4 ms·
Explosive Power Beats Even Moore’s Law
- quantified 4y agoDid we reach the limits on explosive power a long time ago? Or have we notably increased the efficiency of explosion per unit ingredient since the 1950's?
- beefman 4y agoThe record for yield per kg explosive is probably held by the W88 warhead and its variants. It was designed in the 1970s and first manufactured in 1988. It's close to optimal for a practical fission/fusion device. This article claims great progress in chemical explosives but doesn't provide any supporting data. The best known explosives are only about 50% better than nitroglycerine in terms of detonation velocity and relative effectiveness.[1] The rest of the progress mentioned in the article, also without any data in appropriate units, was not due to learning, as with Moore's law, but to the technology jump to nuclear explosives. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TNT_equivalent#Relative_effectiveness_factor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TNT_equivalent#Relative_effect...