Speaker 1: Hey, Daniel, do you ever wish you had a superpower
Speaker 1: all the time? I wish I had lots of superpowers.
Speaker 1: But you know, science has actually provided us with some real,
Speaker 1: honest to God powers that our ancestors might have thought
Speaker 1: were superpowers. Not quite yet, but you know, we can
Speaker 1: do some pretty amazing stuff. We'll listen to the podcast
Speaker 1: episode about teleportation before you decide, but we can do
Speaker 1: some pretty amazing stuff, stuff that would have limited to
Speaker 1: deities a thousand years ago. You know, things like harnessing
Speaker 1: the power of the sun. What do you mean, like
Speaker 1: we can create the sun here on Earth. Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: we can create miniute your son's here on Earth. Not
Speaker 1: recommended to do in your at home kitchen, but it's
Speaker 1: something science is capable of. Hi. I'm Jorge and I'm Daniel.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Daniel and Jorge explained the Universe our podcast
Speaker 1: about the universe and everything in it and everyone in it,
Speaker 1: and even about aliens if they are in it. Yea,
Speaker 1: even about sons sons s U N and sons s
Speaker 1: O N, And we explain it all today on the program.
Speaker 1: We are actually talking about harnessing the power of the sun.
Speaker 1: Science has distilled the thing that happens inside the sun,
Speaker 1: the energy release, and made it available for us here
Speaker 1: on Earth with explosive results. That's right. So, if you
Speaker 1: are a dictator of your own little country looking to
Speaker 1: become a nuclear superpower, this is the podcast for you.
Speaker 1: Do they ever going to talk about nuclear weapons and
Speaker 1: specifically the nuclear bomb? How does it work? How do
Speaker 1: you build one in your garage? Should you build one
Speaker 1: in your garage? The answer is no, The answer is
Speaker 1: definitely no, one should you? But could you? Maybe? Maybe
Speaker 1: this podcast is about the science, not the ethics. I
Speaker 1: think we'll touch on both actually, because science is never
Speaker 1: free of ethics. It's it's always a complex mixture. So
Speaker 1: nuclear bombs is something that people, obviously we're very surprised
Speaker 1: to learn about in the mid forties, uh, and then
Speaker 1: there was a huge concern with the Cold War up
Speaker 1: until the eighties and nineties, but then it sort of
Speaker 1: quieted down until a little bit recently. Right, there's been
Speaker 1: a lot of talk about rogue nations and the threat
Speaker 1: of nuclear bombs and nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. Well,
Speaker 1: if you ask the Union of Concerned Scientists, I don't
Speaker 1: think they've quieted down at all. There's been a pretty
Speaker 1: consistent fear that we would destroy ourselves and kill everybody
Speaker 1: on basically since we've got the power to do so. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean we had in the eighties, the USSR in
Speaker 1: the USA had enormous nuclear stockpiles, tens of thousands of
Speaker 1: nuclear weapons pointed at each other with hair triggers. And
Speaker 1: these days we have fewer, you know, if in the
Speaker 1: number of thousands instead of tens of thousands, But still
Speaker 1: there's plenty of power there to destroy each other very easy.
Speaker 1: Only are you saying scientists have a hard time relaxing
Speaker 1: in general, if you know, the more you know about
Speaker 1: the state of nuclear weapons, the harder it is to
Speaker 1: really relax. Yes, but you know your your point is taken.
Speaker 1: The big powers have not yet blown each other up,
Speaker 1: and we are worth these days about smaller powers and
Speaker 1: nuclear powers and terrorists in North Korea and all these
Speaker 1: folks who were developing these capabilities. So it kind of
Speaker 1: made us wonder, like, how many people out there actually
Speaker 1: know how a nuclear bomb works? And how do you
Speaker 1: make one? And would it be a bad idea to
Speaker 1: explain to everybody exactly how to build a nuclear bomb? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Are we going to get arrested for this podcast or
Speaker 1: put on some kind of watch list surveillance. That's right.
Speaker 1: And to say we are not telling you everybody anything
Speaker 1: that wouldn't know in a physics class anyway. Yes, if
Speaker 1: we are going to get arrested for treason, you gotta
Speaker 1: lock up every professor out there, Yes, which I bet
Speaker 1: some people would like to do. That's right. That was
Speaker 1: not a policy suggestion. H m hmmm. So we went
Speaker 1: out there and ask people, do you know how a
Speaker 1: nuclear bomb works? Yeah? So I think for a moment,
Speaker 1: how much do you know about a nuclear weapon? How
Speaker 1: does it actually work? If you had to? Could you
Speaker 1: build one in your garage? Here's what people had to say.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure. Honestly, I do not have no idea
Speaker 1: at all. Um, by smashing together particles cool? I'd only
Speaker 1: say yes, but I don't know how to say it
Speaker 1: in the English Chinese? Uh honevia. So there's a two
Speaker 1: kinds of nuclear bomb, right? Yeah? I combon and what
Speaker 1: was that called hydridable? Yeah? So it's why is vision? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Wha yeah? Yeah? Yeah? Yeah So that's interesting. I feel
Speaker 1: like not a lot of people know how nuclear bomb works. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Half the people had no idea um, and the other
Speaker 1: half had some idea that it was something about the
Speaker 1: power of the atom. I like, the guy who only
Speaker 1: knew the words in Chinese, keep is so excited to
Speaker 1: tell me what he knew. I was like, yeah, tell
Speaker 1: me Chinese, that's fine. He definitely knew something about the topic.
