Nuclear Weapons : Are they easy to design?

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James M. Essig Hi Anton;

My guess is that it is indeed possible to detonate an implosion-type Uranium-Plutonium sphere simply using an intense neutron pulse(tube) instead of an explosive lens, especially if the fission core is surrounded by a neutron reflecting substance.

Note that some of the original superbomb designs e.g., fission-fusion-fission devices utilized a fission bomb primary stage to produce enough heat, and pressure, to set of the nuclear fusion fuel, wherein the neutron flux from the nuclear fusion fuel would set off or induce fission in a U-238 external cladding (relative to the fission-fusion stage). The U-238 upon fission is essentially just as mass specific exothermic as either U-235 or fissionable Plutonium isotopes.

In fact, I believe the emmensely powerful Tsar Bomba detonated by the Soviet Union during the early 1960s was deliberately fueled down to about 58 megatons without its would be U-235 cladding, which if included would have resulted in a 100 megaton device. Open literature has suggested that simmilar bomb designs by the one time Soviet Union could have had a staggering yield of 150 megatons or more.

The inclusion of an intense neutron flux mechanism to initiate U-238 fusion, especially where neutron reflective materials are disposed in a judicious relationship to the U-238, may permit devices with stupendous yields. One metric ton of fully fissioned U-235 or U-238 has a yield of about 25 megatons. Thus, a device that would produce enough initial neutrons to fully fission 40 metric tons of a U-238 cladding could produce a 1,000 megaton device or a 1 gigaton device. Of course, after the fissioning rate of the cladding reached a certain threshold, the reaction within the cladding itself should be self sustaining.

Note that U-238 can be induced to fission. It is just the case that its critical mass is much, much higher than that of U-235 or the Plutonium Isotopes that are commonly used in modern nuclear weapons.

I mean no offense if I am stating the obvious, but rather, I am just giving some information to provide an appropriate context in which to make my point.

Regards;

Jim		 10/10/2008
Anton Is it possible to detonate an implosion-type Uranium-Plutonium sphere simply using an intense neutron pusle(tube) instead of an explosive lens? Particularly if the fission core is surrounded by a neutron reflecting substance 10/1/2008
James M. Essig Another rather unusual and perhaps fanciful bazaar idea for an explosive device might entail somehow creating a macroscopic blackhole perhaps one with the mass of the Earth or larger (or about 0.005 meters in diameter or larger) wherein the rate of virtual particle production in the vacinity of the blackhole could some how be altered in such a way that a sudden premature detonation of such a blackhole would occur as a result of much sooner than normal explosive Hawking radiation release. If such could be done for an Earth massed blackhole, then perhaps one could cause a solar massed blackhole or even a supermassive blackhole with a mass of 1 billion to 10 billion solar masses (currently, the upper observed limit for such blackholes) to decay in a sudden and blinding flash of Hawking radiation.

Perhaps experiments in future particle accellerators or uprgrades of CERN and FIRMILAB will enable us to detect the Higg's Bosons which are proposed to exist by the Standard Model of Particles and Fields and which are related to the concepts of certain zero point vacuum energy fields wherein such discoveries and further studies will enable us to greatly learn about the nature, effects of, and possible ways to control the Higgs Fields' values experimentally thus perhaps in the distant future, leading us to the ability to prematurely detonate such huge blackholes which ordinarilly would have a life time roughly on the order of 10 EXP 100 years.

Note however, that a sudden catastrophic energy release from a 10 billion solar mass blackhole would have the yield of a trillion supernova except that the radiation would be released in a fraction of a second if the effect could be set up ahead of time in a preprogrammed spherically symmetric manner around the entire blackhole or other wise within a few hours if the effect was initiated from a single point in space around the blackhole to take into the account of the finite speed of light required to travel the 20 billion kilometer diameter of a 10 billion solar massed blackhole. The destructive thermal energy and ionizing radiation from a supernova is largely released over a several month to multi year period as the supernova explosion cools and is theoretically lethal to human or any humanoid like life forms out to a radius of perhaps 30 to 100 lightyears depending on the type and yield of the supernova. The point is that the sudden detonation of a 10 billion solar mass blackhole might produce a gamma ray blast and God knows what other types of ionizing radiation that could potentially exterminate all humaniod life in ordinary unprotected and unshielded planetary environments throughout the entire observable universe as the spherical radiation flux pattern propagated through the observable universe over billions of years.

A spin of off this idea is to cause catastrophic radiation release by engineered zero point vacuum energy fields around the blackhole in one small or tiny spherical angular segment of the space around its event horizon perhaps resulting in a huge laser-like beam of extraordinary power. An Earth masses blackhole so disolved would yield roughly the equivalent of the entire mass of the Earth converted into energy which could be effective in ablissimating an Earth like or Earth massed planet into completely ionized plasma at a rate that would be much more rapid the the explosive destruction of the fictional home planet of Princess Lela in the movie Star Wars but without a trace of solid matter remaining, -not even an asteroidal chuck of rock left over from the planets crust. Imagine what such a directed energy beam could do if a stellar massed blackhole or even a 10 billion solar massed blackhole could be disolved in such a directed energy manner if such a mechanism was developed to produce a simmilar collimnated beam out of one of these much larger blackholes.

