William Xia

The Atomic Bomb

The atomic bomb is a type of nuclear weapon. It gets it's power from nuclear reaction, either
fission or a combination of fission and fusion. Both reactions release vast amounts of energy from
small amounts of matter. There are 3 basic design types. Pure fission weapons use either the gun
assembly, in which one piece of fissile uranium is fired at a fissile uranium target at t he end of the
weapon, reaching critical mass when combined. Or implosion, where a fissile mass of either U-235,
Pu-239, or a combination is surrounded by high explosives that compress the mass. Fusion-boosted
fission weapons improve on the implosion design. The high temperature and pressure environment at
the center of the exploding fission compresses and heats a mixture of tritium and deuterium gas which
are both heavy isotopes of hydrogen. The hydrogen fuses to form helium and free neutrons. Each
neutron starts a new fission chain reaction, speeding up the fission and greatly reducing the amount of
fissile material that would have been wasted when the expansion of the material stops the chain
reaction. This can more than double the weapon's energy release. The Two-stage thermonuclear weapon
are a chain of fission-boosted fusion weapons, usually with only two stages in the chain. It is also
known as the hydrogen bomb. It uses hydrogen fusion to generate neutrons. Most of its energy,
however does not derive from hydrogen fission, but rather uranium fission. The power of nuclear
weapons are not only massive, but also create dangerous amounts of radiation. And it is for this reason
that throughout history, there have been only two nuclear weapons used. Both of which, were dropped
on Japan by the United States. Scientist are still studying the true power of nuclear weapons.