Speaker 1: But yeah, people generally either didn't know anything or they
Speaker 1: knew that it's something to do with the adamant and
Speaker 1: they're right. Essentially, the way nuclear bomb works is that
Speaker 1: it releases energy stored inside the atom or lots of atoms,
Speaker 1: really really rapidly. M m. That's what's called the atomic bomb. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The early versions are called atomic bombs. So there's sort
Speaker 1: of two categories of nuclear weapons. There's the early ones
Speaker 1: that use fission where you split an atom apart. Those
Speaker 1: are called atomic bombs, and the later ones that are
Speaker 1: called hydrogen bombs or h bombs. Those use fusion where
Speaker 1: you squeeze nucleon together. And we'll get into the nitty
Speaker 1: gritty of exactly all how that works and why it's interesting.
Speaker 1: So there are atomic bombs and hydrogen bombs. They're both
Speaker 1: nuclear weapons. Oh, I see, and they weren't using different
Speaker 1: methods one of them is fizzy, the other one is fuzzy.
Speaker 1: That's exactly right, that's exactly right. One of them split
Speaker 1: the atom opened, and the other one squeezes atom together.
Speaker 1: And it's sort of surprising. You might be thinking. Hold on,
Speaker 1: if splitting atoms open releases energy, how come the opposite
Speaker 1: thing of fusing them together also releases energy. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: before we get into the technical details, you mentioned you
Speaker 1: had some personal connection to the Manhattan Project and the
Speaker 1: nuclear industry here in the United States. Can you tell
Speaker 1: us about that. Yeah, it's not that I've ever built
Speaker 1: a nuclear bomb myself. No, certainly not about doctor Manhattan.
Speaker 1: I'm not Doctor Manhattan. But I did grow up in
Speaker 1: Los Angles, New Mexico, the home of the Manhattan Project,
Speaker 1: where in the forties all these scientists got together to
Speaker 1: crack this mystery. And you know, the history of this
Speaker 1: is fascinating. It was in the late thirties that people
Speaker 1: figured out, oh, you can split the atom and release
Speaker 1: some huge amounts of energy. I mean, much more energy
Speaker 1: than is released when you blow up dynamite or burnt
Speaker 1: coal or anything like that. And so immediately, even before
Speaker 1: the world was at war, people realized this is the
Speaker 1: technology for a new weapon. This could be a devastating
Speaker 1: new super happened, and so of course most people know
Speaker 1: the story. The US government gathered people together in the
Speaker 1: middle of nowhere in New Mexico. They chose Los Almos
Speaker 1: because it's a place basically no one would go on purpose,
Speaker 1: and so no one would run into it. It wasn't
Speaker 1: because if they made a mistake, not that many people
Speaker 1: would would die in an active uh you know what.
Speaker 1: That's probably an aspect of it also being remote out
Speaker 1: in the middle of the desert um. But as a
Speaker 1: high schooler, you know, it wasn't much consolation to know
Speaker 1: that you were living in a place that that the
Speaker 1: government thought was going to be super boring and no
Speaker 1: one would want to go to. And they were pretty
Speaker 1: much right. There's not a whole lot to do in
Speaker 1: Los Almos. And in fact, your parents worked for the
Speaker 1: Los Almos National Laboratory, right They worked on nuclear engineering
Speaker 1: and physics. That's right. Both of my parents worked for
Speaker 1: Los Almos labs where the bombs were developed. What they
Speaker 1: work on, I can't tell you, not because I'm being
Speaker 1: secretive about it, but because I don't know. Both of
Speaker 1: them had Q clearances, they never told you. No, I
Speaker 1: never visited their offices. I never talked to them in
Speaker 1: any detail about their work. I never heard about it
Speaker 1: because it was all behind the clearance fence, the security fence.
Speaker 1: It was all top secret. Wow, they saw you as
Speaker 1: a threat even then, that's right. They have to go
Speaker 1: through a laborate procedures to make sure they were trustworthy.
Speaker 1: We're not going to be spies for some enemy nation
Speaker 1: or something like that, or blackmail bull So like at
Speaker 1: the dinner table, what would you guys talk about, Like
Speaker 1: how is work? I can't tell you, don't ask me.
Speaker 1: We learned pretty quickly not to ask those questions exactly.
Speaker 1: And there was no you know, take your son to
Speaker 1: work day or this kind of stuff. And you know,
Speaker 1: it's interesting because when I was a kid, I learned
Speaker 1: about the history of Los Alamos. And in Los Almos,
Speaker 1: they teach you pride. They teach you this is the
Speaker 1: place the bomb was developed. This is the location of
Speaker 1: a great scientific discovery, and not just that, but that
Speaker 1: we should feel pride, national pride, and having developed something
Speaker 1: which won the war. Right, people in this town, scientists
Speaker 1: and where your parents work, they won the war with
Speaker 1: their brains and so this sort of like pride was
Speaker 1: really deeply um not moving into the curriculum in life
Speaker 1: in Los Almos. It's almost like propaganda. Definitely, it's exactly
Speaker 1: like propaganda, because it is propaganda. And it was only
Speaker 1: later that I heard about the controversy, like should we
Speaker 1: have dropped those bombs and killed hundreds of thousands of civilians?
