Going Nuclear - Nuclear Science - Part 5 - Hydrogen Bombs
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 ธ.ค. 2017
- While the Manhatten project was working on the first fission bombs Edward Teller began working on a fusion powered 'Super' device. Fission devices were 1000 times as powerful as conventional explosives, and fusion devices could be 1000 times more powerful than the early fission devices.
Background music is Tranquility Base by Kevin Macleod
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"The devices I've --design-- described so far" Freudian slip of a nascent Bond villain, or tacit admission of shenanigans in CoaDE?
Definitely the first one
Yes
Imagine working on the Castle Bravo test, expecting to see a pretty large explosion, then when it gets set off seeing a massive dome of doom expanding rapidly on the horizon, and thinking "Well, we screwed up."
General Ross would say about creating the Hulk; ''Something went very wrong.. Or it went very well'''. I don't think a weapon overperforming would ever be considered a failure by the army lol.
Or "maybe we should have been standing further ba....!"
@@gordonbyron5145 It would be if you were next to it.
Likely were like "please stop growing please stop growing"
Yeah they said it was above their head and they were 30 miles away, crazy.
"The devices I've designed " E X P O S E D
i heard it too, haha
I was looking for this comment ;)
Well he did design some in Children of a Dead Earth.
Chris R he told on himself
At this point its pretty much game over as far as keeping the designs a SECRET secret A little fun with a basic math modelling program can spit out how to make a basic 2 point implosion primary ( like the one in the penut design) in about 10 minutes with modern processors. A small q switched laser (yes, even a 500 chinese tatoo laser! 6nS pulse 0.1nS risetime 😲) with a 50/50 beam splitter and fibers to the explosives would do away with the precision expensive pulse tubes in most weapons designs. Thankfully a few kilograms of plutonium and tens of kilocurie quantities of tritium is a bit hard to come by. AFIK Information Unlimited doesnt offer a DIY nuke kit... 🤓
If Castle Bravo "didn't go quite as planned" then Apollo 13 mission had an "undesired device behavior" :D
Castle Bravo was the motto of this channel: It was going well until it exploded.
Rockets don't explode, just experience rapid unscheduled disassembly.
Apollo 13 just had unscheduled change of mission parameters. The new parameters proved to lead to a successful mission!
More if Apollo 13 shot past the Moon and ended up on Mars.
Apollo 13 exhibited sub-optimal mission performance.
9:39 The moment when Scott accidentally leaks his highly illegal hobby to his subscribers ;)
Who says it's illegal? ;)
Probably US Code S. 832 - the bit in para C about "Whoever without lawful authority develops, possesses, or attempts or conspires to develop or possess a radiological weapon, or..." - any nuclear weapon is also a radiological weapon by virtue of producing fallout. "Radiological weapon" is not otherwise defined within the section.
Interestingly, that clause is not limited to US citizens or to people attacking US targets, so the US presumably reserves the right to apply for extradition of foreign nuclear weapons experts (though this would presumably be refused if they were working for their own nation.) www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/832
Obviously, though, I am not a lawyer.
+countertony Seems very mutch like the US to me.
I was implying he was working for the government...
There's something about a voice over saying "This assumption proved wrong" over a nuclear explosion that causes me to grin.
Honestly though.
At least they tested the assumption.
The bombs I've designed- er, described
That is a great Twi pic...where'd ya get it?
katarjin Idk, it was a while ago. You can probably just google it :p
Using a snip tool and google search image, you can track down almost anything.
I wish you were my science teacher when I was in High School Scott Manley.
Mr.Manley... I can get behind that
Almost everyone does. In a world of profit the education system attracts only those who can't earn a bigger buck somewhere else, which tends to be the bottom of the barrel in terms of either passion for the craft/science or social skills or both.
God bless my old High School Headmaster...he taught Economics...he didn’t have a clue about the elasticity of demand.
"This assumption proved to be wrong"
[massive thermonuclear explosion engulfing camera]
>The End.
[chubbyemu music plays]
Gotcha' @9:38 we know what you're planning mr manley
ahem... 'described'
Next episode: You get a centrifuge, you get a centrifuge, everyone gets centrifuges!
"Next time on Atomic Oprah.."
