Essence of an Explosion  An explosion is a sudden increase in pressure in an enclosed space.  Best ways to increase pressure are  Turn solids & liquids into gases and/or …  Produce lots of heat

Conventional Explosives  Use Chemical reactions to produce gas and heat  Examples: Gasoline, gunpowder, TNT, nitroglycerin, plastic explosives

Atom Bombs  Use nuclear fission to produce so much heat that solids and liquids vaporize  Fission is the splitting of a large nucleus  Fission is WAY more energetic than chem rxn  Atom bomb uses chemical explosive as detonator  E = m · c 2  c 2 = speed of light = 90,000,000,000,000,000 m2/sec2

Hydrogen Bombs  Use nuclear Fusion to produce so much heat that solids and liquids vaporize  Fusion is the joining of two small nuclei  Fusion is WAY more energetic than fission  Hydrogen bomb uses atom bomb as detonator  E = m · c 2 c 2 = speed of light = 90,000,000,000,000,000 m2/sec2

Copyright 2007 – John Sayles Nuclear Fusion  Use tremendous heat to fuse two small nuclei together (  NOT a chain reaction

A Nuclear Fusion Reaction  A possible fusion reaction uses two isotopes of hydrogen, deuterium and tritium 2 1 H H  4 2 He n + ENERGY  This process requires incredibly high temperature which can be provided by an atom bomb  So the detonator in a hydrogen bomb is an atom bomb