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Yep. It's an alternative to nuclear tests to see how the physics work in real life. Sometimes it's just nice to have something to compare your simulation resul
by RF_Savage 4y ago
Yep. It's an alternative to nuclear tests to see how the physics work in real life.
Sometimes it's just nice to have something to compare your simulation results to.
- adastra22 4y agoAlso if you wanted to make really small fission bombs—like hand grenade sized—I would guess this is how you’d go around doing it.
- ncmncm 4y agoYou may guess that if you like, but it is physically impossible in this universe.
- adastra22 4y agoProject Orion used fission bombs "the size of a soda can" to power its propulsion. Designing such bombs was a big part of the military aspect of the project and how it got government funding. Now the results are still classified, of course, but it appears they were successful from a design angle. At least the scientists involved seem to think it was possible. This source gives an estimate that a 1 kg fissile mass plutonium can yield about 100 tonnes of explosive power, which is a sphere of plutonium about 2 inches in diameter: http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Nwfaq/Nfaq4-2.html http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Nwfaq/Nfaq4-2.html In principle there isn't really a limit to how small you can make it, just with decreasing efficiency and (with traditional implosive designs) a higher detinator-to-fissile material ratio. Things like laser implosion remove this design constraint, however, and would let you consider things like millimeter-sized pellets.
- ncmncm 4y ago1 kg is the amount of fissile material, but it needs quite a lot of high explosive around it. The file you linked says 16kg, and 28 cm by 30 cm. I suspect the soda-can sized charges you recall were conventional explosives for the small, non-nuke prototype they tried out.
- pfdietz 4y agoProject Orion did not use fission bombs the size of a soda can. It may have used bombs whose CORE was the size of a soda can, but to get that to explode requires much more high explosive (than in a typical nuclear weapon) to implode it more aggressively. That's fine, as the mass of all that high explosive acts as reaction mass.
- ISL 4y agoExperiment is the arbiter of truth -- being able to verify that aging fissile materials continue to function as-expected is very important. It really matters that nuclear weapons go bang when you want, but not when you don't. An example of why one needs to care about such things in stockpile stewardship -- plutonium's own radioactivity means that helium is effectively being born within the crystal lattice, causing damage, distortion, and swelling. It isn't a guarantee that a bomb that worked 50 years ago will work today. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1241955 https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1241955
- 4pkjai 4y agoI’m actually okay with nuclear weapons not working when someone wants them to
- aplummer 4y agoAre you ok with them working when someone doesn’t want them to though?
- labster 4y agoOnly if they’re on Russian military bases.
- geysersam 4y agoDo you need fusion plasma simulation to achieve that? Don't think so.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago> Do you need fusion plasma simulation to achieve that? Don't think so. Would you prefer to know? Or go off a hunch?
- geysersam 4y agoI'll admit it's just a hunch telling me you don't actually need experiments on extremely high temperature plasma to prevent a reaction that never naturally takes place on earth. Intuitively, simply not building a bomb seems sufficient to prevent any accidental detonations. But I'm of course no expert.