Some students contributed plans for a centrifuge made of cardboard and rubber band or string to some relief agencies working in third world countries. Not for enriching uranium but for “spinning down” blood sample for lab tests. True story: cheap (disposable if necessary), easy to assemble, no electric power required.
i think its on Mark Robers channel
"In the next video I'm going to be collaborating with Colin Furrs and the hack Smith to actually build and test one of these devices"
Zonies Coasters Cody's lab
could you go detonate it in a desert ?
I know an empty lot in Detroit where you could test the device. if it doesn't work, then whatevs. If it does work, then we don't have to deal with Detroit anymore.
@@HappyFlapps Christ... XD
@@HappyFlapps I thought all of Detroit was an empty parking lot
If the feds are paying attention, they're going to see me watching Cody making yellow cake and uranium metal in his basement, then watching a video on hydrogen bombs. I expect a raid by the CIA will shortly follow. Please tell my family I love them.
They'll be investigating a lot of people. TH-cam was promoting this series in the Cody's lab Yellowcake video.
MMMMMMM...Yellowcake.
Sounds like the computer behind video sharing site scheming to kill all humans!
Unnnhngg... Tell...*gasp* Tell my wife.. *cough* Tell my wife I love her.. *choke*
..sister.
What you need is Uranium hexafluoride though not yellowcake for gas centrifuges right?
My high school physics teacher witnessed some of the early tests in the Pacific (maybe Nevada too). I thought he was the coolest teacher I had in high school. Of course, we couldn't get him to discuss what he saw or knew about the tests. Seven years later, I was loading some of these (Mk-53's and Mk-41's) on SAC B-58 bombers. We had the high yield weapons during the 1960's. Today's lower yield weapons with their high accuracy, make more sense and are just as deadly.
B41s were real big boys - 25 megatons of instant sunshine and the largest deployed US weapon. The last B41 was taken out of service in 1976, and the retirement of that single weapon type reduced the total combined yield of the deployed US arsenal by a staggering 12,500 megatons!
As I understand it, the lead designer on the Tsar Bomba used the excuse of allowing the pilots a chance to escape as his justification for using the lead tamper instead of the U-238. As it stood with a 50 Mt explosion they estimated the crews chance of survival at 50%, with the 100 Mt giving 0%. Really though, in addition to caring about the crew, his worry was supposedly that with the 100 Mt explosion the fireball would have reached the ground and spread a lot of fallout, so he used his excuse to convince them to allow him to go with the smaller yield.
Seems like anything that big is unwieldy and out of date anyhow in the age of ICBMs and MIRVs, even if the yield is beyond comprehension.
Every thing bigger than some 40 to 50Mt is a waste of energy. The energy will just go into space. There is to mutch energy in an multi megaton explosion. the target is dead, it dosent matter, if the soil is molten to 10 cm or one meter of glas. With the same amount of material from one zar-bomb you can bulid 4 or 5 10 Mt bombs. they will do more damage.
Great series! Cheers from ISOLDE at CERN
You guys will blow us up one day, just kidding :)
It'll be worth it ;)
Send our regards to the guys at SERN
El Psy Kongroo
There are a few other improvements worth mentioning.
- Since x-rays are directed between the two stages, bombs can use the same technique to direct their energy release too. This is called "nuclear shaped charge", and essential for Project Orion.
- X-rays can penetrate most materials pretty well, that can be used too. Instead of using a shockwave to destroy the target, it's possible to simply blast it with the x-rays directly. This way most of the energy will go deep into the target, destroying it thoroughly while causing minimal collateral damage (for a nuclear bomb). Shockwaves tend to be reflected by hard materials, such as tank armor or reinforced concrete, but if the explosion starts inside the target, it's game over.
- It's possible to create pure fusion bombs using a tiny amount of antimatter as a trigger instead of a fission primary. 1 microgram per bomb is needed if I remember correctly. Manufacturing and containing that much is possible with reasonable improvements to existing technologies. The advantages are almost no fallout, and drastically easier miniaturization.
