Talk:Thermonuclear weapon/Archive 3

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Irrelevant content

This is an article on the design, i.e. how they work. Let's guard against introducing non-essential content, i.e. the ethnic and or religious leanings of the scientists, whatever pure coincidences these might reflect. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:14, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

I agree. --Chetvorno^TALK 02:11, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Off topic rant

Since when exactly have Jews become a taboo on wikipedia? Why does the article omit the strange fact that all of the [main] inventors were ethnically Jewish? Let alone Oppenheimer and his Manhattan Project. At present, they constitute a tiny ca. 1.8 % of the US population, back then it must have been even lower, I believe, and yet every single one of the inventors was Jewish. Obviously, [insane] one might suggest that this is purely coincidental, just as e.g. the utter domination of Bolshevik Revolution by Jews allegedly was (Lenin, Trotsky, Kamenev, Sverdlov, Kaganovich, Zinoviev, Yagoda, Frenkel, Uritsky, Litvinov, et al. - all the major leaders of the Bolshevik movement were Jewish, and all were responsible for the "Red Terror" [1917-1925 roughly] i.e. regular genocide of tens of millions of Russians and other East and Central European nations, 7 mln in just Ukrainian Holodomor itself). [Insane] one can also impute that the constant harrasment of Irani govt. by Israel and its proxy US [mostly jewish "Neocons"] politicians whilst Iran has repeatedly allowed IAEA inspections and Israel, which is known for its huge atomic arsenal, has not allowed any, is another "pure coincidence". Should we talk about who's in control of the world economic system through usury and creation of money "out of thin air" or the FED [check the list of the FED's chairmen, how many Gentiles do you see?] or the Hollywood or mainstream media worldwide? I hardly think you would stand up to this and find enough courage within yourselves to discuss this "problematic" (as you put it with your own words) topic. I don't want to be banned either, that is why I am going to cease undoing your reverts of my insightful edition. BTW - I should be feeling deeply offended by mr. Irondrome's invectives ["racist"] but somehow, I'm not. Maybe it's the potential hypocrisy of this gentleman possibly belonging to a nation that is still (welcome to the XXI century) exercising Apartheid policies in relation to Palestinians, the true owners of the piece of land that has been occupied since the brutal invasion of 1948. Have a nice day everybody.--46.171.197.14 (talk) 16:44, 14 August 2013 (UTC) Thank you for making your position clear. Understand that pushing this point of view on other pages will also get you blocked. --ChetvornoTALK 20:35, 14 August 2013 (UTC) Indeed. Far more reasonable people than you, with far more reasonable agendas and ideas of proper contribution on legitimate topics, have been blocked here. For example: [1]. If you Google, "The Wikipedia Jews" you will discover that you're not the first person to take note of these things. That said, some of your ideas are pretty silly. The man who thought of the hydrogen bomb in the first place was Enrico Fermi, a goy forever. SBHarris 04:09, 15 August 2013 (UTC) Thought of, but not actually invented it. But OK, let's assume you're right for a moment. What about the top bloshevik leaders? Was that a coincidence, too? What about the jewish run eastern block during salinist era? Ana Pauker, Matyas Rakosy, Jakub Berman, do these names ring any bell whatsoever? They've murdered tens of thousands of patriotic anti-communist opposition members in Poland, Hungary, Romania, Czechoslovakia, etc. What about Hollywood? http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-stein19-2008dec19,0,4676183.column (note that the author is jewish, thus no accusation of so called "anti-semitism" can be made) and let's no forget the porn industry run by Jews for the very talmudic hatred toward Gentiles - as Mr. Al Goldstein said: Am I making that up? BTW I would love to see more actual meritorical arguments rather than personal attacks, SBHarris (vide "you're being silly" - an example of pure argumentum ad personam). Can we do that?46.171.197.14 (talk) 13:08, 15 August 2013 (UTC) This discussion has gotten very off-topic for this talk page, which is supposed to be limited to the improvement of the Thermonuclear weapon article. May I suggest continuing it on a more appropriate page, such as Talk:Intolerance or Talk:Antisemitism. --ChetvornoTALK 14:16, 15 August 2013 (UTC) Agreed. The only complaint of mine would be the proper page. How about anti-Gentilism, anti-Christianism or Jewish supremacy/extremism?46.171.197.14 (talk) 17:31, 15 August 2013 (UTC) That's fine. --ChetvornoTALK 17:43, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Some points

