Because of the circular hardened barrel pointed at the target, it would be the least likely direction for shrapnel to be thrown when the whole thing fuckin explodes
With the total caveat that I’m not a nuclear physicist, I think the problem is that as the core goes critical, it will output a profound lot of light. If the whole thing were to go through fission reaction, the light would very quickly not just melt but vaporize the beryllium hemispheres and then continue out to the rest of the local postal zipcode.
However, one of the problems is that while the core is critical it will want to break apart violently, and fragments of the core will be ejected before it goes through fission, hence the explosion would be dirty, getting plutonium everywhere.
Now we’ve developed designs for particle beam weapons, including neutron beam weapons, which are essentially magnetic accelerators where the ultimate target is external.
It would explode generally, and disperse bits of the core all about. Congrats! You have a dirty bomb, and all the physicists in other countries will laugh at you. (See the DPRK tests in the aughts)
This is why we invented the fat man configuration, which then powers the Teller-Ulam configuration in most hydrogen bombs.
Remember that the demon core and reflectors were lab bits used for the development of the atomic bomb configurations. Little Boy was named in the convention of the Tallboy earthquake bomb, and was a gun design that shot the core with enough force to prevent dispersal before complete fission, and Fat Man evenly compressed the core in all directions, again with enough force to prevent dispersal before complete fission.
Yeah, those cores will only detonate through a carefully orchestrated implosion explosion that, with the addition of a neutron reflector, triggers the plutonium to undergo fission as the volume it occupies collapses due to the explosive lenses.
Is it? How would the physics work here?
I mean, the trigger mechanism could use some foolproofing, but wouldn’t the radiation go out the only opening it has?
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Because of the circular hardened barrel pointed at the target, it would be the least likely direction for shrapnel to be thrown when the whole thing fuckin explodes
I think they are implying that when it is nearly fully enclosed it would go super critical…and kaboom.
Removed by mod
With the total caveat that I’m not a nuclear physicist, I think the problem is that as the core goes critical, it will output a profound lot of light. If the whole thing were to go through fission reaction, the light would very quickly not just melt but vaporize the beryllium hemispheres and then continue out to the rest of the local postal zipcode.
However, one of the problems is that while the core is critical it will want to break apart violently, and fragments of the core will be ejected before it goes through fission, hence the explosion would be dirty, getting plutonium everywhere.
Now we’ve developed designs for particle beam weapons, including neutron beam weapons, which are essentially magnetic accelerators where the ultimate target is external.
It would explode generally, and disperse bits of the core all about. Congrats! You have a dirty bomb, and all the physicists in other countries will laugh at you. (See the DPRK tests in the aughts)
This is why we invented the fat man configuration, which then powers the Teller-Ulam configuration in most hydrogen bombs.
Remember that the demon core and reflectors were lab bits used for the development of the atomic bomb configurations. Little Boy was named in the convention of the Tallboy earthquake bomb, and was a gun design that shot the core with enough force to prevent dispersal before complete fission, and Fat Man evenly compressed the core in all directions, again with enough force to prevent dispersal before complete fission.
Removed by mod
Yeah, those cores will only detonate through a carefully orchestrated implosion explosion that, with the addition of a neutron reflector, triggers the plutonium to undergo fission as the volume it occupies collapses due to the explosive lenses.
Or something like that, I’m not a physicist.
Removed by mod