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His Royal Hiney |
It's easier to make a fusion bomb; just get it to supercriticality and it explodes. A working fusion reactor would require changing the fusion level up or down depending on power requirements and maintaining that level. That's a lot more complicated. "It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life – daily and hourly. Our answer must consist not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual." Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning, 1946. | |||
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| It's pronounced just the way it's spelled |
The problem with a fusion reactor has always been getting the hydrogen/helium/lithium plasma to a high enough temperature long enough for fusion to take place so you can extract enough thermal energy to get a net positive power output. A fusion bomb (aka "Hydrogen bomb") needs the energy from a fission (aka "Atomic bomb") to do this. Short of knowing the math behind the design, I'd say it would be highly unlikely, bordering on impossible to make one of these reactors into a thermonuclear bomb. That's not saying it couldn't be made to overload and explode like conventional high explosives. I truly hope this works as advertised. It has been the holy grail of nuclear science for over 60 years. | |||
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| Shit don't mean shit |
I surely hope they can figure it out...I own quite a few shares of LM stock, and it's been quite good to me! LMT was at ~$91 on 1/3/2013 and closed at $338 yesterday, plus they have a good dividend yield! | |||
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Official Space Nerd |
A supercritical mass detonation from U235 or Plutonium (P239?) is a fission reaction (Little Boy and Fat Man). Fusion is the second stage of a thermonuclear reaction (the heat triggers fusion; hence the 'thermo' part). Fear God and Dread Nought Admiral of the Fleet Sir Jacky Fisher | |||
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| His Royal Hiney |
Yes, I figured you knew that part already - the power from the fission explosion is what is used to cram the fusion components together to start the fusion process. The difficult part once you get to the fusion process is maintaining and controlling the level. "Thermonuclear" just means any nuclear reaction (be it fission or fusion) that occurs at very high temperatures. It doesn't just mean fusion. ETA: I see where you are correcting me. I was using the term supercriticality for the state when when two nuclei are fused together whereas the term is used for fissioning. I don't have an equivalent term for fusion except maybe fusion. "It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life – daily and hourly. Our answer must consist not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual." Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning, 1946. | |||
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