What's the difference between the atomic bomb and hydrogen bomb?

Answer 1

atomic bomb used nuclear fission, in which big atoms (uranium or plutonium) were split into littler ones in a chain reaction, releasing vast amounts of energy

The hydrogen bomb employs nuclear fusion, in which little atoms (various forms of hydrogen) fuse together to make bigger ones (helium), essentially the same process that occurs in the sun

Answer 2

The traditional "atomic bomb" is a fission bomb. Fissile atomic nuclei will split into smaller nuclei when they absorb a neutron. While they split, they shoot out neutrons which go and hit other atoms which, well, absorb the neutron and split, thereby shooting out neutrons which....

This goes on extremely rapidly. If there is too little matter, most neutrons will escape without touching other atoms.

If there is enough matter (the "critical mass"), then a neutron will probably hit a nucleus, causing it to split and shoot out more neutrons...

The "binding energy" holding together the protons and neutrons of a fissile nucleus (on the verge of splitting) is greater than the sum of binding energies of the resulting smaller atoms. The difference is what comes out as energy when the bomb goes off.

All you need for a fission bomb is to bring together a sufficient quantity of fissile matter. Normally, you have two pieces, each has less than the critical mass. At the "right" moment (or the wrong moment, depending), you ram them together to get more than the critical mass. The rest is pure physics.

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A "hydrogen bomb" is a fusion bomb, where light atoms (often involving Hydrogen, the lightest atom) combine -- fuse together -- to form bigger atomic nuclei. At that end of the scale, the mass of the resulting nucleus is slightly less than the combined mass of the smaller nuclei that fused together. The difference comes out as mass according to E = m c^2

It is very difficult to fuse light elements. Normally, the positive charge of the protons is sufficient to keep the nuclei from hitting each other.

At the centre of the Sun, this is done by very high pressure and temperatures in the millions of degrees: the nuclei are so close together and moving so fast that they will really crash into each other and fuse.

In the early fusion bombs, this was done by surrounding the hydrogen bomb by a fission bomb shaped so that a lot of pressure would go towards the centre. The atomic bomb would be the trigger for the hydrogen bomb.

The H-bomb was a lot more efficient than the A-bomb. (of course, "efficient" varies with your point of view).

Answer 3

A Bomb explosion fission based, energy released by heavy elements rapidly decaying and causing a chain reaction.

H bomb is far far more powerful, fusion based. Energy released when light element (Hydrogen) undergoes fusion under the extreme conditions at the centre of an A bomb, that's why an A bomb is required to trigger it.

Both cause massive electromagnetic pulse and result in radioactive fallout (because H bomb still requires radioactive material to trigger it).

H bomb is technologically more complex and as I already mentioned, generates a far greater blast!

Answer 4

Atomic bomb is when the atoms (usually big elements, like uranium)in the bomb seperates into halves and create heat when they split.
Hydrogen bomb is when the atoms (little hydrogen atoms) in the bomb gets together as pairs, on and on and on, That also creates heat while they get together.
A hydrogen bomb is more dangerous than an atomic bomb, but I dont why....maybe cuz when atoms get together creates more heat than spliting out? I dont know, so you should find out about it a little more.
Yeah, thats the biggest difference between them.

My English is kinda bad, so forgive me....

Answer 5

atomic bomb uses only nuclear fission

whereas a hydrogen bomb uses both nuclear fission and fusion . first the fission reaction risese the temperature of the reaction mixture in the bomb , usualy a mixture of deuterium, tritium and lithium to 100000000 K which is necessary for fusion reaction to take place .

Answer 6

A atomic bomb uses conventional explosives to start the chain reaction. A hydrogen bomb uses a atomic explosion to set off a much larger chain reaction.

Answer 7

Just one additional factoid to add: the largest yield American "hydrogen bombs" actually detonated derived the majority of their blast power from the fission of normally non-fissionable U-238, a shell of which surrounded the fusion reaction and whose nuclei split from the high energy neutrons released during fusion of the light elements, which were typically tritium and deuterium.

Answer 8

What we call an "atomic bomb" uses uranium as the active element.

Answer 9

I am not a scientist ,but I do Believe One is made from PLUTONIUM not sure of the spelling and the other is from HYDROGEN