(October 20, 2013 at 7:03 am)StuW Wrote: Then I have a misunderstanding of the term "cause". As I understand it, the cause of the chain reaction is a smaller less powerful explosion that is funneled to a central point along with the resulting percussion waves. The fact that the latent energy in the atoms is already there in no way relates to the cause itself and is purely the end effect of the chain reaction.
The subject of cause and causality is a deep one which could fill multiple threads on its own. The compression of the nuclear material is, in one sense, a cause. However, that compression exists for one reason, to bring together enough nuclear material to reach critical mass, after which the laws of physics take over. It is the laws of physics acting on that critical mass which results in the atomic fireball.
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.
Lion IRC: Your question effectively reduces to whether or not I think the universe is infinite or not. That question is, quite frankly, above my pay-grade. First you have to be specific about what you mean by the term 'universe'. Beyond that, my understanding is that the consensus in physics is that 'our universe' is finite but unbounded. This raises the further question of whether an actual infinity can exist, and which, again, is above my pay-grade.