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Their Atomic Bombs had notably low yields [1], suggesting that the designs were poor. I'd be really surprised if they managed to successfully construct a Hydrog
by cjensen 11y ago
Their Atomic Bombs had notably low yields [1], suggesting that the designs were poor. I'd be really surprised if they managed to successfully construct a Hydrogen Bomb.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_North_Korean_nuclear_test https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_North_Korean_nuclear_test
- gwern 11y agoHydrogen bombs may not be harder to design because the fusion step has so much room for error; IIRC, André Gsponer and Jean-Pierre Hurni's technical report _Fourth Generation Nuclear Weapons_ http://web.elastic.org/~fche/mirrors/www.cryptome.org/2014/06/wmd-4th-gen-quest.pdf http://web.elastic.org/~fche/mirrors/www.cryptome.org/2014/0... says that hydrogen bombs are actually much more reliable and hard to get wrong to the point where it's surprising that recent nuclear states like India or Pakistan don't start with h-bombs and work their way down to the trickier a-bombs.