I think that the point I am really trying to make is that there will always be room for mankind to increase the explosive yield of his weapons given the future developments of space travel and ever growing knowledge of fundamental physics, perhaps even to the point that if unchecked, such could wipe out any and all other existent extraterrestrial species in the observable universe and perhaps much further beyond.

We as members of the human race thus have an awesome responsibility to use our exponentially ever growing knowlegde of cosmology, fundamental physics, and rapidly advancing technologies for the common good of man and, perhaps in the not too distance future, in cultural, scientific, and technological exchange with any intellegent extraterrestrial civilizations that we might discover or meet in the comming centuries as we venture out of our solar system. We should in such cases plan to be peacemakers lest the ultimate being of God; who has the power to wipe out humanity, any and all extraterrestrial beings and civilizations, any and all spiritual beings from the spirit world and any simmilar beings with an infinitely powerful, infinitely effortless instant act of his almighty will, all in an instant, hold us to account for our actions.

I do not care what anyone says to the contrary, we as the Human Race have gone from Hand to Hand combat to Newtonian mechanics and much more effective rapid and advanced firearms, to modern nuclear weapons and virtually undectable delivery systems such as the modern stealthy ballistic missle submarine and fast nuclear powered attack submarines in a capability; according to the late Great Pope John Paul II, with input from his science and technology advisors, of ending all life on Earth in a graveyard of nuclear fallout. We as the human species are brilliant and each one of us can make a difference for good with our unique God given talents, abilities, psychological profiles etc.

We have proven that we can now destroy any being with a physical or material body dwelling on the surface of the Earth (i.e., everything except the pure spirits of angels and disembodied human souls which may visit us on Earth from time to time), now it is time to learn to build and create and avoid our destructive march toward ever more destructive weapons technologies and systems.

That's all for now.

Best Regards;

Jim Essig		 11/4/2007
James M. Essig It occured to me to mention the concept of shaped charges in the context of nuclear explosives. Supposedly, the maximum directed power density from such devices could exceed spherically symmetric nuclear devices by 3 to 5 orders of magnitude.

Matter/Antimatter annihilation weapons would yield 50 megatons per kilogram of matter reacted with one kilogram of antimatter. Potentially stable forms of antimatter include antimatter hydrogen ice composed of antihydrogen atoms composed of one antiproton and one positron. Antihydrogen atoms have been produced in small quantities at the European CERN.

If the antihydrogen could be explosively mixed with normal hydrogen ice wherein the mixture rate would allow complete annihilation within a few nanoseconds, the possibility of producing a shaped charged explosive using hydrogen/antihydrogen with a maximum energy power density of 3 to 5 orders of magnitude greater than that for spherically symmetric matter antimatter explosions might perhaps uncover new fundamental physics based on the macroscopic energy density and its reaction with the space time continuum, perhaps zero point energy fields of the various proven and/or proposed types, or perhaps with the reaction of the superhot short lived charged particle (produced by proton antiproton reactions) with themselves and/or the electromagnetic energy released in the matter antimatter annihilation reactions.

Note that the production of miniature blackholes is being sought to test higher multidimensional theories such as string theory, brane theory, etc., as the upgraded CERN facility goes on line next year. There might be novel reasons for duplicating the 10 TeV to 15 TeV particle collsion range from which blackholes may be produced by the accellerations produced by collisions among individual particles at CERN by much larger numbers of such blackholes that could result from collisions and interactions among the charged particles produced in such a shaped charged matter/antimatter explosion. I could imagine maximum temperatures approaching (10 EXP 12) (10 EXP 5) Kelvins in such a directed energy matter/antimatter energy weapon could surpass the 10 EXP 15 Kelvin equivalent produced in interactions at CERN and FERMILAB which are now capable proton proton interaction energies on the order of a few TeV.

Another form of matter/antimatter being investigated and theoretically possible according to some models is stable positronium atoms wherein a positron and an electron are in a bound state but in a high enough energy level so that the positron and the electron do not get "close enough" to interact in such a manner so as to annihilate each other in two 0.511 eV gamma rays.
To read of research being done on positronium production, one may visit the Positronics Research LLC website for a good introduction to the concept.

One could imagine the stupendous energy densities resulting from stable matter and stable antimatter explosive combination wherein the density of the matter and antimatter in bulk macroscopic quantities would be on the order of stellar white dwarf material if such stable material could ever be artificially produced in bulk solid macroscopic units. The neutron density matter/antimatter analogue (10 EXP 18 kilograms per cubic meter) would offer roughly 7 to 8 orders of magnitude greater energy concentration than would the white dwarf density concentrations (10 EXP 10 Kilograms per cubic meter) of matter/antimatter. The socalled quarkonium (10 EXP 18 metric tons per cubic meter) analogue would be up to three orders of magnitude energy dense than neutronium. Now if either the white dwarf, neutronium, and/or quarkonium density matter could be fashioned into shaped charged explosives thus increasing the maximum energy concentration by 3 to 5 orders of magnitude, than one might reasonably expect to see some very bazaar physics occur especially if real time instant and complete analysis of such explosions could be performed. Also, what a weapon such devices would make!

Best Regards;

Jim Essig		 10/25/2007
Rakesh Very Fundamental and beautiful article. Vishwas Purohit Keep it up!! 8/15/2005
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