Speaker 1: You know, that turns out to be quite a complex
Speaker 1: moral question, you know. And if you're a scientist working
Speaker 1: on these weapons, should you be should you be developing
Speaker 1: these weapons and then putting them in the hands of
Speaker 1: politicians who could use them to kill women and children?
Speaker 1: Did you ever talk to your that about that, like
Speaker 1: if he ever felt any feelings like that or how
Speaker 1: an your thoughts about that? You know. It's interesting is
Speaker 1: I didn't ask him about it until I was in
Speaker 1: my twenties, you know, like a decade after we lived
Speaker 1: in Los Alamos, and I asked him about and he said,
Speaker 1: you're the first person to ask me that question, and
Speaker 1: that was sort of shocking. Also, like people most almost
Speaker 1: don't discuss it very much. His friends didn't ask him,
Speaker 1: his family is what the family didn't ask him. I
Speaker 1: was a physics student. I knew all about this and
Speaker 1: and never asked him until it's finally occurred to me.
Speaker 1: And yeah, so I asked him, and he, um, you know,
Speaker 1: he's thought about it, he's balanced these things, and he thought, um,
Speaker 1: that the nation needed defending, and there are other people
Speaker 1: out there developing nuclear weapons, and that we needed to
Speaker 1: have our arsenal ready and needed to be a tip
Speaker 1: top shape, and we needed to have the same guns
Speaker 1: as the enemy had. And you know, this was in
Speaker 1: the eighties and nineties, and so the Cold War was
Speaker 1: a very recent memory, and it was not ridiculous to
Speaker 1: think that the Russia could launch nuclear weapons against us.
Speaker 1: So I think he felt some sort of pride that
Speaker 1: he was helping the national cause. So like, what was
Speaker 1: your high school mascot in your school radiation? That the fallout? Right,
Speaker 1: probably the radioactive isotope. No, No, it was nothing so exciting.
Speaker 1: We lived in the top of a hill. It was
Speaker 1: almost the top of mountains. So are high school mascot
Speaker 1: is the hilltoppers? Yeah, not not terribly exciting. Um, But
Speaker 1: my reaction to this, this moral quandity, was totally different.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to have anything to do with it,
Speaker 1: and so want. I had to choose a field of
Speaker 1: physics to study, I chose something very far away from
Speaker 1: any practical applications, which is, you know, Higgs boson and
Speaker 1: dark matter and particle physics. And so it's a selling
Speaker 1: point to me that none of my research could ever
Speaker 1: have any practical, immediate practical application and therefore probably not
Speaker 1: be used to kill any babies. And you know that
Speaker 1: helps me sleep at night, not killing babies for my work,
Speaker 1: just avoid all responsibility. Yeah, you almost could say I'm
Speaker 1: a cartoonist, right have have any of your cartoons ever
Speaker 1: killed any babies? Not that I know of. Maybe you
Speaker 1: should look into that, wholegs and you should have a
Speaker 1: more definitive answer to that question. I feel like this
Speaker 1: is a great recruiting of audio for physicists, you know,
Speaker 1: looking to avoid responsibility, don't want anything to do with
Speaker 1: the real world, like the particles, don't like killing babies.
Speaker 1: Go into particle physics. We have killed zero babies to date.
Speaker 1: So you're you're tied to sort of the history of
Speaker 1: nuclear energy in this country. Yeah, absolutely, And you know,
Speaker 1: my parents were supported by the Department of Energy, and
Speaker 1: now actually the Department Energy supports my research. So I've
Speaker 1: basically been supported by the Department of Energy directly or
Speaker 1: indirectly since I was ten um, so I'm pretty totally
Speaker 1: closely tied into what I can say. I'm completely morally
Speaker 1: insulated from it. I mean, I ate food which was
Speaker 1: paid for by the programs which funded nuclear weapons development, etcetera, etcetera.
Speaker 1: So my hands are not clean. Yeah, so I feel
Speaker 1: this personal connection, and I used to feel this pride,
Speaker 1: and now I feel, you know, a lot shame. But
Speaker 1: it's definitely more complicated, definitely not happy. When I imagine
Speaker 1: all those people in Hiroshima, Nagasaki, I'm going about their
Speaker 1: day and then being suddenly destroyed by nuclear bombs. It's
Speaker 1: definitely complicated how these bombs work. But before we get
Speaker 1: into it, let's take a quick break. All right, let's
Speaker 1: talk about how exactly a nuclear bomb works. So how
Speaker 1: you said there's two kinds. Actually there is fusion and
Speaker 1: there is fission bombs, So that's two different kinds of
Speaker 1: nuclear bombs. How do they work? That's right? And so
Speaker 1: if you are the director of a rogue nation's nuclear
Speaker 1: weapons program, this is where you're gonna want to start
Speaker 1: taking notes. Okay, So I like how do you choose
Speaker 1: which one. It's fascinating because a fusion bomb actually requires
Speaker 1: a fission bomb to ignite it. Yeah, but we'll talk
Speaker 1: about that in a minute. So you should start with
Speaker 1: if you're developing a new technology, you start with fission
Speaker 1: because it's easier. All the fusion is much more powerful.
