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tmahfan117 t1_iy634s6 wrote

An H-Bomb is a kind of Atomic bomb.

Broadly there are two kinds of atomic bombs. Fission bombs, and Fusion bombs.

The first kind, Fission Bombs, were the first ones made of Uranium and Plutonium, the kind that were dropped on Japan during WW2. This work by splitting very large, heavy, radioactive atoms like Uranium and Plutonium. In a chain reaction.

The second kind are Fusion Bombs, these work the same way the Sun does, by fusing Hydrogen atoms together into Helium. Which to get to the pressures needed to do that it actually first explodes a fission bomb “around” the fusion bomb to compress that core and force fusion to happen.

H-Bombs are “Hydrogen Bombs”, so bombs that fuse hydrogen together, making them the second kind, Fusion Bombs.

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Any-Growth8158 t1_iy9lw2l wrote

To be pedantic there are fission bombs and fission/fusion bombs. There are no pure fusion bombs that are known to the public. Depending upon the design, the ratio of fission to fusion energy can vary quite widely.

EDIT:

And they typically use lithium as the fusion fuel. Hydrogen (deutrium or tritium) are more likely used as proposed fuels for commercial fusion energy production

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VelocityDuck t1_iy62tsx wrote

What is called a “A bomb” uses fission (splitting atoms) while an “H Bomb” uses fusion (joining atoms). H bombs generate significantly more power.

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As_TheHoursPass t1_iy65dks wrote

The energy needed to initiate fusion is far too large to just have it happen on its own. You can't do it in a bomb, so there's no such thing as a fusion bomb.

Hydrogen (aka thermonuclear) bombs get the energy needed to start the fusion reaction by setting off a fission reaction first, so they're fission-fusion bombs. It's called the Teller-Ulam design, named after the two physicists who came up with it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Teller%E2%80%93Ulam_design

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VelocityDuck t1_iy6tqno wrote

I guess you missed the part that ELI5 means Explain Like I’m FIVE.

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As_TheHoursPass t1_iy6ugr2 wrote

No, no I didn't. This sub isn't literally for 5 year olds.

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VelocityDuck t1_iyeam68 wrote

That's right. Which is why it's called Explain LIKE I'm five.

Since you're having trouble with this, I'll try to explain. It means to explain as if you were explaining it to a five year old. You know, keeping it very simple.

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internetboyfriend666 t1_iy62rtu wrote

"Atomic bomb" is an outdated term for any nuclear weapon, usually referring to the earliest nuclear bombs that worked using purely nuclear fission. A hydrogen bomb (also called a thermonuclear bomb) is a specific type of nuclear bomb that uses nuclear fission and nuclear fusion, making them much more powerful and destructive than purely fission weapons.

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Mammoth-Mud-9609 t1_iy64xa0 wrote

Standard nuclear bombs work by nuclear fission Splitting apart an atom,a hydrogen bomb work by nuclear fusion (like the sun)

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ThankYouPhysicist t1_iy7ot2m wrote

A-bombs are the original nuclear bomb, and use fission of big atoms (hence "atomic bomb") to generate the explosion. These are generally much lower yield (up to a few hundred kilotons, maybe 10-20x the size of Hiroshima).

But shortly after inventing the A-bomb, scientists worked out you could generate exponentially more bang by using an A-bomb as a kind of trigger to set off fusion in Hydrogen, like what our star runs off. This is why H(ydrogen)-bombs are also known as "thermonuclear" weapons, because they use the heat generated by the triggering A-bomb to start fusion. H-bombs are way larger, the largest detonated was Tsar Bomba, 50 megatons! (50,000 kilotons). This is about 3,000 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb.

So in short, A-bombs are smaller and use fission of heavy elements to make the bang. H-bombs are much more powerful, and use an A-bomb "trigger" to create fusion in a hydrogen fuel source.

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Flair_Helper t1_iyccatb wrote

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