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A thermonuclear weapon, fusion weapon or hydrogen bomb (H bomb) is a second-generation nuclear weapon design. Its greater sophistication affords it vastly greater destructive power than first-generation nuclear bombs, a more compact size, a lower mass, or a combination of these benefits.
Thermonuclear bomb, weapon whose explosive power results from an uncontrolled self-sustaining chain reaction in which isotopes of hydrogen combine under high temperatures to form helium in a process known as nuclear fusion.
Beginning with the Teller–Ulam breakthrough in March 1951, there was steady progress made on the issues involved in a thermonuclear explosion and there were additional resources devoted to staging, and political pressure towards seeing, an actual test of a hydrogen bomb.
The other basic type of nuclear weapon produces a large proportion of its energy in nuclear fusion reactions. Such fusion weapons are generally referred to as thermonuclear weapons or more colloquially as hydrogen bombs (abbreviated as H-bombs), as they rely on fusion reactions between isotopes of hydrogen (deuterium and tritium). All such ...
Simply speaking, experts say a hydrogen bomb is the more advanced version of an atomic bomb. “You have to master the A-bomb first,” Hall said. An atomic bomb uses either uranium or...
Bravo was a device using Lithium Deuteride as its fuel and the explosion yielded 15 megatons, the largest bomb ever exploded by the United States. The bomb was in a form readily adaptable for delivery by an aircraft and was thus America’s first weaponized hydrogen bomb.
The United States detonates the world’s first thermonuclear weapon, the hydrogen bomb, on Eniwetok atoll in the Pacific. The test gave the United States a short-lived advantage in the nuclear...
While the atomic bombs built during the Manhattan Project used the principle of nuclear fission, the thermonuclear, or hydrogen, bomb was based upon nuclear fusion. While fission is most easily achieved with heavy elements, such as uranium or plutonium, fusion is easiest with light elements.
A hydrogen bomb, also called a thermonuclear weapon, is a type of nuclear bomb that, in addition to splitting uranium or plutonium atoms (also known as fission), also combines (fuses) hydrogen atoms. This fusion process makes the bombs much more powerful and destructive than nuclear bombs that only undergo fission.
Castle Bravo is the sixth largest nuclear explosion in history, exceeded by the Soviet tests of Tsar Bomba at approximately 50 Mt, Test 219 at 24.2 Mt, and three other (Test 147, Test 173 and Test 174) ≈20 Mt Soviet tests in 1962 at Novaya Zemlya.