Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

To: Alter Kaker
You may think that but you're wrong. Little Boy was crude and inefficient - and the design was never used again after an implosion style device was shown to work.

I think the Little Boy Bomb was a more elegant design because it had greater tolerances for errors and was likely to work even if you don't meet exacting design tolerances. Exactly the type of engineering needed for the first fusion reactors where they don't know what the hell they're doing yet.

Perfect is the enemy of done.

27 posted on 04/09/2021 7:02:43 PM PDT by wildcard_redneck ( COVID lockdowns are the Establishment's attack on the middle class and our Republic )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies ]


To: wildcard_redneck

The little boy design never went away once the problem of centrifuges was mastered during the cold war both sides used gun type devices to make miniature artillery sized shells an implosion device has a physics limited minimum diameter which is too large to fit into a 155mm shell casing. Using uranium one can set up a double ended gun type device with two guns and a central target with nearly three critical masses total which puts it in the 50_100 it range or go small and use 1.2 crucial mass and get into the low KT range perfect for tactical use. Switching to U233 instead of 235 and using tritium boosting in the central target allows for shells smaller than 155mm the acknowledged smallest is 120mm and small enough to fit in a 25kg shell. While not movie plot device light that is small enough to fit in the average sized back pack. The Russians used the double gun with a central boosted design for thousands of tactical shells, mines and missiles in the cold war as while not as efficient with fissile materials they has gobs of it from the mines in their central Asian possessions.


33 posted on 04/10/2021 4:44:06 AM PDT by JD_UTDallas ("Veni Vidi Vici" )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson