I thought it was kind of strange for this channel to cover the science, but OMG that was really insightful. Please keep on the good research work. Someday your channel WILL blow up
I really enjoyed the Imjin war series. I am very interested in this. My grandfather was a Chemist who worked on the Manhattan Project so I'm excited for this series.
I read somewhere that they had a use for the Little Boy design after the war, as a ground detonation 'bunker buster' type roll. Also have you ever considered the idea that the gun type bomb is a crude particle accelerator? I read this idea in "To Hell and Back", it got me thinking, did Little Boy blast an ionizing beam through the planet when it detonated? Or is this crazy talk.
The Mk-I didn't have any fuzzing options for lay down or ground penetrating delivery. Gun type weapons are not particle accelerators. Starting in 1955, American devices began to use sealed neutron tubes to initiate the fission reactions. These are particle accelerators. That last bit is crazy talk. It didn't produce any beam. It did produce an omnidirectional burst of gamma rays, neutrons and anti-neutrinos, however. The majority of the latter would penetrate all the way through the earth without interacting with anything.
A nice introduction to the layman, but there's some technicalities I'd like to address. Although the Mk-III's core did technically feature a central cavity for the initiator, it is termed solid, to contrast it with true hollow levitated pits developed in the following years. The gun type configuration was not discarded after the war. Other gun type models produce by the US include the Mk-8, Mk-9, Mk-11 and Mk-33. Natural uranium also includes U-234. Neutrons absolutely do interact with U-238. There are attractive forces between them. At some energies, those in the bottom few percent of the fission spectrum, the total cross section for U-238 is actually higher than for U-235. For the majority of the spectrum, the total cross sections are broadly similar. Gaseous diffusion doesn't work on the principle that different isotopes have different sizes. It works on the principle that at a given temperature, and thus a given particle kinetic energy distribution, the lower mass nuclei will have a higher velocity. Thus their partial pressure is disproportionately (although only by a matter of less than 1%) higher, and thus they undergo more collisions per unit time. If the gas interacts with a semi-permeable membrane with holes smaller than the mean free path of the particles in the gas, only free molecular flow can occur inside these holes. The lower mass uranium-235 hexaflouride molecules are moving faster, thus collide more frequently, thus pass through the holes in this filter more often. It has nothing to do with the physical size of the molecules, as they are far smaller than the size of these holes. K-25 featured thousands of diffusers. The fuel in Little boy was on average 83.5% enriched. Pu-239's half life is 24,110 years, not 2.4 years.
Technically 238 is also fissile, provided you smash it hard enough with a neutron, but you need fusion neutrons for that, regular prompt fission neutrons don't have the choich factor. That's why if the Russians had built the Tsar Bomba using U-238 for the outer casing instead of lead (as originally conceived) it would have had double the yield.
It's not fissile, it's fissionable. Around 43% of the fission spectrum neutrons from U-235 are of sufficient energy to yield fission cross sections above 0.1Bn in U-238.
This is interesting--documentaries and books I've read about the Atomic bomb don't explain details like the uranium's origin from the Belgian Congo or the inefficiency of the bomb (I don't mean to sound like a bomb-enthusiast--historical details interest me, and I've read a lot about this period in history)
Thanks for watching, Tim! I'm going to be exploring things about the bomb that aren't so widely known, and hopefully in a way that is easy to understand.
This is an incredible explanation, thank you! There is the contention that the Americans only had about 30-35 kg of highly enriched uranium by May/June 1945. So they utilized Nazi uranium (albeit not highly enriched yet) to quickly make the remainder in the next 2-3 months. Any evidence for that? Is there a graph anywhere showing how much weapons grade uranium the US had created over time?
He's back! Glad there's more after the Imjin series.
It is a surprise.
Hope the series to be as popular as the Imjin War,
I thought it was kind of strange for this channel to cover the science, but OMG that was really insightful.
Please keep on the good research work. Someday your channel WILL blow up
Thanks, Yaqub!
Looking forward for more episodes about this!
So glad you are doing another series on history. Love your stuff!
Loved this! Best video out there.
This was very interesting and well explained. I really enjoyed the Imjin War series as well. Glad I stumbled on your channel. Thanks Samuel!.
