(October 20, 2013 at 7:28 am)apophenia Wrote: An interesting side note about the development of the atomic bomb. One of the major hurdles in developing a useful bomb was increasing its efficiency. Because of the massive explosive forces unleashed once the core reaches critical mass, in early devices, this explosive force would cause the nuclear material to separate too quickly, dropping the core below critical mass and thus terminating the nuclear cascade before a significant release of energy was attained. Much of the practical work on the first atomic bomb consisted in working to develop a detonation system which would bring the source nuclear material together fast enough and into a sufficiently small space that a substantial reaction could occur prior to the reaction being self-terminated by the outward expansion of the explosion.
Shaped charges?
You can fix ignorance, you can't fix stupid.
Tinkety Tonk and down with the Nazis.