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Subject: Can someone explain how nukes are so powerful?
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I'm confused by the physics of nukes. How does such a small object (15 feet at the most) capable of killing hundreds of thousands of people? When it explodes, how does it expand so much?

  • 12.23.2012 2:55 PM PDT

Hey guis what's goin on in this sig?

Christmas magic.

  • 12.23.2012 2:56 PM PDT

deviantART

Hello.

Nuclear Fission.

  • 12.23.2012 2:57 PM PDT
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Posted by: Devastation182
Space magic.


Fixed

  • 12.23.2012 2:57 PM PDT


Posted by: WrongLord
Nuclear Fission.

  • 12.23.2012 2:57 PM PDT

Nuka-cola grenade.

  • 12.23.2012 2:58 PM PDT
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My XBL is my account´s name not the alligned winner one :)

Are you seriosly posting on the Flood and EXPECT to get actual answers!??

  • 12.23.2012 2:59 PM PDT

"Banhammer" - Post anything on the Waypoint forums -50g
Never forget:
Porch Day
lolReach
Gen Petitt Day
Night of the Living Alts

Is it really that hard to use Google?

  • 12.23.2012 2:59 PM PDT

Fellow Floodian:
Posted by: Oh This Dude
I had a very similar thing, only I threw a 14 story building out of a pool and hit a kid on a paper aeroplane.


The Flood is just this awesome :D

Screwing with atoms is something the universe doesn't like, so a nuclear explosion happens.

  • 12.23.2012 3:00 PM PDT

Best maps and videos in HQ and HD:

Youtube account: chaimtwee (HQ)
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Check them out.

1 thing creates 2 things.
2 things each create another 2 things.
These 4 things each create another 2 things.

Get it?

Oh and all that, over and over again, not even within a second.

Now imagine all those ''things'' are small pieces of energy.
You get the point.

  • 12.23.2012 3:00 PM PDT

Nuclear physics. Basically, it's a consequence of the weak/strong forces, instead of the electromagnetic force which is what governs chemical reactions/conventional weapons.

  • 12.23.2012 3:00 PM PDT

Particles and explosions and energy and stuff.

  • 12.23.2012 3:00 PM PDT
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LOL @ ur SW@G


Posted by: Forever MS
I'm confused by the physics of nukes. How does such a small object (15 feet at the most) capable of killing hundreds of thousands of people? When it explodes, how does it expand so much?



Because of magic

  • 12.23.2012 3:01 PM PDT

Skwid


Posted by: WrongLord
Nuclear Magic.

  • 12.23.2012 3:01 PM PDT
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E=MC^2. It explains how so much energy can come from small masses.

  • 12.23.2012 3:07 PM PDT

http://i.imgur.com/fsISj.png

Posted by: eg0dude
E=MC^2. It explains how so much energy can come from small masses.

This. E is the number of elves creating the magic energy, M is their pension fund, C is the number of cakes they must be fed, 2 is the number 5 and ^ is a hat the equation wears to parties. Pretty basic physics, you should really know this by secondary school.

  • 12.23.2012 3:10 PM PDT
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A rose is a woody perennial of the genus Rosa, within the family Rosaceae. There are over 100 species. They form a group of plants that can be erect shrubs, climbing or trailing with stems that are often armed with sharp prickles.

Let's watch as everyone pretends to have the slightest clue as to what they're talking about.

  • 12.23.2012 3:10 PM PDT
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Because E=mc^2 - the energy stored in a mass is proportional to its mass, with c^2 being the "exchange rate", if you like. c^2 is a huge number, so you don't need a lot of mass to release a lot of energy.

As to why nukes are so much more powerful than conventional weapons, well, normal weapons rely on chemical reactions which convert a much smaller amount of mass into energy than the nuclear reactions which power nukes.

  • 12.23.2012 3:12 PM PDT

Religion breeds hate


Posted by: Tympanicmetal
1 thing creates 2 things.
2 things each create another 2 things.
These 4 things each create another 2 things.

Get it?

Oh and all that, over and over again, not even within a second.

