Hydrogen Bomb?

Question

Is it true that a hydrogen bomb can be made indefinitely large? And given materials available on Earth, can a Hydrogen bomb be made to destroy entire planets?

Answer 1

In order to totally destroy the earth you would need to create enough energy that the earth contains (it's a law of physics!). The earth contains roughly 2.24*10^32 Joules of energy. It is thought that an object creating enough energy/force 3/5 of this number could shatter the earth (not completely destroy, but, whatever - close enough). So we need to generate 1.5x10^32 - 2.25x10^32 Joules of energy with our mega-bomb, right?

1 kiloton equals 4.184 x10^12 Joules, so you need a bomb between 50-85 zetatons capacity (or at least 5x10^22 tons). The largest bomb detonated has a theoretical capacity of 100 Megatons (a russian bomb called Tsar Bomba), and weighed 27 tons itself. A little more math, and you would require a bomb that weighed 1.35x10^17 tons or 135 petatons.

While this is only about 1/100,000 the size of the earth, this is only about 1/100ths of the earth's crust. That's a lot of material needed to make the bomb!

(not to mention that the earth doesn't that have the required radioactive elements in its crust!)

Answer 2

A Hydrogen bomb is a thermonuclear device. It doesn't use molecular hydrogen but lithium deuteride. The Russians have tested a 50 megaton bomb in the 60's and was said they have a 100 megaton one in reserve, but even that last bomb wouldn't be able to erase from the map an island the size of Puerto Rico. Furthermore it wouldn't produce more contamination than the bomb was used in Hiroshima due to the products of fission of the nuclear reactor build inside to prime the H bomb. The products of FUSION are not contaminant. They are mostly helium.

Answer 3

A Hydrogen Bomb is basically a stick of dynamite, but instead of gunpowder, it has nuclear reactors. So yes, you can make it so incredibly large that it can wipe out planets. Problem is that it would take an indefinitely large amount of money to make an indefinitely large Hydrogen Bomb.

Answer 4

the principle in an hydrogen bomb is that the hydrogen atoms fuse to form helium atoms.this is what is taking place in our sun.we are yet to find a way to control this reaction.but we can control nuclear reactions.so even if a hydrogen bomb is made the explosion will coninuely take place until all the hydrogen atoms get used up.so can destroy the whole planet.

Answer 5

With current technology ONE H-Bomb cannot destroy an entire planet (Earth size). The way technology is progressing, yes it may be possible to do so in the future - near or far.

Answer 6

It is only limited by the quantity of radioactive isotopes available to keep the fission process going. It could destroy a planet's biosphere and perhaps change the orbit and /or rotation and eject sufficient debris to send a planet spiraling into the abiss of space...lifeless except for cockroaches and other lower lifeforms.

Answer 7

first of all regular explossives are much cheaper than hydrogen the second thing that hydrogen is explossive at certain level of oxygen so i thing oxygen tank must be attached to the bomb to reach that level

Answer 8

Sure but it would be huge