What if all nuclear weapons exploded at once?
What if all nuclear weapons exploded at once? With tensions between countries being inevitable, nuclear weapons, it seems, are also inevitable. They are considered to be the most destructive weapons in the world, their explosions are so powerful, just one nuclear bomb could destroy an entire city. Nukes, as nuclear weapons are known, are far more damaging than even the biggest normal, non-nuclear bombs. There is quite a lot to get your head around when it comes to nuclear weapons, so in this video we are going to try to do just that. And hopefully answer the ultimate question, what if all nuclear weapons were to explode at once?
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So what exactly are nuclear weapons? In short, they are extremely powerful explosives. If you think back to your science lessons at school, you may remember the words atoms and isotopes which are involved in the process of triggering a nuclear blast. A nuclear weapon is designed to release energy in an explosive manner as a result of nuclear fission, nuclear fusion, or a combination of the two processes. Fission are usually referred to as atomic bombs and fusion weapons are known as thermonuclear bombs, or more commonly, hydrogen bombs. These are usually defined as nuclear weapons in which at least a portion of the energy is released by nuclear fusion.
When bombarded by neutrons, certain isotopes of uranium and plutonium will split into atoms of lighter elements, this is the process known as nuclear fission. In addition to this formation of lighter atoms, on average between 2.5 and 3 free neutrons are emitted in the fission process, along with considerable energy. As a rule of thumb, the complete fission of 1 kilogramme of uranium or plutonium produces about 17.5 kilotons of TNT-equivalent explosive energy. Fission weapons are normally made with materials having high concentrations of the fissile isotopes uranium-235, plutonium-239, or some combination of these, however, some explosive devices using high concentrations of uranium-233 also have been constructed and tested.
Nuclear fusion is the joining or fusing of the nuclei of two atoms to form a single heavier atom. At extremely high temperatures, in the range of tens of millions of degrees, the nuclei of isotopes of hydrogen, and some other light elements, can readily combine to form heavier elements and in the process release considerable energy, hence the term hydrogen bomb. At these temperatures, the kinetic energy of the nuclei is sufficient to overcome the long-range electrostatic repulsive force between them, such that the nuclei can get close enough together for the shorter-range strong force to attract and fuse the nuclei, hence the term thermonuclear. In thermonuclear weapons, the required temperatures and density of the fusion materials are achieved with a fission explosion.
The nuclear weapons significance may best be appreciated by the coining of the words kiloton, 1,000 tons and megaton, 1,000,000 tons to describe their blast energy in equivalent weights of the conventional chemical explosive TNT. For example, the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945, containing only about 64 kilogrammes, 140 pounds of highly enriched uranium, released energy equaling about 15 kilotons of chemical explosive. That blast immediately produced a strong shock wave, enormous amounts of heat, and lethal ionising radiation. Convection currents created by the explosion drew dust and other debris into the air, creating the mushroom-shaped cloud that has since become the virtual signature of a nuclear explosion. In addition, radioactive debris was carried by winds high into the atmosphere, later to settle to Earth as radioactive fallout.
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