Now imagine all those ''things'' are small pieces of energy.
You get the point.
All these energies make a big boom.. Pretty much sums it up

  • 12.23.2012 3:14 PM PDT

I'm a stubborn guy. I love to argue my opinion, but unlike others, I'll try to see your side of the problem. I'm a triathlete, with a very heavy empephis on the swimming bit. Also, don't hate on the ~Quinton~ at the end of my posts. Why are you still reading this? #creeper #hashtagcashmoney for hashtaging on Bungie.net

Not really on topic at all but.... Nuclear weapons are extermy inefficient as well. They only release a small percentage of their potential energy.

  • 12.23.2012 3:17 PM PDT


Posted by: annoyinginge
Posted by: eg0dude
E=MC^2. It explains how so much energy can come from small masses.

This. E is the number of elves creating the magic energy, M is their pension fund, C is the number of cakes they must be fed, 2 is the number 5 and ^ is a hat the equation wears to parties. Pretty basic physics, you should really know this by secondary school.

I laughed at that so much more than I should have.

  • 12.23.2012 3:17 PM PDT
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Posted by: Professor24
Not really on topic at all but.... Nuclear weapons are extermy inefficient as well. They only release a small percentage of their potential energy.
Then again, isn't antimatter the only thing more efficient that fusion? And antimatter is a pretty hard thing to harness, y'know, what with us not having any.

  • 12.23.2012 3:21 PM PDT

iPhone 4S 64GB Black.

Haven't got a clue and never want to learn why because I hate Nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction. They're so uncivilised...

  • 12.23.2012 3:22 PM PDT

OMG
Master Chief w/o his Helmet!


Stosh <3's me vicariously... at least someone does...

To address what I believe is the spirit of your question, I'll try to explain the concept of the Mass Defect.

The traditional model of the atom is a cloud of electrons surrounding a much smaller (smaller radius than the cloud) nucleus made of protons and neutrons, which constitute the bulk of an atom's mass.

It was discovered that the mass of the nucleus was less than the protons and neutrons it was made of. That is to say, if you had a given number of protons and neutrons and summed all their masses individually, the number you would get would be larger than the mass of an nucleus comprised of an equal number of protons and neutrons.

This "Mass Defect" represents the conversion of some mass into Binding Energy; which you can think of as the "strength" of the nuclear forces holding the atom together. Likewise, this is the amount of energy it would take to destroy the atom.


(Edit: as others have pointed out, the conversion can be modeled by the famous Energy=Mass*(Speed of Light in Vacuum)^2)


Not all of the energy "lost" goes into Binding energy however. If an atom "doesn't need" that much energy to be bound, the excess energy can be released as radiation. Whether that radiation be comprised of photons or constituents of the atom depends on the type of atom and the amount of energy.

This is why fusion and fission are so powerful. In fusion, we convert mass into energy (which is released as radiation) by combining atoms. In fission, we break apart an atom, which splits into constituents with kinetic energy (they are moving). We take the kinetic energy from fission by letting these constituents crash into things.

A nuclear weapon can only be constructed reasonably out of certain atoms, and even then only certain isotopes of those atoms. The reason is that some isotopes are more unstable than others, and thus will produce more powerful fission events at lower energies. "Enrichment" is simply the separating of usable isotopes from less desirable ones (they are found together in nature).

With certain materials (such as U-235,233, or Pu-239), a fission "chain reaction" can occur, in which an addition of energy (via neutron collision) will cause some material to fission, and the neutrons released from this fission have enough energy to cause fission when they collide with more of the material.

In a nuclear weapon, this happens trillions of times over, and all that "extra" energy waiting in the Mass Defect becomes very, very, noticeable. Some fission weapons release so much energy (the "100,000,000 degrees" Cortana talks about in Halo 1), that they are capable of causing fusion, and thus apparatus are added to these weapons that allow the fission event to cause a fusion event, thus increasing the yield of the weapon. This is how the 50 MT Tsar Bomba was built.

Hopefully that cleared things up.



[Edited on 12.23.2012 3:45 PM PST]

  • 12.23.2012 3:30 PM PDT

So that's how it is. You all ought to know better than that.

A Uranium atom splitting releases far more energy than a molecule of a chemical explosive reacting. Considering that millions of atoms split withing the span of a few milliseconds, the amount of energy released is massive. And this doesn't factor in Hydrogen bombs...

  • 12.23.2012 3:30 PM PDT

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