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Nuclear Weapons And The Development Of Nuclear Warfare Essay

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Nuclear weapons are the most powerful and destructive technology ever created. From the first notion that nuclear technology could be harnessed to create a bomb, massive amounts of time and energy (as well as government funding) have been invested in further increasing the destructive yield of nuclear weapons. The process of development was carried out independently by governments worldwide. Despite the segregation of groups of scientists and secrecy surrounding their discoveries, design strategies and problems remained basically the same in all development projects with similar solutions being realized more or less concurrently. The first and most basic fission bomb quickly evolved to produce higher and higher yields. Through …show more content…

When the fissionable material is large enough and dense enough the rate of neutron escape from its surface is so low that it becomes a "critical mass". Once the fissionable material reaches this state a self-sustaining reaction can occur. At this point in an atomic bomb, via various mechanisms, neutrons are introduced to the critical mass causing the chain reaction to begin and the bomb to explode.

As simple as the concepts may seem, there are a number of complex problems standing in the way of constructing an atomic bomb. First, one must be sure to keep the fissionable material in a subcritical state before detonation. Background neutrons from radioactive isotopes and spontaneous fission would be devastating if the critical mass was already assembled inside the weapon. In all likelihood, the weapon would detonate an imperceptible amount of time after the critical mass was formed (obviously contrary to the goals of producing nuclear weapons in the first place). Second, one needs to assemble the fissionable material into the critical state while making sure it doesn't come into contact with any neutrons. Third, neutrons must be introduced when the material is assembled in the most optimally critical configuration. In summary, a feasible weapon requires an effective means of producing a critical state within the fissionable material and initiating the fission reaction precisely when this optimal state occurs. Two

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