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HOW IT WORKS

To create a blast whose explosive power can be thousands of times greater than that of a fission weapon, a hydrogen bomb, also called a thermonuclear bomb, uses a process called fusion. This blast results from a chain reaction in which hydrogen isotopes (typically deuterium or tritium) combine under extremely high temperatures to create helium.

Unlike uranium and plutonium, hydrogen and helium are extremely light elements. A thermonuclear bomb uses the energy that is released when two light atomic nuclei fuse to form a heavier nucleus. A normal atomic nucleus carries a positive electrical charge (as it contains positive protons and neutral neutrons, with no negative particles), which repels other nuclei and prevents them from getting close to one another. Under temperatures of millions of degrees, a positively charged nucleus can gain enough speed, to approach other nuclei closely enough to combine and fuse. A hydrogen atom’s light nucleus, containing only one proton and one neutron, makes it ideal for this fusion process since its weak positive charge gives it less resistance to overcome.

In order to combine and convert to helium, two hydrogen nuclei must each lose some of their mass by converting it into energy. As Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity states, the amount of energy that is created from this process is equal to the amount of mass that is converted multiplied by the speed of light squared, and this energy forms a thermonuclear bomb’s explosive power.

Fusion Weapons Continued…

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