The Hydrogen bomb, a weapon of mass destruction began to be developed in 1947(The First hydrogen bomb test, 2011). Behind the grandiose power of this weapon are its reactions at the atomic level, a mixture between nuclear fission and fusion which make the bomb’s destructive power the greatest out of all other nuclear weapons. Although there has yet to be a country that has used the H-bomb the possession of such a weapon is a topic of great controversy and fear to the general public all around the globe. While there are strong arguments in favor and against keeping any nuclear weapons, the debate on whether it is ethical or not, has yet to be settled. The development of the hydrogen bomb creating reactions between atomic fusions and fissions …show more content…
Thus, the combination of nuclear fission and fusion lead to the development of the H-bomb, a weapon of significantly higher destructive power than the nuclear bomb during this time (The Development and Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, n.d.). While the atomic bomb used fission to get its destructive power the thermonuclear bomb used a combination of both. Fission would work as a trigger to the fusion through a series of nuclear reactions or chain reactions. For the process that the H-bomb goes through, it is necessary to have fission happen, otherwise the bomb will be unsuccessful. Where fission is the splitting of an atom when it is hit by a particle, fusion is the opposite in which two nuclei combine to form an atom or two atoms combine to make a larger molecule with a larger mass. Diagrams of fission and fusion are shown below. In this processes of creating a larger atom or a molecule a large amount of energy is released lending the bomb some of its destructive power. This power can be attributed to the release of x-ray radiation from both processes. The gases deuterium and tritium are often fuels for the hydrogen bomb but as they are, in fact, gases they cannot be …show more content…
The use of these hydrogen isotopes makes fission necessary due to the stability of these compounds. According to the article how do nuclear bombs work, the following reasons are pointed out for why there is a necessity for fission: “tritium is not abundant and has a short half-life, thus, it does not last long enough; the bombs fuel has to be continuously replenished; deuterium or tritium has to be highly compressed at high temperature to initiate the fusion reaction.” (Harris, n.d). Specifically fission in this process is used to increase the supply of tritium with the fission of lithium. Heat is also a necessary component to trigger fusion and thus this is also achieved through fission as fission often releases x-ray radiation due to the destruction of nuclei in an atom. In fission as one atom is hit and destroyed at the nucleus it not only releases energy but it also fuels the chain reaction as other atoms start getting hit a similar event occurs in a nuclear reactor. The continued destruction of the atoms creates