Your Questions About Hydrogen Bomb

admin answers:

Sure a nuclear explosion will cause a tidal wave. There was speculation the one that hit Malaysia few years ago came from an atomic explosion. It would depend on were it was dropped. Sure prefer tidal wave over other term used.

admin answers:

Big bada boom!
Just explain is a Type of weapon that uses radiactive material (like in the movies etc), it causes a Atoms nucleus (small) to break open causing a chain reaction and a massive explosion, many thousand times bigger then a normal bomb. IE would distroy a city in one

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The first nuclear weapons were purely fission weapons, depending on uranium and plutonium to create the effects. Later generation nuclear weapons used both fission and fusion effects, and in some cases three-stage (fission-fusion-fission) processes. Fusion bombs are usually referred to as hydrogen bombs, since they use hydrogen as a reaction fuel. Fusion weapons are generally more powerful than fission weapons.

admin answers:

Hydrogen bombs have never been used in War. But the atomic bomb was used against Japan in WWII. The atomic bomb simply let one plane do what had been done by thousand plane raids. Besides being more powerful, hydrogen bombs are cleaner, that is less fallout for the power exploded. Atomic and hydrogen bombs are the ultimate WMD’s and terror weapons. Countries got carried away making too many of them. Enough to destroy the world. As with Japan, the loss of two cities by only 2 planes sufficed to show the war was lost and gain surrender. Tokyo had been nearly destroyed by conventional fire bombs. For as bad as it was, the atomic bomb was likely more humane than fire bombs. At least the death came quicker for most.

Personally I would like to see atomic and hydrogen bombs as well as napalm uninvented. Unfortunately, never been done. South Africa is the only country to ever give up, dismantle and pledge to never build another atomic bomb. More countries should consider doing the same.

admin answers:

Depends a lot on the specific design of the bomb. Bombs that use natural uranium tampers (ie: most of them) to boost yield tend to be very dirty, others that use less fissionable tamper material and derive most of their power from lithium fusion are very clean.

That said, the Federation of American Scientists has a nifty calculator which should provide a general idea of fallout effects for a variety of different yields:

http://www.fas.org/programs/ssp/nukes/nuclear_weapon_effects/falloutcalc.html

In a modern conflict, you can estimate an average yield for a strategic weapon to about 250kt (10-15 times more powerful than Hiroshima).

Edit – kt = kiloton, or more properly one thousand tons TNT equivalent energy. It’s a measure of the blast yield of the bomb.

And hydrogen bombs DO produce radioactive fallout, as the fusion isn’t clean: most of this comes through crude fission of the bomb tamper. Additionally, a conventional, dirty fission reaction is required to kick-start the fusion one.