• It would be helpful if isotopes were spelled out rather than simply elements unless elements natural abundance was implied. Lithium-6 and Deuterium (Hydrogen-2) are fractionally separated from natural abundance. My understanding is that original weapons were Lithium-6 & Hydrogen-3 (Tritium). (Note that on a US (UN) list of forbidden materials that Lithium enriched to over 8% is a "controlled nuclear material".) Later "Hydrogen" weapons were Lithium-7 and Deuterium (product .
• Although the ignition requirements for Lithium-6 + Hydrogen-2 > 2X Helium-4 (and no neutrons) has one of the lowest pressure/temperature innition requirements, Lithium-7 also ignites easily and emits an additional Neutron. Lithium-7 however will decompose into Tritium and Alpha upon Temerature, Gamma (>2MeV), or particle impact. Lithium-6 also has a high neutron absorbtion cross section and with fast neutron produces Tritium and Alpha plus 4.7MeV of energy.
• Berylium? Small nuclei are good for neutron mod0eration however I can think of no earthly reason to do that outside a bomb's fission core. Most bombs/reactors have an initiator neutron source because waiting for neutrons to build up naturally can take too long for proper startup (detonation). Source is typically Polonium-210 (alpha radiation source) and Berylium (emits neutrons with ~1MeV radiation) mixture. Berylium-9 or natural Berylium may be expected to increase neutron flux by decomposition by hard X-rays (Gammas) and participate as neutron multiplier (Deuterium, Lithium-7, and Boron-11 also do so) by (n,2n) reaction.
• As noted above, the high intensity of gamma/hardX induces fission of Lithium-7 and also in the Tamper shell. Gamma rays in the 40MeV range are assumed which will shred many atoms; only a few MeV is necessary to make U-238 enter the metastabe state where it can fission; "fissionable with neutrons of greater than 1 MeV". Isotopes of Uranium shows the higher energy metastable states of Uranium-236 and Uranium-239 (after absorption of neutron by U-235 and U-238 repectively) only a couple of MeV above ground state and half-life of ~200 nanoseconds.
• Tritium decays to Helium-3 with a 12 yr half life. He-3 also readily engages in fusion reactions (different, but still low init energy), so as long as the He-3 is contained in the fuel lattice (within the bomb) there should only be minor changes in efficacy. On the other hand even a few percent may cause the fuel to physically deteriorate.
• Several mentions of Uranium Deuteride (UH3 or UH6) from {Paki bombmaker?}. Not sure if hybrid device or Deuterium as moderates and/or Neutron multiplier. Quoted as "Hydrogen Bomb" weapon.
• Uranium and Lead as Tampers. Thorium is cheaper than Uranium. Although fast neutrons can fission U-238, so can Gammas or kinetic energy from particles.
• Not sure if it was this or another fusion article but I remember 40 MeV quoted at/after 2nd stage ignition.
• You opened the door with neutron bomb and Tamper fallout. From a "Nuclear power is safe" article: fission of U-233 and U-238 produces less long lived radioactive product than U-235 and Plutonium-239 (this was in a reactor environment). If only half of the tamper fissions then what happens to the other half, does the high neutron flux yield transuranic isotopes?

Shjacks45 (talk) 10:50, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

W88 Primary

The Primary of the W88 warhead is described as and gives a link). The link does not match the image - the primary is an ovioid (1 axis of symmetry) compare to prolare (2 axes of symmetry). The description suggests the image may be wrong as the description of the math is 1D to to 2D, not to 3D as an ovoid would require, — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.106.56.145 (talk) 17:17, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

Queries

1.) I am wondering if this weapon is actually real as I have been told plenty of times we only have bombs that work using fission not fusion. Any help would be appreciated 94.11.4.93 (talk) 18:52, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Are you sure you don't have it backwards? --Chetvorno^TALK 19:16, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

I am pretty sure that plenty of people I know are saying we do not have the energy requirements for a fusion bomb.94.11.4.93 (talk) 19:20, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Maybe you could provide some sources. If true, those people are pretty badly mistaken, the world has had hydrogen bombs since 1953. It is fission bombs that are mostly obsolete, except as the triggers for fusion weapons. Perhaps they are talking about fusion power for use as an energy source. We don't have that yet, in spite of the huge amount of research effort that has gone into it for the last 30 years. The only type of nuclear power station is a fission nuclear reactor. --Chetvorno^TALK 19:34, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

A minor point of grammar

I have changed 'the majority of its destructive energy' to 'most of its destructive energy'. 86.184.245.177 (talk) 19:51, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Fission or fusion?