You can also use this flux as as an excitation source for a superradiant x ray band laser device by using selenium strips as a mode converter. The divergance is similar to a nitrogen laser and using other materials can change the frequency of the light to make a super efficient but single use death ray...
good luck getting antimatter
Uranium metal extaction from cody's lab, thermonuclear science from Scott Manley, boy i bet best Korea is gonna give us some "new design" in a couple of months as soon as they finish translating the videos.
nothing in this comment was not sarcasm
Well, there is one thing they don't have.
Democracy
ZockerTwins thank you for clarifying
#DearLeader
MZ flighter Don't forget about an abundant food supply.
9:39 Hmm, maybe someone should check what Manley has stored in the shed behind his house.
As an ex W 53 & W 61 & W 80 mechanic, I find your videos most interesting.
I spent a lot of time reading about these in my late teens and at one point could have listed all the known US codenames and their yields, locations, etc. Still, there are things you've touched on that I don't recall reading previously. Thanks for the vids, very interesting.
Will you continue this series past nuclear weapons and talk about how the nuclear age's other innovations in energy production and health science?
I second this motion!
I suspect the production of fissile material (which is done in power reactors amongst other methods) is used as a starting point for that chapter.
"health science" is a psuedoscience.
Health doesnt fucking mean shit.
And the world "health" organisation called pizza a vegetable and gaming a mental disorder. Wake up sheeple.
Did you really just say "wake up sheeple" not as a joke? Lol.Go back to InfoWars.
Are you talking about the republican plan in the 80s to classify ketchup (made from fruit, btw) as a vegetable?
This is the best series you've done, Scott. Your rocket videos are already Gospel, but this was even better.
9:40 "the devices I've d̶e̶s̶i̶g̶n̶e̶d̶ described"
We're on to you Scott
Thanks Scott. Very nice series. Have a very nice new year for you and your family!
Keep flying safe.
well we're all on a list now
worth it though
Very Little Gravitas Indeed eh I've been on that list for years
Personally, I'm just happy to have the company.
If this were to put me on a list I would be surprised that I wouldn't already be on that list just based on the books I read in highschool.
I must assume that I was already on that list, so meh. (I would be if I was the one making the list anyway...) It happens when you used to play EOD technician.
Very enjoyable video though.
I have been enjoying this series very much!
It's nice to have a good spark of something to think about to get the wheels spinning.
I visited a underground nuclear bunker were they had a thermonuclear warhead from the days the UK used to use the V bombers. I was surprised just how small the actual explosive is. The lithium deuteride is kept in a sphere about the size of a soccer ball.
well... there are already DU-shells that are used since the 90's that can kind of melt their way through tanks and pillboxes ending up in a fireball of death... :P
Semthepro Gamingmaster
Don't they punch through because of the weight?
yhea... thats what i kind of meant... (not an english speaker) they punch through and get heated up so hard that the uranium shatter into tiny little pieces and greate a fireball of death... yhe... a radioactiv fireball of death... better...
Well... it's depleted uranium so the radioactivity isn't really a concern when you consider that it's a toxic heavy metal that was literally just set on fire.
Football
Even after all of the hours and documentaries, still learned something new. Great work!
This is a fascinating series Scott, thanks.
i am Scott Manley explode safe!
Love this series Scott! The more the better!
This so far has been an enriching experience, and I'm sure that the next episode will be, too.
Once again Scott, well done!
Thanks, Scott.
Great Show! Thanks!
Thanks for this useful primer on nuclear science. Keep up the great work!
Love the series, love the channel. Keep doing what you do brother.
I love this new series, keep up the good work !
This is a fantastic series. Thanks!
Hearing Scott pronounce Tzar Bomba 9:37 made it worth watching!
How bout the sentence like 2 seconds after? "The devices ive designed... er... described...."
I believe the peanut design is to take advantage of the rocket thruster analogy, and adding a choke point to increase velocity and also concentrate the column of photons bombarding the fusible material. Much like the combustion chamber of a rocket motor, and directing/ increasing velocity in the "exhaust" through a "Bell nozzle".
You are an absolute stud I like your videos and your voice just gives me a real peace of mind you’re the man bro!!!
Awesome. Thanks Scott!
even though I read a lot of information about this, this video added additional stuff. Kudos.
Man, between this and cody's lab, we're on our way to DIY recreational nukes!
Pretty sure you can buy some on the internet with condition "as new, never used"
But on the topic of recreational nukes. Can we expect some for celebrations next year?
