3 ms·
> Needless to say, von Neumann‘s main contributions to the atomic bomb would not be as a lieutenant in the reserve of the ordnance department, but rather in the
by mikorym 7y ago
> Needless to say, von Neumann‘s main contributions to the atomic bomb would not be as a lieutenant in the reserve of the ordnance department, but rather in the concept and design of the explosive lenses that were needed to compress the plutonium core of the Fat Man weapon that was later dropped on Nagasaki.
What are the equations that govern an atomic bomb? I don't want to say that I am asking for a friend... /s
I assume that by now the relevant equations would be well known anyway?
- eigenvalue 7y agoThe equations they are referring to do not concern the nuclear aspects of an atomic bomb. They describe how to set up the geometry of conventional plastic explosives (different kinds of explosives that burn at different speeds) in just the right configuration so that the propagating shock waves interfere with each other to result in a spherical shock wave that pushes the core of the bomb (the radioactive part) towards a single fixed point at the center. If any of this is off even slightly, the forces will not be in balance and the core materials will shoot out of the weak point, rather than uniformly compress to bring the nuclear material to the critical point where the fission is self-sustaining.