Why is the hydrogen bomb that North Korea tested today more dangerous than the atomic?

North Korea said today that it successfully tested a thermofuel bomb, a hydrogen bomb that caused a 6.3 - magnitude earthquake. What's a hydrogen bomb? And why, if confirmed, would this new explosion be particularly disturbing?

EWAY With SCHARITARY.

The hydrogen bomb or the bomb-H is the most destructive nuclear weapon ever created by man. In a military way, it is considered an evolution of atomic bomb “that simply” and functions with a reaction of thermothermal fusion, not much different than what happens within the sun. This weapon is far more powerful than the atomic bombs that hit Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

DALLING.

A “traditional” atomic bomb is based on the process of dividing the atomic core of a decomposing material (such as the 235 uranium or plutonium 239), which occurs uncontrolledly and releases a large amount of energy.

NJ It's a great evening.

A phase is added in Bombn-H: Atomic decomposition is used to create a first explosion and cause reactions of nuclear fusion (most violent) that generate temperatures and pressure, able to transform hydrogen that is in a tank inside the helium bomb, in a way similar to what happens to the sun. Therefore, the bomb-H is often called a “nuclear bomb, two stages”.

KRAHASIM.

There are just two stages of the explosion that make it even more dangerous than an atom bomb: if a conventional nuclear device has an explosive power of 15-20 kilotons, a hydrogen bomb tested on November 1st, 1952 by Americans on the Pacific island of Elugelab (called “Test”), had an 11-megaton, 800 times more than the Hiroshima bomb, and a heat wave that reached a 56km radius. In fact, the most destructive and dangerous element in the case of a hydrogen bomb is explosion, not radiation.

J O FOR ALL.

If the technology for a thermonoclere bomb is known to the United States, the Soviet Union and Britain have developed it in the 1960s, a little less knowledge and more complex are building and finding needed hydrogen.

The history of BOMBES-H.

In the '50s. The development of atomic bomb by the Soviets gave the hawks in America wings to promote an even more destructive nuclear weapon - the hydrogen bomb or the H bomb.

Her lawyer was Hungary's born physicist Edward Teller, who also tried to plot against Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the American atomic bomb. The latter, in fact, believed that the atom bomb was already enough to discourage any attack on the US. But Washington's military and political leaders had already decided to get rid of “as an obstacle.

So the new project was entrusted to a group consisting of two American physicists, Richard Garwin and Edward Teller, as well as a Polish mathematician, Stanislav Ulam. If we hadn't worked,” said Garwin, “Military scientists would have done it themselves. And it would all end up in the army's hands, with no external access to”.

I THE EXAMPLE CLEATER.

On November 1, 1952, the United States conducted the test “Mike”, which completely eliminated Elugelabin, a Pacific island. A year later the Russians took turns. More than weapons were, in fact, instruments of extermination: if Hiroshima's atomicist had destroyed a city and killed 200,000 people, an 11-megaton mega bomb could wipe out a 20 million-strong metropolis.

SAKHAROV, BOMBES-H SOVETIC.

There is a story within the history of the hydrogen bomb and concerns a prominent scientist, Andrey Sackharov (1921-1989). When he was only 27, he was already in Arzamas-16, a secret city where the Soviets built their own nuclear arsenals. He was the father of Soviet Bomba-H, who developed to protect his homeland. But in 1961 he changed his mind. First he planned an atmosphere test with a 100-megaton bomb, and then he realized that this test would cause radioactive contamination and half the power of the bomb. Finally, he began to defend human rights and became a dissident: arrested, isolated in Gorkij, supervised by Kgb. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975, but could not attract it. He was released in 1986, thanks to Gorbachev.