Overview
Building a hydrogen bomb is quick and easy. Forty years ago Time magazine ran an expose on how to build a cheap atomic bomb. The difficult part lies in the effort to obtain enriched uranium or plutonium to be used as a detonator. The critical mass of plutonium lies within forty to sixty pounds of enriched fuel. If such a mass comes together in one place, it begins to fission. The fission reaction builds to a crescendo and the fission nucleus becomes a fissile. A hydrogen bomb can be ignited with a fissile. The color of fast neutrons screaming from a fissile pile demonstrates a sky-blue light of amazing intensity.
Fission devices
An atomic bomb can be either a fat boy device or a thin man device. A fat boy device builds as crescent wedges of plutonium that assemble into a sphere. The wedges drive together with the force of an explosive blasting cap. The Thin Man device is designed as three rods of enriched plutonium that fit in a tube. The three remain separated until driven together by a blasting cap. The thin man design remains the most reliable of the atomic bomb designs and the Russians use this design exclusively in their atomic devices.
Other ways can coax subcritical masses of plutonium to fission. Submitting enriched plutonium masses to intense pressures forces the plutonium to fission. Spinning spheres of plutonium at high rotations per minute stimulates plutonium to fission. The half-life of plutonium is around 5280 years at which time a plutonium atom degrades and emits a slow neutron. The capture area of slow neutrons in a plutonium atom is small so that random degradations do not initiate a chain reaction. Crushing or spinning plutonium increases the capture area as an arithmetic function of pressure or when spinning as an arc inscribed by a rotating mass with radius alpha. By artificial means such as the aforementioned, subcritical masses can be cajoled into a chain reaction.
Fusion bomb design.
Classically, an atom of deuterium fused with an atom of tritium becomes an atom of helium with a liberated mass deficit in energy. The truth exists to the effect that all alkali metals in the periodic table of elements can be fusion fuel if the conditions of fusion are met. A hydrogen bomb simply stated; is an atomic bomb with hydrogen surrounding the fission mass. The hydrogen can be in the form of tanks of gas or as a hydride. Hydrogen gas remains the most stable form of hydrogen to be used in a fusion device. Now they have hydride. Pure lithium metal undergoes atomic fusion and the calculated mass deficit of fusion surpasses the mass deficit of hydrogen fusion into helium. The next generation of fusion devices will use lithium metal as a fusion substrate. With the knowledge of the above parameters, miniaturization of fusion devices becomes possible and within the realm of plausibility. Beryllium also functions as a fusion substrate. Encapsulating a fissile with a Beryllium sphere creates relativistic conditions.
A Poor man’s hydrogen bomb
Creating an explosive with lithium hydride and magnesium possibly assembles a cheap hydrogen bomb. The Gibbs free energy of magnesium oxidation might be of sufficient intensity to approach relativity and induce a fusion event as the fusion enthalpy of hydrogen has been exceeded. Encapsulating the mass with Beryllium might augment the necessary environment for hydride fusion and stimulate a chain reaction. This is like putting gunpowder in a bamboo cylinder like Genghis Khan.
Hope
God gave man the gift of intelligence and thought to separate him from animals and beasts. The strict policing and governing over enriched uranium and plutonium production ensures no criminal to access the basis for explosives of incredible magnitude. Atomic explosives heat the environment. As is the plight of human existence, small lithium bombs on portable handheld missiles will soon enter the theatre of modern warfare. The burden of the next generation will be the humane and constructive use and application of nuclear power in an atmosphere of permissiveness and proliferation.