Three papers highlight results of record yield nuclear fusion shot

Re:Three papers highlight results of record yield nuclear fu... by khuey on Sunday August 14, 2022 @04:53PM (#32462842)

All nuclear bombs involve fission. Some (termed "thermonuclear") involve fusion. A fission first stage is detonated to ignite a (much higher yielding) fusion second stage. Most bombs deployed today are thermonuclear simply because it's the most sensible way to scale up the yield of a weapon.

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Re:Three papers highlight results of record yield nuclear fu... by benreesman on Sunday August 14, 2022 @09:24PM (#32464861)

Nitpick, AFAIK (which is t far) the real crust-busters (e.g. Tsar Bomba) use yet a third stage of fissile material that gets rapidly burnt up at truly absurd neutron densities to get that last 40-90 Mt and as a result are dirty as all hell. The Soviets turned that weapon down from 100Mt designed yield to 50 because there was no way to keep it from just radiating everything.

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Re:Three papers highlight results of record yield nuclear fu... by jcims on Sunday August 14, 2022 @07:37PM (#32464207)

Isn’t the fissile material the only reason there is residual radiation/fallout from fusion devices?

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Re:Three papers highlight results of record yield nuclear fu... by mlindner on Sunday August 14, 2022 @09:09PM (#32464751)

A lot of materials are fissile in the presence of a fusion reaction.

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Re:Three papers highlight results of record yield nuclear fu... by throwoutway on Sunday August 14, 2022 @05:23PM (#32463064)

This makes sense, thank you

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