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The intense pulse of high-energy neutrons generated by a neutron bomb is the principal killing mechanism, not the fallout, heat or blast. The inventor of the neutron bomb, Sam Cohen, criticized the description of the W70 as a neutron bomb since it could be configured to yield 100 kilotons: the W-70 ... is not even remotely a "neutron bomb."
There are other types of nuclear weapons as well. For example, a boosted fission weapon is a fission bomb that increases its explosive yield through a small number of fusion reactions, but it is not a fusion bomb. In the boosted bomb, the neutrons produced by the fusion reactions serve primarily to increase the efficiency of the fission bomb.
Beginning in 1951, Cowan and Reines, both then scientists at Los Alamos, New Mexico, initially thought that neutrino bursts from the atomic weapons tests that were then occurring could provide the required flux. [8] For a neutrino source, they proposed using an atomic bomb. Permission for this was obtained from the laboratory director, Norris ...
A neutrino (/ nj uː ˈ t r iː n oʊ / new-TREE-noh; denoted by the Greek letter ν) is an elementary particle that interacts via the weak interaction and gravity. [2] [3] The neutrino is so named because it is electrically neutral and because its rest mass is so small that it was long thought to be zero.
The Cold War ended in 1991, but the looming threat of nuclear attack lives on with more than 14,900 nuclear weapons wielded by nine nations.. A terrorist-caused nuclear detonation is one of 15 ...
The first nuclear explosive devices provided the basic building blocks of future weapons. Pictured is the Gadget device being prepared for the Trinity nuclear test.. Nuclear weapons design are physical, chemical, and engineering arrangements that cause the physics package [1] of a nuclear weapon to detonate.
Natural uranium is made weapons-grade through isotopic enrichment. Initially only about 0.7% of it is fissile U-235, with the rest being almost entirely uranium-238 (U-238). They are separated by their differing masses. Highly enriched uranium is considered weapons-grade when it has been enriched to about 90% U-235. [citation needed]
Early speculation about nuclear weapons assumed that an "atom bomb" would be a large amount of fissile material moderated by a neutron moderator, similar in structure to a nuclear reactor or "pile". [11] Only the Manhattan Project embraced the idea of a chain reaction of fast neutrons in pure metallic uranium or plutonium.