Speaker 1: So fission is breaking the nucleus of an atom, and
Speaker 1: fusion is putting together the nucleus of an atom. That's
Speaker 1: the difference, right, That's right. Fusion is fusing together and
Speaker 1: a nucleus, and fission is breaking it apart, exactly, fizzing
Speaker 1: it or phisiling it or physicisting it or whatever the
Speaker 1: verb is fizzing. Okay, thank you, and um so. But
Speaker 1: a nuclear bomb works essentially the same way as another bomb,
Speaker 1: and that its goal is released a lot of energy. Right,
Speaker 1: So you have to find some stored and ergen and
Speaker 1: release it. And you can do that in dynamite with
Speaker 1: this stored chemical energy, or something in oil with this
Speaker 1: stored stored energy in the gasoline or whatever. But nuclear
Speaker 1: energy is much more powerful because it has a lot
Speaker 1: more energy stored in it. Because that's all a bomb is,
Speaker 1: It's just the release of a lot of energy at
Speaker 1: the same time in a small space, right, Exactly, anything
Speaker 1: you use for power you can also turn into a bomb.
Speaker 1: Just release that energy really really quickly. Right. You can
Speaker 1: slowly burn the gasoline in your car, or you can
Speaker 1: put it in a vocal bottle and set it on
Speaker 1: fire like a Molotov cocktail. It's the same process. It
Speaker 1: just happens more rapidly. And if you release all that
Speaker 1: energy really quickly, then it creates a shock wave, right,
Speaker 1: And that's what's destructive, is creating all this energy release
Speaker 1: at once creates this shock wave of heat and air,
Speaker 1: and that's what blasts things apart. I see. So, like
Speaker 1: the batteries in my phone have a lot of energy
Speaker 1: stored in it into it, but there's no reaction that
Speaker 1: will cause it to like be released all quickly at
Speaker 1: the same time, exactly unless you have the Galaxy notes
Speaker 1: seven with Jack. If you have it, please at least
Speaker 1: take it back in right. But as far as I'm aware,
Speaker 1: there's no nuclear bomb app that which will set your
Speaker 1: phone on fire or anything. So where does that energy
Speaker 1: come from? And so our interviewees were correct, and that
Speaker 1: energy comes from the atom itself. That is, if you
Speaker 1: take uranium, for example, and you split it in half,
Speaker 1: energy is released. And so that that's the basic idea.
Speaker 1: You might wonder all wise, energy released, right, Well, so
Speaker 1: uranium breaks into two other things, krypton and barium, and
Speaker 1: so those two things are released. And the reason energy
Speaker 1: is released is because there's more energy stored in uranium
Speaker 1: than in the sum of krypton and barium, and so
Speaker 1: when you break it into crypton embarium, there's extra energy
Speaker 1: left over. But it's it's kind of weird to grasp
Speaker 1: because if I take a stick of wood and I
Speaker 1: split it in half, I don't get energy released, that's right.
Speaker 1: But imagine you had a stick of wood that was
Speaker 1: in two pieces and it was held together by a spring, right,
Speaker 1: Then there's stored energy g in that configuration, and when
Speaker 1: you break it, that's released. The sprain will sprung out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it'll spring out and will push the two things apart.
Speaker 1: For example. So if there's stored energy in the configuration
Speaker 1: and you break it, then that energy is released. And
Speaker 1: so that's what happens when you break uranium atom. There's
Speaker 1: energy stored in the arrangement, right, and then energy is released,
Speaker 1: meaning and it that's what it does it that energy
Speaker 1: that's stored then pushes the two pieces apart really fast. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it actually sends out neutrons. You get you get
Speaker 1: two other smaller atoms and a bunch of neutrons which
Speaker 1: fly out. Okay, and the neutrons were actually part of
Speaker 1: the original nucleus. Yeah, exactly, part of the uranium nucleus.
Speaker 1: You got to start with something which can break into
Speaker 1: two smaller pieces and release energy. That's the goal if
Speaker 1: you want to do fission, and uranium is great for that.
Speaker 1: There are other things that can do it also, plutonium, amersium,
Speaker 1: other ones, but uranium is the one which works best. Okay,
Speaker 1: why why is it good for? Why is uranium good?
Speaker 1: What's special about uranium? Well, it just so happens that
Speaker 1: is an isotope of uranium, uranium two thirty five, which
Speaker 1: is really unstable, and so it's easier to get it too.
Speaker 1: I'm looking for that verb again. Fizz fizz ile vision
Speaker 1: eight split, vision eight split. Thank you. It's easier to
Speaker 1: get uranium two thirty five to split than uranium two
Speaker 1: thirty eight or whatever. Each is, like it's across breaking
Speaker 1: apart itself, so it's easy to make it split up exactly,
Speaker 1: it's less stable exactly, right. Yeah, and so that's fission.
Speaker 1: That's why you always hear uranium and uranium cakes and
Speaker 1: uranium enrichment. Exactly, uranium enrichment because the kind of uranium
Speaker 1: that you normally find in the ground a uranium mine
Speaker 1: is not uranium two thirty five is not the kind
Speaker 1: we want for nuclear weapons. That kind is pretty rare.
Speaker 1: It's you know, one in I don't know the number,
Speaker 1: but one in a zillion atoms of uranium that you
Speaker 1: find in the ground is the kind of unique for
Speaker 1: nuclear weapons, which is why one of the big obstacles
Speaker 1: to making a nuclear weapon is not knowing how to
Speaker 1: do it, because this physics is pretty widely known. But
Speaker 1: hitting the fuel these that's why, for example, Iran was
Speaker 1: working on centrifuges, because they're trying to separate out the
Speaker 1: different isotopes uranium to get the one that's good for
Speaker 1: the bomb. I believe the numbers zero point Daniel. Wow,
Speaker 1: it's like your Siri or Wikipedia or something. Okay, So, yeah,
Speaker 1: so uranium is about to split and has a lot
Speaker 1: of energy. That's why they use it for fission bombs.