Preamble is very confusing. "to compress and ignite a secondary nuclear fusion reaction, from which most of the bomb's explosive yield is derived". However, the same paragraph later says the opposite - "in most applications most of its destructive energy comes from uranium fission rather than fusion". So which one is it? Where is most energy in an H-bomb comes from, fission or fusion? Le Grand Bleu (talk) 20:45, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

I asked myself the same thing, therefore I tagged the claims as contradictory. At least some TN weapons have a fusion yield above 50% (e.g. the Tsar bomb had 97%, but "it was one of the "cleanest" nuclear bombs ever created"). But I don't know about "most" TN weapons. --Roentgenium111 (talk) 14:07, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Lots of unanswered questions

Well great. This article goes into explicit detail on how the bomb works but it's very hard to follow for someone like myself with very, very little background in physics etc. Does this bomb cause fallout? If so, how long does it last? What would be the medical/veterinary effects on those living outside the blast radius (assuming everything in the radius is dead)? How big is the blast radius? The blast is, according to this article, 450 times stronger than that which decimated Hiroshima. How big a population would be wiped out by something like this? Someone told me that the H bomb does not harm buildings? Sounds wild, but is it true? C'mon people. It's all very well to talk about how it works, but what the HELL does it do? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.119.151.233 (talk) 08:01, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

Since some (most?) of the bomb yield still comes from uranium fission, there is still fallout (at a somewhat smaller proportion), and there's certainly destruction of buildings (I think you're confusing this with neutron bombs).

The blast radius and number of deaths always depend on the size of the weapon, just as with fission bombs. Fusion bombs can be much more destructive, but needn't be. --Roentgenium111 (talk) 14:11, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Source book

Came across this book in PDF format that can be downloaded:

The Effects of Nuclear Weapons. Compiled and edited by Samuel Glasstone and Philip J. Dolan. Prepared and published by the United States Department of Defense and the Energy Research and Development Administration. 1977, 3rd ed. PDF 60Mb. 657 pages (!)

Sounds like interesting reading and likely very useful to anyone editing this and related pages. Ping Georgewilliamherbert, who may be interested 220 of ^Borg 12:38, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Meaningless "declassification"

"... United States government declassified a statement that "The fact that in thermonuclear (TN) weapons, a fission 'primary' is used to trigger a TN reaction in thermonuclear fuel referred to as a 'secondary'". This is grammatically meaningless : "...the fact that..." what about it ? is true ? Rcbutcher (talk) 06:15, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

This seems clear enough. The fact that you don't understand is not the fault of the text. ;) NPguy (talk) 18:24, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

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W88 text problem

"The reentry cones for the two warheads are the same size". ?? No other warhead is mentioned in this section before this point, but it appears to relate to W87 mentioned later. Text needs revision to make sense. Rcbutcher (talk) 01:04, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Abandoned Drafts Wikiproject

Hello. There's an abandoned draft in the draftspace regarding the French H-bomb. If someone would please review it, add any relevant pieces, and merge the history/mark the page for deletion (and note on that page the content has been added to its rightful home). I'm not comfortable doing this.

The piece can be found here.

As a note, it suffers from Neutral POV and encyclopedic language issues. Not sure how much can be added, which is why I appealed here.

Thanks. Hwdirre (talk) 17:26, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

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Both fission and fusion bombs are thermonuclear

The entire intro is a mess! Both fission and fusion bombs are thermonuclear, yet the article distinctly says that only fusion bombs are thermonuclear.

Thermonuclear means "relating to or using nuclear reactions that occur only at very high temperatures.", according to me and Wiki. A fission reactions reaches 10^7 degrees kelvin, a fusion reaction reaches 10^8 degrees kelvin, both high temperatures within a factor of ten from each other. So both fission and fusion are using nuclear reactions at high temperatures, they are both thermonuclear by the Wiki definition. That makes the whole introduction invalid and puzzling. Pb8bije6a7b6a3w (talk) 13:07, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

