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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.
Some researchers have examined the use of antimatter [3] as an alternative fusion trigger, mainly in the context of antimatter-catalyzed nuclear pulse propulsion but also nuclear weapons. [4] [5] [6] Such a system, in a weapons context, would have many of the desired properties of a pure fusion weapon. The technical barriers to producing and ...
Though nuclear fusion was technically achieved, it did not have the scaling property of a staged weapon, and their first hydrogen bomb test, Joe 4, is considered a hybrid fission/fusion device more similar to a large boosted fission weapon than a Teller–Ulam weapon (though using an order of magnitude more fusion fuel than a boosted weapon).
The Mark 39 Mod 0 bomb was an offshoot of proposals to improve the Mark 15 nuclear bomb. The Mk 39 Mod 0 differed from the Mark 15 in that it used contact fuzes instead of proximity fuzes, and it had thermal batteries instead of nickel-cadmium batteries. It also weighed about 1,000 pounds (450 kg) less.
This casing, called the pusher, thus has three jobs: to keep the secondary cool; to hold it, inertially, in a highly compressed state; and, finally, to serve as the chief energy source for the entire bomb. The consumable pusher makes the bomb more a uranium fission bomb than a hydrogen fusion bomb. Insiders never used the term "hydrogen bomb". [29]
Many hypothetical doomsday devices are based on salted hydrogen bombs creating large amounts of nuclear fallout.. A doomsday device is a hypothetical construction — usually a weapon or weapons system — which could destroy all life on a planet, particularly Earth, or destroy the planet itself, bringing "doomsday", a term used for the end of planet Earth.
The Mark 16 nuclear bomb was a large American thermonuclear bomb (hydrogen bomb), based on the design of the Ivy Mike, the first thermonuclear device ever test fired.The Mark 16 is more properly designated TX-16/EC-16 as it only existed in Experimental/Emergency Capability (EC) versions.
[4] 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 ...