Speaker 1: That's right. But there's another key element, which is you
Speaker 1: can't just release the energy of one atom. I mean,
Speaker 1: you can do that, but it's not very it's not
Speaker 1: going to be a very good bomb, right. And what
Speaker 1: you need is, as we said, is to release a
Speaker 1: lot of energy all at once, and for that you
Speaker 1: need not just one atom to go, but a lot
Speaker 1: of atoms to go. So for that to happen, you
Speaker 1: need to create a chain reaction. So meaning you take
Speaker 1: a lot of this enriched uranium, so uranium that has
Speaker 1: a lot of this U to thirty five, and you
Speaker 1: put it onto this one spot and then you cause
Speaker 1: a chain reaction. That's the idea of a bomb, right, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: And so the neutrons that fly out and carry some
Speaker 1: of this leftover energy then bump into other uranium two
Speaker 1: five atoms which then phizzle, physicate, physicate, thank you, and um.
Speaker 1: And then it goes on and on and on, and
Speaker 1: you get more neutrons and more neutrons, and pretty soon
Speaker 1: you have a huge number of neutrons flying out, which
Speaker 1: create which causes a huge amount of atoms to split
Speaker 1: all at the same time, and that's your explosion right there.
Speaker 1: In order that to happen, you. You need to have
Speaker 1: enough fuel and it needs to be dense enough so
Speaker 1: the neutrons bump into the other atoms. So that's called
Speaker 1: the critical mass. When you have enough fuel and a
Speaker 1: dense enough location, And that's really all you need to
Speaker 1: do to start the bomb off. Like a rumor or
Speaker 1: like a panic and a crowd. You need enough people
Speaker 1: jamp together to really cause a big panic. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: For your analogy, you need something to trigger the other thing.
Speaker 1: It's like that seen in Stand By Me. You know,
Speaker 1: where they're vomiting vomits. Smell causes to other people to vomit,
Speaker 1: which costs four of the people to vomit, and pretty
Speaker 1: soon everybody, ah yeah that movie. Yeah, but if if
Speaker 1: people were not close together, then you wouldn't this reaction
Speaker 1: wouldn't catch fire, right Like, it wouldn't catch on. So
Speaker 1: you need you need a lot of people together, a
Speaker 1: lot of these atoms together to cause this chain reaction. Exactly.
Speaker 1: And all you need to do to create a nuclear weapon.
Speaker 1: People might be wondering, how do you start it to
Speaker 1: like have a pile of uranium and you like light
Speaker 1: a match or put a lighter on it or something.
Speaker 1: All you need to do is have enough fuel all
Speaker 1: put together, and one of the atoms inside it will
Speaker 1: be unstable enough to just fall apart on its own
Speaker 1: and that will trigger the chain reaction, which it leads
Speaker 1: to the explosion. And so the way the nuclear bomb
Speaker 1: actually works is you basically have two subcritical masses, like
Speaker 1: a chunk uranium here and a chunk uranium there, and
Speaker 1: you just slam them together and uh, and then it
Speaker 1: goes off. And that's it. So um, for those of
Speaker 1: you out there looking to build a nuclear weapon, all
Speaker 1: you need to do is get enough uranium two thirty
Speaker 1: five and arrange it in two pieces to slam together
Speaker 1: in the right concentration, in the right concentration the right purity. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: And some of the original designs that were like, well,
Speaker 1: let's make one of the pieces sort of like a
Speaker 1: cup and the other piece sort of like a ball,
Speaker 1: and we'll just like drop the ball in the cup. Um,
Speaker 1: and and that worked really, So just bringing these two
Speaker 1: things together will suddenly cause the reaction to start. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: that's all you need to do. So separately, what happens.
Speaker 1: Why don't they start separately, Well, they do start separately.
Speaker 1: They just don't take off, So you have atoms in
Speaker 1: their decaying all the time, but they don't start the
Speaker 1: chain reaction because it's not density, just doesn't catch fire. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you need to You need essentially to have these two
Speaker 1: pieces and have them be dense enough to squeeze them
Speaker 1: a little bit. And so what they actually they don't
Speaker 1: call it a ball in a cup. They call it
Speaker 1: a gun assembly because they basically shoot one piece of
Speaker 1: uranium into another and that creates this density. You need
Speaker 1: to have the chain reaction. So that's a fission bombs,
Speaker 1: that's it's splitting. That's the one that splits atoms. There's
Speaker 1: also one that fuses atoms. Yeah, and it's fascinating to me.
Speaker 1: It's a totally different process um and that sticking atoms
Speaker 1: together can also release energy the same way splitting an
Speaker 1: atom can, Right, that's really counterintuitive. Yeah, but the way
Speaker 1: it works is you take two pieces of hydrogen, so
Speaker 1: the lightest element there is, and you stick them together
Speaker 1: and you get helium. And you don't just get helium,
Speaker 1: you get extra energy left over. So where did this
Speaker 1: energy come from? The energy comes from the configuration of
Speaker 1: the helium atom versus the configuration of the hydrogen atom.
