• Uriel238 [all pronouns]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    1 year ago

    It would explode generally, and disperse bits of the core all about. Congrats! You have a dirty bomb, and all the physicists in other countries will laugh at you. (See the DPRK tests in the aughts)

    This is why we invented the fat man configuration, which then powers the Teller-Ulam configuration in most hydrogen bombs.

    Remember that the demon core and reflectors were lab bits used for the development of the atomic bomb configurations. Little Boy was named in the convention of the Tallboy earthquake bomb, and was a gun design that shot the core with enough force to prevent dispersal before complete fission, and Fat Man evenly compressed the core in all directions, again with enough force to prevent dispersal before complete fission.

    • chuckleslord@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      The demon core wouldn’t explode. It just emits a bright light, fatal amounts of radiation, and would melt if kept closed for more than a few moments.

      At least that’s based on the info I found digging around.

      • PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Yeah, those cores will only detonate through a carefully orchestrated implosion explosion that, with the addition of a neutron reflector, triggers the plutonium to undergo fission as the volume it occupies collapses due to the explosive lenses.

        Or something like that, I’m not a physicist.

        • chuckleslord@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          That’s the gist of it, to my understanding. The demon core makes fission happen, but slower. Like slowly sprinkling raw sodium into a lake, compared to throwing all 50kg in at once.