I really enjoyed the Imjin war series. I am very interested in this. My grandfather was a Chemist who worked on the Manhattan Project so I'm excited for this series.
Excellent video man, looking forward to the rest of the series!
Thanks for watching, Wolf!
You’re back! Shit I just got so excited seeing a new video
Keep'em comin Sam, great work, any chance of doing a bit on Yamashita's Gold in the future...?
Good topic idea! I remember reading about that years ago.
The details about the nuclear elements are clear, I have not found this information anywhere else, a clear understanding on the bomb is here.
I read somewhere that they had a use for the Little Boy design after the war, as a ground detonation 'bunker buster' type roll. Also have you ever considered the idea that the gun type bomb is a crude particle accelerator? I read this idea in "To Hell and Back", it got me thinking, did Little Boy blast an ionizing beam through the planet when it detonated? Or is this crazy talk.
The Mk-I didn't have any fuzzing options for lay down or ground penetrating delivery.
Gun type weapons are not particle accelerators.
Starting in 1955, American devices began to use sealed neutron tubes to initiate the fission reactions. These are particle accelerators.
That last bit is crazy talk. It didn't produce any beam. It did produce an omnidirectional burst of gamma rays, neutrons and anti-neutrinos, however. The majority of the latter would penetrate all the way through the earth without interacting with anything.
A nice introduction to the layman, but there's some technicalities I'd like to address.
Although the Mk-III's core did technically feature a central cavity for the initiator, it is termed solid, to contrast it with true hollow levitated pits developed in the following years.
The gun type configuration was not discarded after the war. Other gun type models produce by the US include the Mk-8, Mk-9, Mk-11 and Mk-33.
Natural uranium also includes U-234.
Neutrons absolutely do interact with U-238. There are attractive forces between them. At some energies, those in the bottom few percent of the fission spectrum, the total cross section for U-238 is actually higher than for U-235. For the majority of the spectrum, the total cross sections are broadly similar.
Gaseous diffusion doesn't work on the principle that different isotopes have different sizes. It works on the principle that at a given temperature, and thus a given particle kinetic energy distribution, the lower mass nuclei will have a higher velocity. Thus their partial pressure is disproportionately (although only by a matter of less than 1%) higher, and thus they undergo more collisions per unit time. If the gas interacts with a semi-permeable membrane with holes smaller than the mean free path of the particles in the gas, only free molecular flow can occur inside these holes. The lower mass uranium-235 hexaflouride molecules are moving faster, thus collide more frequently, thus pass through the holes in this filter more often. It has nothing to do with the physical size of the molecules, as they are far smaller than the size of these holes.
K-25 featured thousands of diffusers.
The fuel in Little boy was on average 83.5% enriched.
Pu-239's half life is 24,110 years, not 2.4 years.
Technically 238 is also fissile, provided you smash it hard enough with a neutron, but you need fusion neutrons for that, regular prompt fission neutrons don't have the choich factor.
That's why if the Russians had built the Tsar Bomba using U-238 for the outer casing instead of lead (as originally conceived) it would have had double the yield.
It's not fissile, it's fissionable.
Around 43% of the fission spectrum neutrons from U-235 are of sufficient energy to yield fission cross sections above 0.1Bn in U-238.
This is interesting--documentaries and books I've read about the Atomic bomb don't explain details like the uranium's origin from the Belgian Congo or the inefficiency of the bomb (I don't mean to sound like a bomb-enthusiast--historical details interest me, and I've read a lot about this period in history)
Thanks for watching, Tim! I'm going to be exploring things about the bomb that aren't so widely known, and hopefully in a way that is easy to understand.
Sir, pls make video about Monggol invasion of Japan.. apologize for my bad english
This is an incredible explanation, thank you!
There is the contention that the Americans only had about 30-35 kg of highly enriched uranium by May/June 1945. So they utilized Nazi uranium (albeit not highly enriched yet) to quickly make the remainder in the next 2-3 months. Any evidence for that? Is there a graph anywhere showing how much weapons grade uranium the US had created over time?
Unenriched uranium looted from Germany would have been no more useful or valuable to the Manhattan project than that mined in the US or the Congo.
Nuclear Boy Scout.
WARNING! Too many errors in this video! The makers are clearly not knowledgable enough!