Speaker 1: What is helium. It's basically just two hydrogen atom stuck together, right,
Speaker 1: and so you've got those protons, you got those neutrons
Speaker 1: all mixed together. It takes more energy to break helium
Speaker 1: apart than it does to break hydrogen atom apart, and
Speaker 1: so when you put the helium together, that energy has
Speaker 1: to get released somewhere. It's like you've put two hydrogen
Speaker 1: atoms into a hole, right, and that you would need
Speaker 1: to use energy to take them out again. So when
Speaker 1: you put them in that hole, some energy is released.
Speaker 1: It's like you drop them in the hole and they
Speaker 1: turn a lever which generates some electricity or something. It's
Speaker 1: kind of like if you're single, you have to pay
Speaker 1: a certa amount of taxes, but if you get married,
Speaker 1: then you have to pay maybe a little bit less
Speaker 1: of taxes. Right, yeah, exactly right, exactly right. But that
Speaker 1: kind of marital fusion doesn't usually cause um weapons of
Speaker 1: mass destruction though. Yeah, but it's kind of the same idea.
Speaker 1: It's like, separately, um, you have a you make a
Speaker 1: certain amount of money, but together, because you're the configuration together,
Speaker 1: you have extra money left over. Yeah, and it all
Speaker 1: depends on the configuration of the atoms inside. And so
Speaker 1: it just so happens that helium takes more energy to
Speaker 1: break apart than hydrogen does. And so when you build
Speaker 1: helium out of hydrogen, energy is released. Then you could
Speaker 1: take that energy and put it back in to break
Speaker 1: the helum apart and get your hydrogen back. So it
Speaker 1: makes more sense if you think about it the other direction.
Speaker 1: Take helium, you need to put energy and to break
Speaker 1: it into hydrogen. I see, it's not like uranium, where
Speaker 1: if you break it it releases energy. This time it
Speaker 1: causts you energy to break helium apart. That's right. Imagine
Speaker 1: you know, for example, you have two magnets and they're
Speaker 1: stuck together, right. Obviously it takes energy to pull the
Speaker 1: two magnets apart, right, So that means that when you
Speaker 1: when the two magnets stick together, energy is released. And
Speaker 1: that's exactly what happens. So I said that some atoms
Speaker 1: cost energy to break apart, and others give you energy
Speaker 1: when you break them apart. It's all in the nitty
Speaker 1: gritty details of how quantum chromodynamics work. This energy of
Speaker 1: the strong nuclear force, various arrangements of protons and neutrons,
Speaker 1: are different energy it it's really technical. But the fascinating
Speaker 1: thing is that if you fuse atoms together as long
Speaker 1: as they're light, anything lighter than iron. If you fuse
Speaker 1: them together and an energy is released, anything heavier than iron.
Speaker 1: If you split it apart, energy is released, so lighter
Speaker 1: than iron, you can fuse heavier than iron you can split.
Speaker 1: So iron kind of sits in the middle. Iron iron, Yeah,
Speaker 1: iron ironically, And that's why, for example, iron is the
Speaker 1: heaviest thing that's made in the sun because the sun
Speaker 1: is just a big fusion bomb and it's making heavier
Speaker 1: and heavier elements, but it stops at iron because after
Speaker 1: iron and cost you energy to bake, make anything bigger.
Speaker 1: But if you have something bigger and you break it,
Speaker 1: then that gives you the energy back. And that's that's
Speaker 1: where the bomb comes from, exactly exactly. So a hydrogen
Speaker 1: bomb is like, you gotta stick these two things together, right,
Speaker 1: But you know hydrogen is positively charged, So how do
Speaker 1: you get two hydrogens to stick together. It's not easy.
Speaker 1: You've gotta squeeze them really really hard. That's why the
Speaker 1: cost energy. No, that's why dizzy energy. It's complicated because um,
Speaker 1: when they're really close together, the strong nuclear force takes over,
Speaker 1: and the process we talked about the releases energy takes
Speaker 1: over When they're a little further apart. It's the positive
Speaker 1: charges that take over. So it's sort of like have
Speaker 1: you ever been to um put putt golf? Right, and
Speaker 1: you have to get the ball into a hole, But
Speaker 1: the hole is at the top of a little hill.
Speaker 1: If you get it just right, boom, it'll stick in
Speaker 1: the hole and stay there. If you miss a little bit,
Speaker 1: the hill will push you away. So getting fusion to
Speaker 1: work is a little bit like that. You've gotta squeeze
Speaker 1: the hydrogen outs together. If you get them close enough,
Speaker 1: they will stick and they will release energy. That's like
Speaker 1: the golf ball falling the hole. If you don't get
Speaker 1: them close enough, they're just gonna push each other apart. So,
Speaker 1: the first atomic bombs that we made were hydrogen bombs
Speaker 1: right now. The first ones were fission bombs or uranium,
Speaker 1: and then later we made hydrogen bombs. Yeah. And the
Speaker 1: only way we could make hydrogen bombs was by setting
Speaker 1: off an atomic bomb. Yeah, So you you need to
Speaker 1: surround a bunch of hydrogen with nuclear weapons, blow those up, right,
Speaker 1: so you set off a fission bomb, which creates enough
Speaker 1: energy density to squeeze the hydrogen to cause it to fuse,
Speaker 1: which sets off the hydrogen bomb. So hydrogen bomb is
Speaker 1: really a two step process. It's first, let's do an
Speaker 1: old fashioned atomic bomb, and that's like the ignition switch
Speaker 1: for the hydrogen bomb, right, like yesterday's super weapon is
Speaker 1: today's ignition switch. And so both of these types of
Speaker 1: bombs have are more explosive than say, dynamite, just because
Speaker 1: there's more energy inside of the atom then in the
Speaker 1: reaction between atoms. That's right. All the other kinds of bombs,
Speaker 1: dynamite and and you know, gas bombs, whatever, those are
Speaker 1: just releasing the energy and chemical bonds, which is not
Speaker 1: a lot compared to the energy stored inside the atom.
Speaker 1: And that's because the strong nuclear force is a super
Speaker 1: duper strong force, and it just happens that there's a
Speaker 1: huge amount of energy stored inside the atom. Okay, so
Speaker 1: it sounds sort of simple. So does that mean that
Speaker 1: anyone can make a nuclear bomb? It's tricky. You need
Speaker 1: to get the materials right. Even for a hydrogen bomb,
Speaker 1: which just requires hydrogen, you need to create fusion, which
Speaker 1: means creating a vission explosion. So basically the gatekeeper for
Speaker 1: creating nuclear weapons is getting the nuclear fuel. These days,
Speaker 1: we rely on the fact that uranium is hard to find.
Speaker 1: You have to mind it and then you have to
Speaker 1: enrich it. And so basically, if you want to build
Speaker 1: a nuclear weapon, then you have to get enough uranium
Speaker 1: two thirty five. After that, it's not too complicated. Well,
Speaker 1: well let's get into it. But first let's take a
Speaker 1: quick break. What prevents just anyone from building a bomb
Speaker 1: in their backyard, not a whole lot. If you can
Speaker 1: get your hands on the fuel, you know, if you
Speaker 1: have enough uranium two thirty five or plutonium or some
Speaker 1: other material which is good at at splitting, then you
Speaker 1: can build a nuclear bomb. It's not too complicated. Their
Speaker 1: schematics out there. If you're really into engineering. Um, but
Speaker 1: if you want to yeah, um, that part is not secret.
Speaker 1: Um you used to be. I mean in the fifties,
Speaker 1: this kind this level of information would get you thrown
Speaker 1: in jail or executed for treason. Yeah. Probably broadcasting a
Speaker 1: podcast about how to make one would probably get your
Speaker 1: arrested too. Let's check with legal before we distribute this
Speaker 1: podcast anyway, because I'm not so indispending the rest of
Speaker 1: my life in jail. But it's really just the limitation
Speaker 1: is the fuel, which is why countries like Iran and
Speaker 1: North Korea and those folks are building centrifuges. Um, And
Speaker 1: the way to stop them is to try to stop
Speaker 1: them from getting the material. You know, one of my
Speaker 1: favorite stories about geopolitics is the way the Israeli sabotaged
Speaker 1: the Iranian centrifugures. How did they do it? They wrote
Speaker 1: a computer virus which specifically targeted the people working at
Speaker 1: that facility to get them like downloaded and click it
Speaker 1: and get it to control the centrifugues. It's pretty slick,
Speaker 1: and it got the centrifuges to spin wrong. So, Um,
Speaker 1: the difficulty in building a bomb isn't getting the new
Speaker 1: ger materials, because I mean, it's kind of a big
Speaker 1: effort not just to mind it, find out where it
Speaker 1: is minded, and then you have to process it right.
Speaker 1: And so to do that you need a lot of
Speaker 1: infrastructure and a lot of factory and money. And so
Speaker 1: at some point people are going to notice that what
Speaker 1: you're doing right. Yeah, it's hard to keep that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff secret. There's not that many people in the
Speaker 1: world who are good at it, at filtering nuclear materials,
Speaker 1: and that technology, I read is actually what has kept
Speaker 1: secret a lot, right, Like the technology actually enriched uranium
Speaker 1: and what to do it and how to handle it.
Speaker 1: That one is not like you can't just find that
Speaker 1: on the internet, right, And if somebody developed a new, cheap, fast,
Speaker 1: easy way to enrich uranium, we would all be in
Speaker 1: trouble because that's really the gatekeeper to lots of people
Speaker 1: get nuclear weapons, because you don't need that much. I mean,
Speaker 1: you can get a suitcase size bomb that could blow
Speaker 1: up a major city if you had the nuclear materials.
Speaker 1: If you had it's pretty terrifying. It's hard to find
Speaker 1: it in pross it. That's the hopefully the only thing
Speaker 1: that's keeping us from going up in a big ball
Speaker 1: of fire. That's right exactly. And so you know, you
Speaker 1: had to think about the scientists who are working on
Speaker 1: this kind of stuff, and you know, how do they
Speaker 1: feel about having developed this technology? You know, Jay Robert Oppernheimer,
Speaker 1: the guy who led the Manhattan Project, he's famous for
Speaker 1: having felt both ways about this when he saw the
Speaker 1: first nuclear bomb go off in New Mexico. You know,
Speaker 1: he said, I am become death, the destroyer of worlds. Um.
Speaker 1: That's pretty serious stuff, right. Um. I've never created something
Speaker 1: so dangerous, but I would wonder about how I would
Speaker 1: sleep at night if I created a super weapon. I
Speaker 1: had to write an article once about nuclear proliferation in
Speaker 1: and what keeps countries from making these bombs and what's
Speaker 1: the world order that kind of prevents all this from happening.
