PHYS003: Fission bomb design & history
In this short thread, we're going to learn about "critical mass", timing circuits and with them, we'll combine what we learn in PHYS001 & PHYS002 to learn how the ultimate weapon was created:
The nuclear bomb!
Let's discuss how it works too!
In the previous instalment, we learnt about conventional bomb design and the importance of casing, timing and symmetry.
As it were, this is even *more* important for nuclear bombs. But keep it in mind as well as the principle of fission as we move forward.
Nuclear fission is a chain reaction, but it exhibits an interesting phenomenon. For each type of reaction (slow, fast neutron etc.),there is a probability of the reaction taking place. We call the total reaction rate area as the "cross-section".
Every atom/reactant pair has one!
In this short thread, we're going to take a step back from nuclear weapon design to look at conventional bombs. You'll appreciate the engineering challenges facing designers and how they optimize the devices.
Let's go!
In the previous installment (PHYS001), we learnt all about nuclear reactions and the energy produced by them.
We also spoke briefly about one chemical reaction and energies associated with it.
...But we never discussed what energy *is*. [vsauce music]
Energy is essentially an abstraction of transference of state between entities in our world, and we have a particle to denote this transference, the photon. In Poincare's framework, we call energy a convention:
The process exists, but underlying phenomenon is up to modeling!
In this short thread-course, I'm going to get you up to speed with the basics of atomic physics.
If you already understand the words "chain reaction", "mass defect" and "fission", you can skip this course.
Everyone else, let's go!
As you all know, we're made of bundles of atoms and energy!
If you ignore a lot of schizo standard model crap, there's just four basic ingredients (and only 3 in some models but we'll get to that in the future):
Electrons (e-)
Photons (γ)
Nucleons:
Protons (p+)
Neutrons (n)
Electrons and Protons are charged particles, that attract each other, and are repelled by themselves.
An atom is made up of a positively charge nucleus and a cloud of negatively charged electrons.
Photons mediate energy transitions for both the nucleus and the electron cloud.
We are very close to something bad.
At some point it would be irresponsible for me to hold my silence but please be patient, this thing can still dissipate.
Russia, I have faith in you and will forgive you for whatever you have to do, just don't let these bastards win.
The moment Russia pulls it's diplomats, it's time to start seeking shelter.