why are nuclear weapons so destructive?

Question

scientifically what make them so powerful and the biggest weapons ever made and the only ones that could destroy our own civilization

Answer 1

E=MC2
The amount of energy released is equal to the mass times the constant speed of light squared. The power of the sun is released when an atomic particle is split (fission). The elements of our universe were forged in the heart of suns with tremendous heat and pressure (fusion). That energy is released when atomic particles are torn apart.

Answer 2

Nukes arent the most powerful weapon. But...To understand that, you have to understand atoms--electrons rotating in a cloud around a nucleus of protons and neutrons.

Nuclear weapons (conventional ones) use a radioactive form of a heavy atom... one with a large nucleus with an easy to split nucleus, typically Uranium (with 235 protons/neutrons in the nucleus).

Ripping these particles apart from each other produces an ENORMOUS amount of energy. The destruction from a nuke comes from 3 sources:

1) Heat-- Immense heat vaporizes nearly everything within a small radius around the explosion.
2) Shockwave-- The wave of air expanding out from the hot gases is like a huge ocean wave, plowing over everything in a wide radius around the site.
3) Radiation/Nuclear fallout-- As a byproduct of the nuclear material being ripped apart, radioactive particles hang in the air and are dispersed over a huge area via the wind. This material can cause cancer and other genetic mutations as well as death from being exposed to lethal radiation doses.

Uranium 238 is a big atom though... and the forces holding the atom together are weaker the larger an atom gets. So, taking that to the logical endpoint, a much more powerful is the HYDROGEN BOMB. Using Hydrogen atoms (with just one proton and neutron in the nucleus), the bomb rips the atom apart to produce an even more powerful explosion, based on the same principles.

Answer 3

Why ask this question under the Earth Science's category?

Repost under Physics, you may get a viable answer.

That said, They are destructive because of the energy released in the action splitting the atomic particulars.

They are not the only weapons that could destroy civilization. Liberalism is destroying civilization and is more insidious.
People fail to study history for the means of learning from it to not repeat it. The US is at the point where the Romans were prior to the rise of the empire, Our republic is dying, representative republic is giving way to an oligarchical government that listens to special interests and not the population.

About the time our original 13 states adopted their new constitution, in 1787, Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh , had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years prior:
"A democracy is always temporary in nature ; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship."
"The average age of the worlds greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years.
During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:
1. >From bondage to spiritual faith;
2. From spiritual faith to great courage;
3. From courage to liberty;
4. From liberty to abundance;
5. From abundance to complacency;
6. From complacency to apathy;
7. From apathy to dependence;
8. From dependence back into bondage "


Anarchy is in our not too distant future.

Answer 4

Even a nuclear weapon with a small yield is significantly more powerful than the largest conventional explosives, and a single weapon is capable of destroying an entire city.
Nuclear weapon designs are physical, chemical, and engineering arrangements which allow for the detonation of a nuclear weapon. They are often divided into two classes:
1. Fission bombs derive their power from nuclear fission, where heavy nuclei (uranium or plutonium) are bombarded by neutrons and split into lighter elements, more neutrons and energy. These are historically called atomic bombs, atom bombs, or A-bombs.
2. Fusion bombs are based on nuclear fusion where light nuclei such as deuterium and tritium (isotopes of hydrogen) combine together into heavier elements and release large amounts of energy.

Answer 5

A nuclear weapon is a weapon which derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions of fission or fusion. As a result, even a nuclear weapon with a small yield is significantly more powerful than the largest conventional explosives, and a single weapon is capable of destroying an entire city

In nuclear physics, a nuclear reaction is a process in which two nuclei or nuclear particles collide to produce products different from the initial particles. In principle a reaction can involve more than two particles colliding, but because the probability of three or more nuclei to meet at the same time at the same place is much less than for two nuclei, such an event is exceptionally rare. While the transformation is spontaneous in the case of radioactive decay, it is initiated by a particle in the case of a nuclear reaction. If the particles collide and separate without changing, the process is called an elastic collision rather than a reaction.

Nuclear fission—also known as atomic fission—is the splitting of the nucleus of an atom into parts (lighter nuclei) often producing photons (in the form of gamma rays), free neutrons and other subatomic particles as by-products. Fission of heavy elements is an exothermic reaction which can release large amounts of energy both as electromagnetic radiation and as kinetic energy of the fragments (heating the bulk material where fission takes place). Fission is a form of elemental transmutation because the resulting fragments are not the same element as the original atom.

Nuclear fission produces energy for nuclear power and to drive the explosion of nuclear weapons. Both uses are made possible because certain substances called nuclear fuels undergo fission when struck by free neutrons and in turn generate neutrons when they fission. This makes possible a self-sustaining chain reaction that releases energy at a controlled rate in a nuclear reactor or at a very rapid uncontrolled rate in a nuclear weapon.

The amount of free energy contained in nuclear fuel is millions of times the amount of free energy contained in a similar mass of chemical fuel such as gasoline, making nuclear fission a very tempting source of energy; however, the products of nuclear fission are highly radioactive and remain so, giving rise to a nuclear waste problem. Concerns over nuclear waste accumulation and over the immense destructive potential of nuclear weapons may counterbalance the desirable qualities of fission as an energy source, and give rise to intense ongoing political debate over nuclear power.


Fusion power refers to power generated by nuclear fusion reactions. In this kind of reaction, two light atomic nuclei fuse together to form a heavier nucleus and release energy. In a more general sense, the term can also refer to the production of net usable power from a fusion source, similar to the usage of the term "steam power." Most design studies for fusion power plants involve using the fusion reactions to create heat, which is then used to operate a steam turbine, similar to most coal-fired power stations as well as fission-driven nuclear power stations.

A fusion reactor will heat plasma to temperatures which are ten times those in the core of the sun. Harnessing such extremes in an engineered "bottle" will take many decades, and ultimately may not be practical.[1] An editorial in New Scientist magazine explained that "if commercial fusion is viable, it may well be a century away."[2]

Answer 6

They release tremendous energy because of nulcear interaction (i.e., interaction between nuclei of atoms) where some mass is destroyed to produce energy. When a small amount of mass is destroyed, it generated tremendous energy according to Einstein's formula :-

E = m*c^2 --- --- --- --- --- (1)
(where, m = mass destroyed, c = speed of light in free space).

You know, the speed of light is a very big number. So, the energy produced by nuclear interaction is very high.

Answer 7

Because the energy released is thousands of times more than the most powerful chemical explosives and also the radiation causes more deaths and health problems even years later.

Answer 8

nuclear weapons are driven by uncontrolled chain reaction.triggered by the nuterons released and the action upon the fissionable nuclear material.

Answer 9

A normal bomb would just explode and people die by the impact of the explosion. A nuclear bomb's lingering radiation kills people years after it was detonated.

Answer 10

nuculear weapons are so destructive because the nuculaer combustion causes a atom to split causing a cataclismic explosion