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If the last fission stage is omitted, by replacing the uranium tamper with one made of lead, for example, the overall explosive force is reduced by approximately half but the amount of fallout is relatively low. The neutron bomb is a hydrogen bomb with an intentionally thin tamper, allowing as many of the fast fusion neutrons as possible to escape.
Fallout can also refer to nuclear accidents, although a nuclear reactor does not explode like a nuclear weapon. The isotopic signature of bomb fallout is very different from the fallout from a serious power reactor accident (such as Chernobyl or Fukushima). The key differences are in volatility and half-life.
Edward Teller, often referred to as the "father of the hydrogen bomb" Fusion reactions do not create fission products, and thus contribute far less to the creation of nuclear fallout than fission reactions, but because all thermonuclear weapons contain at least one fission stage, and many high-yield thermonuclear devices have a final fission ...
A pure fusion weapon is a hypothetical hydrogen bomb design that does not need a fission "primary" explosive to ignite the fusion of deuterium and tritium, two heavy isotopes of hydrogen used in fission-fusion thermonuclear weapons. Such a weapon would require no fissile material and would therefore be much easier to develop in secret than ...
The medical effects of the atomic bomb upon humans can be put into the four categories below, with the effects of larger thermonuclear weapons producing blast and thermal effects so large that there would be a negligible number of survivors close enough to the center of the blast who would experience prompt/acute radiation effects, which were observed after the 16 kiloton yield Hiroshima bomb ...
A doomsday bomb, made popular by Nevil Shute's 1957 novel, and subsequent 1959 movie, On the Beach, the cobalt bomb is a hydrogen bomb with a jacket of cobalt. The neutron-activated cobalt would have maximized the environmental damage from radioactive fallout.
Tritium (from Ancient Greek τρίτος (trítos) ' third ') or hydrogen-3 (symbol T or 3 H) is a rare and radioactive isotope of hydrogen with a half-life of ~12.3 years. The tritium nucleus (t, sometimes called a triton) contains one proton and two neutrons, whereas the nucleus of the common isotope hydrogen-1 (protium) contains one proton and no neutrons, and that of non-radioactive ...
Some tactical nuclear weapons have specific features meant to enhance their battlefield characteristics, such as variable yield, which allow their explosive power to be varied over a wide range for different situations, or enhanced radiation weapons (the so-called "neutron bombs"), which are meant to maximize ionizing radiation exposure and to ...