What exactly causes a nuke to have such a big explosion?

Answer 1

When uranium or plutonium split high amounts of radioactive and heat energy is realesed. A chain reaction cause explosions hottter than the sun. Fusion bombs other known as hydrogen or H bombs use fusion. Fusion realeses much more energy but requires a fission bomb to detonate it. So a nuclear bomb can be so powerful it needs another nuclear bomb to detonate it.

I will add in fission and fusion some mass is converted into energy causing the explosion.

Answer 2

In a fission bomb, a neutron chain reaction is started in the highly-compressed mass of U235 or Pu239. Each neutron breaks-up a nucleus, creating more neutrons than 1. This mushrooming effect occurs in an incredibly short period of time. The net effect of these reactions is a loss of mass, which, by Einstein's E= mc^2 rule is converted to energy.

In a fusion bomb, tritium (1H3) and hydrogen are fused to form 2He4. Again, the net effect is to lose mass, from which an even larger explosion can occur.

Answer 3

you know the famous equation E = m * c^2

Energy liberated = mass lost * speed of light ^2

In nuke bomb, atoms (usually uranium 235) are broken. During this breaking (called fission) there is some mass lost (called mass defect - conversion of mass in energy). This suddenly liberates lot of energy in the form of heat.

The energy so liberated evoporates the nearby rock and soil and results in huge explosion. The shock waves travel from this point radially outwards. Most damage is done by these shock waves.

In simple terms.. To make the things easier to understand.

Answer 4

In the nuclear reactions a small amount of mass is converted to energy, this tends to be a lot of energ since E=mc^2, and as c is the speed of light it is a big number.
In conventional explosives there are just chemical reactions in which mass is conserved and the energy released is much less.

Answer 5

The true equation is del E = del m c^2; where the del's mean change in.

In fission, a heavy atom (M) is split into two or more child atoms whose total mass is (m). The sum of the child atom masses is less than the initial mass of the heavy atom. In math talk, m < M or 0 < M - m = del m, the change in mass from before to after the atom is split. Where did that change in mass go...into energy, the del E in del E = del m c^2.

In fusion we have the sum of masses of two or more light atoms. Under intense heat and pressure, these light atoms are fused into a heavy atom (M). This time m > M and del m = m - M > 0 That is, the sum of mass for the small atoms is greater than the resulting fused atom mass and, again, the lost mass, the mass deficit, is converted into energy del E.

Now imagine billions of atoms doing this fission or fusing in a matter of a few seconds. These billions of atoms are set off by something called a chain reaction, where one atom sets off two, two set off four, four set off 16 and so on. Each atom fuse or fission is releasing some measurable energy. When you add up all those atoms converting their mass deficits into energy, you can get a lot of energy all at once...boom.

Answer 6

In simple terms:

Nuclear fission (found in nukes and nuclear power plants) release energy as the reaction progresses. In nuclear power plants, the energy is released in the form of heat energy. In nukes, however, the large amounts of energy released by the detonator inside the bomb can only be released by means of light, heat, sound and mechanical energy, hence the explosion.