and assemble them. It has four qualities that important here. ![]()
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