Thank you, absolutly lovely as always.
Scott, as a part of this series will you cover the casaba-howitzer design and bomb pumped lasers?
This is very interesting. I just subscribed to your channel, thank you for presenting this!
Loving these videos. Well done
Keep up the great videos Scott!
3:40 My understanding was that Ulam originally thought about using the neutron flux coming from the primary to heat&compress the secondary, it was Teller who realized that the radiation (ie, high-energy photons) coming from the primary would get there first and be more effective.
Modern lightweight warheads often use highly-enriched uranium as the tamper around the lithium deuteride, as U235 has a higher fission rate for neutrons of all energies and gives a higher yield for the same weight.
love your videos!! cheers!
Oops! A bit late! Awesome video though! I'm loving this series, Scott, keep it up!
As always, great vid!
I saw the Phenomenauts many years ago. Cool shirt!
Wonderful video as usual Scott can't wait for the next episode I agree with another viewer touch on Cobalt and or salted Warheads those are the real doomsday devices like in the movie dr. Strangelove... Totally love that movie BTW LOL
Wonderful series !
Happy birthday, thank you for teaching me all i know about ksp
I flinched at "sloyka". So good pronounced.
When a mass of fissile material is exposed to neutrons (or squeezed, or suddenly incremented in mass, or has the control rods withdrawn) it approaches criticality. The critical point is reached when the mass produces the same amount of neutrons through fission as are lost outside the material. Now, some of those neutrons are produced immediately and some are produced over time (they are from decay of fission products, happening statistically after the product's half-life), as long as minutes of time. These delayed neutrons make the difference between controllability of a reactor and the run-away that would happen if all neutrons were "prompt". This point is the "critical" point, and is quantified (by Slotin, BTW) by the notation "zero dollars" of reactivity. The domain above the critical point is known as super critical.
As the criticality is further increased, the point will be reached where the delayed neutrons are no longer needed to sustain the nuclear chain reaction. From here on, the chain reaction is exponential with a very small time constant, measured in shakes, or tens of nanoseconds. This point and the reactivity region above it is called "prompt critical" and quantified as a "dollar" of reactivity.
MsMotron below asks: "why does not everything that goes supercritical explode? should the power produced not increase exponentially until something slows the reaction down? (like the core exploding)"
Obviously, bombs operate in the prompt critical domain ($1 or more); nuclear reactors in the supercritical domain (from $0 up to but not including $1). An explosion is caused when the mass heats so quickly that it turns to plasma and heats high enough to cause copious x-rays from black-body heating, which super-heat the air in the fireball. The Demon Core became prompt critical very slowly (in a nuclear time sense; it was a very mild fizzle when Slotin slipped), and so the small amount of heat generated expanded the core, decreasing its density and made it lapse back below a dollar before it was high enough to create very many (if any) x-rays. Slotin managed to destroy the possibiity of it resuming prompt state as the core cooled.
(For the guy in the back raising is hand, x-rays in a nuclear explosion are created by the black-body effect. The gamma rays are also somewhat black body, but mainly generated directly by the nuclear reactions. That's why Slotin was irradiated, that and the flood of neutrons. (That's my understanding, anyway, but what does an engineer know?)
It is said that one could cause a creditable explosion by swinging two subcritical hemispheres of plutonium, one in each hand, to crash together in front, but it would be so slow a reaction that the explosion would be in the tons of yield - pitiful.
5:06 “there may be other processes involved” Ablation-thrust is often used to explain compression as if these X-Rays are just stronger versions of what hospitals use. The X-Rays come off a primary at the density of lead and fill the bomb chamber at the speed of light - imagine if you turned on your flashlight and the beam shot out as dense as a heavy metal.
Holy crap this series is ultra interesting!
Love the phenomenauts! Good video too :-)
Thanks for this series, Scott.
While I have no interest in wars what so ever, it is at least interesting to see the progression of these devices
@9:46 "but it's entirely possible to extend this to a 3-stage..." - Having experienced the success of the 3-stage weapon, humans began building the 30-stage device and preparing it for testing...