Glad you brought this up, as you say the introduction may not be clear on this point. The word "thermonuclear" means fusion, not fission; this buzzword has been used since the 1950s to distinguish fusion reactions from fission reactions and fusion bombs from fission bombs. As indicated by the definition, the meaning of "thermonuclear" is not a reaction that produces high temperatures, but a reaction that requires high temperatures for initiation. A fission chain reaction (the reaction that powers an ordinary atomic bomb) does not require high temperatures, but only that the mass of fissionable material be brought close enough together to become a critical mass. However to get hydrogen to fuse into helium (the reaction that powers a thermonuclear weapon) it must be raised to extremely high temperatures (and pressures). This is because the hydrogen nuclei are positively charged and repel each other, so to get them to strike each other with enough energy to overcome this repulsion they must be moving fast, be very hot. So hydrogen bombs require an internal fission bomb as a first stage, to create the high temperatures to ignite the fusion reaction; thus "thermo"-nuclear. --Chetvorno^TALK 21:23, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

Dash in name

Why does the name of the article now have a dash instead of the normal hyphen? If there is a policy mandating this, where is it? Links to this article such as from Nuclear weapon design have been broken. --JWB (talk) 15:33, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

That's a great question. I don't know the answer. If it is causing a problem (and I tend to agree it is) we should just rename this one to "Teller(normal dash)Ulam design". I don't see that as controversial. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 18:30, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Done. --John (talk) 19:10, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Why did you move this? There should be a dash in the name because Teller and Ulam are two different persons (see Wikipedia:MOS#En dashes).Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 21:54, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Moved back. Parsecboy (talk) 13:09, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Soviet Union

It seems to me that the phrase "Tritium is a radioactive form of hydrogen" is irrelevant. The problem of hydrogen fusion is that the electrostatic repulsion of the protons, which is overcome by the nuclear "strong" force. To do that more easily terrestrial fusion depends upon having more neutrons in the nuclei to be fused, hence heavy hydrogens. Deuterium has one neutron added to its proton, tritium has two, and the great thing about tritium is quite simply that second neutron. The fact that it is radioactive is just a nuisance ! DaveyHume (talk) 21:33, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 7 September 2017

Under section "Compression of the Secondary" and subsection "Comparing Implosion Mechanisms," the first item in the table needs its "Radiation Pressure" value centered: "7.3." As it is misaligned with the other values. 2601:206:8201:EC92:E915:F4C:FF4F:AF9E (talk) 13:28, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

Not done: It's aligned at the decimal point. — nihlus kryik  (talk) 13:34, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

Heat engine?

I removed ([2]) the claim that The radiation implosion mechanism is a heat engine, since I couldn't see why it is, and there's no source for it. I was added ages ago ([3]) William M. Connolley (talk) 20:11, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

I support the removal. That phrase has always bothered me. The description of the implosion as a "heat engine" is an abstract analogy from thermodynamics; it means that some of what goes on in the bomb can be modeled by the same mathematics used to analyze engine cycles. I wouldn't mind the phrase being used in the article (with explanation), but dropped into the introduction this jargon is just confusing. --Chetvorno^TALK 21:40, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

I agree with removing it. The "heat engine" explanation for radiation implosion seems to be from Howard Morland's essay "The Holocaust Bomb", but isn't supported in any well-regarded source that I'm aware of. In the definitive lay-audience history of the thermonuclear weapon, Dark Sun by Richard Rhodes, radiation implosion is discussed with no specific mention of "heat engines". The idea that Morland describes that a "heat engine" of plasma created by the superheating of the FOGBANK plasma is primarily responsible for initiating thermonuclear fusion just doesn't occur anywhere else but in that essay and the afterword of Morland's book The Secret that Exploded. loupgarous (talk) 20:25, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

Reading the sources in the reflist for our article FOGBANK together with the StrategyPage article on the W76 thermonuclear warhead used in the Trident I and Trident II ICBM , it's probable that FOGBANK retards ablation of the tamper and radiation case long enough to allow thermonuclear fusion to proceed (by radiation pressure from x-rays from the primary) with a thinner tamper and radiation case than otherwise possible. Open-source literature alludes to concerns voiced by former Los Alamos scientists that the W76 radiation case is too thin and could cause Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities (which could reduce or eliminate the W76's fusion yield). The W-76 designers would have been looking for ways to retard ablation of the radiation case more effectively - modulating the ablation and disassembly of the radiation case for crucial microseconds while the hard x-rays compressed the D-T/lithium fuel into fusion. FOGBANK does what the polystyrene foam did in the original Teller-Ulam design. It may be a way of allowing lighter tampers and radiation cases to be used.loupgarous (talk) 09:26, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

something is missing

after rereading article, it seems cursory, now it could be classification is reason ironic that north Korea has capability of some sort, the treaty did not do much to stop spead of technology — Preceding unsigned comment added by Juror1 (talk • contribs) 10:38, 20 November 2017 (UTC)