1 gigaton nuclear weapon

[T90TankGuy]

please dont troll..if you dont have anything to contribute.stay away.

what do you want us to contribute? to the destruction of the world? or your flights of fancy?
i think this question would have been better put to a scientist.

 

[manojb]

With current technology..is there a ckuntry on the world that can create 1 gigatkn nuclear warhead?

So you watched MI-4 ghost protocol??

 

[SomeGuy]

self delete

 

[Chogy]

There's nothing wrong with the question... it's a matter of physics. Now if he said "I want to drop a gigaton bomb on country "B" and kill 'em all" then yeah, there are issues.

The answer is yes, it is theoretically possible. But it'd never get airborne, being too massive. Big hydrogen bombs are staged devices. Add more stages, get more yield. The power comes from tritium, lithium deuteride, and other fusable isotopes, not plutonium or unranium. The latter two form just the fission trigger, the fuse to get the fusion going.

Little known fact - the temperatures created by a primitive fission bomb are the same or even hotter than the core of the sun. Fusion is very natural, it's all over the universe, but fission as a BOMB is an entirely man-made thing.

---------- Post added at 09:04 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:03 AM ----------

It's worthwhile to add that a falling comet or big asteroid would probably crack a gigaton, and we've likely had several of these in Earth's history. It would suck, but there'd be survivors.

 

[SomeGuy]

Only .1% of actual mass of U-235 gets converted in enegy.So by caclculation it would be 2300 k.g warhead with that too with 100% effi,which is not possible

Full annihilation is not possible by either fission or fusion, only a minor part of the element will annihilate during the transformation from heavier element to lighter element.

Full annihilation is only possible in case of anti-matter, which transforms into pure energy upon contact with matter. But storing 23 Kg of antimatter is not possible.

Correct.

The amount of matter lost/converted to energy in U-235 fission is miniscule.

U-235 + 1Neutron (Total mass: 236 units) ------> Ba-141 + Kr-92 + 3Neutrons (Total mass: 236 units)

There is some loss of mass/matter if you use the proper numbers, but we're talking about fractions of mass units here.

 

[Safriz]

yes thats what i heard.
hiroshima bomb only converted a few grams of matter into energy...the rest of the uranium went up in the air as radioactive material.

thats why wondering how big a nuke has to be for 1 gigaton yeild.
but dont forget thatvsince hiroshima ... nuclear divics have become much more efficient and convert much more mass into energy.

 

[ashokdeiva]

Oh yes if it were ever to build such a weapon then I think the people who develop such weapon are determined to offset the trajectory of the planet from its current course arround the sun.

 

[Chogy]

I was a chemist long ago. One of the rules of chemistry was "conservation of mass." The mass before and after a chemical reaction is always the same. I asked my professor once, "If a reaction gives off heat, then matter must be consumed, right? Even if only an immeasurable amount."

He said "Essentially yes. A TNT bomb creates products that weigh less than the original bomb, but the matter lost cannot be measured by science at this scale - it's too small."

I hope I'm right with this - it's how I remembered it. Maybe someone current in chemistry or physics can comment.

 

[Safriz]

Oh yes if it were ever to build such a weapon then I think the people who develop such weapon are determined to offset the trajectory of the planet from its current course arround the sun.

sorry i disagree.
the planet has takeh meteorite hits with far greater explosive power than 1 gigaton and yet maintained orbit.
nukes are highly over rated.

 

[Jango]

I was a chemist long ago. One of the rules of chemistry was "conservation of mass." The mass before and after a chemical reaction is always the same. I asked my professor once, "If a reaction gives off heat, then matter must be consumed, right? Even if only an immeasurable amount."

He said "Essentially yes. A TNT bomb creates products that weigh less than the original bomb, but the matter lost cannot be measured by science at this scale - it's too small."

I hope I'm right with this - it's how I remembered it. Maybe someone current in chemistry or physics can comment.

Those products fored after the reaction are very diverse. Heat, un-reacting material, radiation and alot lot more.

 

[SQ8]

I think its been debated before.. that more of a smaller sized warhead are better at destruction than a larger single one.

 

[Chogy]

Those products fored after the reaction are very diverse. Heat, un-reacting material, radiation and alot lot more.

Agree, but if in theory you could gather up every single particle with mass after a hand grenade goes off, they'll weigh less than the "before" grenade, because energy is liberated, and matter is converted to energy.

A bomb emits a pulse of light. Light has no mass, it's EM radiation. So the molecules and atoms in the explosive are emitting light... and their mass goes down by an incredibly tiny amount.

 

[Jango]

Agree, but if in theory you could gather up every single particle with mass after a hand grenade goes off, they'll weigh less than the "before" grenade, because energy is liberated, and matter is converted to energy.

A bomb emits a pulse of light. Light has no mass, it's EM radiation. So the molecules and atoms in the explosive are emitting light... and their mass goes down by an incredibly tiny amount.

Uh, neutrinos?

But it is just a perfect scenario, which can never be replicated in real life.

 

[Mav3rick]

Now that we have established that theoretically it is possible to create a gigaton device, I have a slightly different question......Is it possible to create a nuclear warhead that leaves no radioactive traces or atleast not strong enough to be harmful to survivors? Something that burns or annihilates radioactivity during fission/fusion cycle or thereafter.

 

[SQ8]

Now that we have established that theoretically it is possible to create a gigaton device, I have a slightly different question......Is it possible to create a nuclear warhead that leaves no radioactive traces or atleast not strong enough to be harmful to survivors? Something that burns or annihilates radioactivity during fission/fusion cycle or thereafter.

There is something that does some of the opposite.
Neutron bomb - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia