Little boy was a 12 killaton bomb. Could they make one with only a few hundred pounds of TNT yield?
2006-11-03 14:08:03 · 3 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Physics
There's this nuclear hand grenade, see? It can create a crater 100 yds by 80 yds, see? Only problem is that the average soldier can only throw a grenade 40 yds.
But, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W79 Anything smaller is rather pointless, since the amount of fallout and other effects makes using a conventional weapon more appropriate.
2006-11-03 14:33:00 · answer #1 · answered by arbiter007 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Each fission in a U-235 atom produces about 200 MeV. So I guess a one-atom fission bomb would be the smallest possible...
2006-11-04 15:04:23 · answer #2 · answered by willismg1959 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
You can make tactical nuclear weapons as small as you like. Instead of relying on critical mass to initiate the chain reaction, you zap a much smaller mass of fissionable material with an artificial source of slow neutrons.
2006-11-03 14:14:56 · answer #3 · answered by zee_prime 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