4 ms·

Don't want to use up my very small quota of FT articles, but as for heavy water, thermonuclear bombs use lithium-6 deuteride, lithium-6 hydride where the hydrog

by hga 11y ago

Don't want to use up my very small quota of FT articles, but as for heavy water, thermonuclear bombs use lithium-6 deuteride, lithium-6 hydride where the hydrogen atoms are deuterium (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_hydride#In_nuclear_chemistry_and_physics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_hydride#In_nuclear_che...), the best source of which is heavy water. This compound is a compact and stable solid at the relevant temperatures; as the above says, when bombarded by neutrons the lithium-6 is converted into tritium in an exothermic (favorable) reaction, and then it fuses with the deuterium.

DennisP 11y ago
Ah that makes sense. Any idea on thorium?
- hga 11y ago
  None whatsoever, I'm still in my intensive study of the Manhattan Project and one thing that's very clear is that the "try everything that looks like it might work to make sure at least one will" had a great benefit in building the insanely scaled K-25 gaseous diffusion plant (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-25 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-25). This allowed us to easily build reactors and all sorts of things with enriched uranium. With that good an ecosystem, where does thorium fit in? Ah, here's a theory: the U.K. didn't know how well we'd done in finding uranium sources. So early on, besides just trying it out, wasn't it posited as an alternative to U-235 if we ran low on it? And I've read on Wikipedia that some thermonuclear primaries were/are U-235 implosion designs; if that's advantageous, alternates to U-235 for power reactors could be useful. And skimming this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_the_United... and finding this http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Uk/UKFacility.html http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Uk/UKFacility.html confirms that it took a long time for the U.K. to enrich uranium, especially to militiarily useful levels (HEU) and amounts, 1954 and 1957 respectively, long after the 1952 creation of successful H-bombs. But I still can't find or think of anything that supports the bald assertion in the article (which I did break down and read), which tells me the author is grossly ignorant of the most basics of the subject, and I strongly suspect the whole article is highly suspect, putting a spin on events that's not in the least supportable by reality, there are plenty of tells, including extremely limited quoting of the documents which are supposed to reveal all this.

by hga 11y ago

DennisP 11y ago

Ah that makes sense. Any idea on thorium?

hga 11y ago
None whatsoever, I'm still in my intensive study of the Manhattan Project and one thing that's very clear is that the "try everything that looks like it might work to make sure at least one will" had a great benefit in building the insanely scaled K-25 gaseous diffusion plant (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-25 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-25). This allowed us to easily build reactors and all sorts of things with enriched uranium. With that good an ecosystem, where does thorium fit in? Ah, here's a theory: the U.K. didn't know how well we'd done in finding uranium sources. So early on, besides just trying it out, wasn't it posited as an alternative to U-235 if we ran low on it? And I've read on Wikipedia that some thermonuclear primaries were/are U-235 implosion designs; if that's advantageous, alternates to U-235 for power reactors could be useful. And skimming this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_the_United... and finding this http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Uk/UKFacility.html http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Uk/UKFacility.html confirms that it took a long time for the U.K. to enrich uranium, especially to militiarily useful levels (HEU) and amounts, 1954 and 1957 respectively, long after the 1952 creation of successful H-bombs. But I still can't find or think of anything that supports the bald assertion in the article (which I did break down and read), which tells me the author is grossly ignorant of the most basics of the subject, and I strongly suspect the whole article is highly suspect, putting a spin on events that's not in the least supportable by reality, there are plenty of tells, including extremely limited quoting of the documents which are supposed to reveal all this.