Love this series
This series is scary but strangely fascinating too :D
If I may make a suggestion: I would like to see a series of the progression of Man's foray into space, perhaps starting with the V1/V2 and going all the way to the modern(ish) interstellar probes. Particularly the technological advancements in drive systems.
Perfect topic for New Years Eve :)
I like this series! Maybe you could do an episode on how they measures various things in the explosions (like the light pipes).
I'd really like to see one or more of these about speculative things eventually. The Orion Super Heavy Lift, and Casaba Howitzers particularly.
Ooooooh, or Salted and Neutron weapons.
Please continue this series and future possible types
Mr. Manley, how about a series on how modern nuclear tests take place within supercomputer simulations? Given your penchant for simulations, your current career, and your knowledge of STEM including chemistry, I should think you'd be uniquely qualified in a deep dive into this type of testing.
Little bit of trivia, the castle bravo test was the test that provided major inspiration for the film Gojira.
The Tsar Bomb was also very clean because of the way it was tested. It was air dropped with a parachute and detonated relatively high above the ground. When it went off, the height of the detonation meant that the shockwave has time to reflect off of the ground and this reflected wave prevented the radioactive fireball from reaching the surface. The interaction of a nuclear fireball and the ground is where the majority of radioactive fallout is generated as the dirt and debris are irradiated. This is also why ground-level tests like those conducted by the US in the Pacific and Nevada caused so much fallout, as most were done at or near ground level
It's amazing they succeeded with the tools they had, it took alot more brainpower!
Hi Scott during the Manhattan project it was a European affair with an input from eastern Europe, the one who designed the detonator for the first bomb was George Bohdan Kistiakovsky, the one who developed the H bomb Stanislaus Ulam and George Gamow they all came from Ukraine.
Great vid! I think you need to make one talking about FOGBANK.
Nik McIntosh Why not just google it yourself
Happy birthday Scott!!!
Awesome! MORE!
Can't wait for the next part. I guess the new cody's lab video about refining uranium ore to uranium metal will give me my nuclear fix.
Reminds me of Ren & Stimpy - there was a commercial for a toy named Log, and it was “brought to you by BLAMMO”
My father was a "super cool guy" as he called it,
during the tests at Eniwetak. (Cryogenics
engineer.)
steve
When is the next installment coming out?! This series is great!
Love these
Fascinating but terrifying.
I'm not a fan of nuclear bombs but boy I'd sure like to see a 100Mt detonation just for the awesomeness of it. And thanks for the education, I never really understood why they called them Hydrogen bombs and what's the difference in them and to my shame I never bothered to look up this topic, had no idea that they're using fission to generate fusion, that's just brilliant!
Could you do a video on nuclear propulsion like in the Orion spacecraft and the nuclear ramjet. I feel it would be a great addition to the nuclear series.
Crazy that you can compress stuff with light
Well done.
Love your videos - did you read the recent SciFi novels from Cixin Liu - I was wondering what your thoughts on the Dark Forest Theory are?
Scott, have you ever been to the Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas? If not, I suggest you stop by it next time you're in Vegas. Very fun.
On one hand as engineer in power sector I'm a big fan of nuclear technology. In fact I think it's the only viable long-term source of energy until proper fusion reactors are developed. On the other hand....it's truly terrifying.
It's nice to know that it's so easy. Live each day. . . .
Pre-detonation, truly a terror amongst young lads
11:23 "Highly speculate on, without..." Without giving away confidential information? I'm on to you Manley! ;)
I realise that the fact that I am alive and watching this had a probability of improbable cubed. It seems that the last 70+ years have been a dance on the thin line. We are improbably lucky to have survived. Any bets on the next 70 years?
9:40
Something to tell us Scott?
*I'm onto you.*
Any chance you'll talk about some of the crazy uses for nuclear weapons, like the stuff Tim Taylor proposed? Project Orion, train tunnels, better ways to synthesize materials, etc?
1:58 - It should be noted that isotopic separation of hydrogen is vastly easier than isotopic separation of, say, uranium. An atom of uranium-238 is around a percent and a half heavier than an atom of uranium-235; in contrast, an atom of deuterium is fully twice as heavy as an atom of hydrogen-1 (protium), and a tritium atom is three times as heavy as a protium atom and half-again as heavy as a deuterium atom.