Speaker 1: And what's kind of interesting is that you can take
Speaker 1: uranium and you start to enrich it, and if you
Speaker 1: reach a certain point, then that you can use the
Speaker 1: uranium for good, Like if it reaches about I think
Speaker 1: it's something like when I say five to seven percent
Speaker 1: of the uranium to thirty five in it, then that's
Speaker 1: the stuff you can use for actually good purposes. You
Speaker 1: mean nuclear power, like generating electricity, generating electricity or medical equipment. Um.
Speaker 1: But if you leave the machine on longer, if you
Speaker 1: keep enriching it, then you get to like nine and
Speaker 1: that's the stuff you can use for weapons. So it's
Speaker 1: a really tricky balance of like letting people use and
Speaker 1: make uranium for good stuff, but then you have to
Speaker 1: watch out to see if they keep going and make
Speaker 1: it into the bomb type. So it's like that knob
Speaker 1: on your dryer where you're like, how dry do you
Speaker 1: want your good for society dry? Or evil destructive? Dry? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I always choose maximum gry. You always, Yeah, But I
Speaker 1: like your anecdote because it tells the story. You know
Speaker 1: that not only is nuclear power potentially the source of
Speaker 1: superweapons that will eradicate all life on Earth, but also
Speaker 1: it's a possible source of energy that we need, you know.
Speaker 1: And everybody's familiar with fission as a source of nuclear power.
Speaker 1: And you know, a bomb is releasing energy rapidly, but
Speaker 1: a batteries, you say, is releasing energy slowly. So you
Speaker 1: can also create a chain reaction that and control it
Speaker 1: in a way that doesn't run It's not a runaway reaction.
Speaker 1: Very gradually releases energy. And so that's what they do
Speaker 1: in power plants. And you know when you hear they
Speaker 1: have a meltdown, that's because the uranium has gotten too hot,
Speaker 1: and it's it's uh, chain reaction is started and uh
Speaker 1: and that's not what you want. You don't want to
Speaker 1: be blowing up nuclear bombs inside your facility. Yea. And
Speaker 1: fusion also has tremendous possibilities for the future because fusion
Speaker 1: is much more powerful, huge amount of energy potentially released.
Speaker 1: The source of fuel is not this like weird metal
Speaker 1: you have to dig up the ground uranium. It's just hydrogen,
Speaker 1: which is everywhere. And the best thing is that there's
Speaker 1: no radioactive waste fission as a nuclear power source. You
Speaker 1: get uranium, it turns into this other radioactive crap which
Speaker 1: lasts for ten thousand years, etcetera. What you can do
Speaker 1: with it? Well, I think that the cool thing is
Speaker 1: that the same reaction that makes this bomb, right, like,
Speaker 1: that's happening in the Sun right now, zillions of times. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just like this continual, simmering giant nuclear bomb. It's
Speaker 1: going off constantly. Yeah, that's the whole reason we hear. Like, so,
Speaker 1: so the same idea, like this chain reaction that doesn't
Speaker 1: have to be this kind of always explosive, you know,
Speaker 1: destructive things. I mean, the Sun is just like it's
Speaker 1: just they're burning, continually exploding, and so we could have
Speaker 1: that on Earth too, right, Like, that's the idea behind
Speaker 1: fusion energy is that if we could create a mini
Speaker 1: sun basically like a continual mini nuclear explosion, then think
Speaker 1: about all the energy we could get from that, that's right,
Speaker 1: And that was actually my first science job. My first
Speaker 1: science work ever was in in college. I went into
Speaker 1: an internship at Los Alamos and worked on their fusion
Speaker 1: energy program because I thought this would be a good
Speaker 1: application of this kind of research, This would be a
Speaker 1: way to help humanity. And it's true, and it's very promising.
Speaker 1: And as I was saying before, there's no radio back
Speaker 1: to fall out or or or waste. It just produces helium.
Speaker 1: The problem is that it's hard to do. You know,
Speaker 1: they're working on it. We could do a whole other
Speaker 1: podcast about how to build a little sun on Earth
Speaker 1: and keep it from turning into a bomb and burning
Speaker 1: everybody will that'd be cool. So if they make it work,
Speaker 1: it will not just give energy for everybody, but everybody
Speaker 1: will get a helium balloon. That's all right, We'll I'll
Speaker 1: talk kind of like this, Yeah, exactly, lots of side benefits. No, seriously,
Speaker 1: If fusion becomes feasible and accessible, then we're talking about
Speaker 1: basically free energy because the cost will just drop very
Speaker 1: very quickly. And uh, and that would change society. Right.
Speaker 1: If energy is free, then almost everything is possible. If
Speaker 1: energy is free, you can make as much drinking water
Speaker 1: as you like. Right. If energy is free, you can
Speaker 1: build whatever hole as you like, You can make concrete,
Speaker 1: you can do all sorts of things. So many problems
Speaker 1: would be solved if you could get cheap energy, and
Speaker 1: fusion is the way to do it. It's just really
Speaker 1: technically tricky. Well, I think the takeaway is that inside
Speaker 1: of each and every atom there's just an enormous amount
Speaker 1: of energy, and so that can be either very destructive
Speaker 1: or very promising to make an incredible future. That's right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so there are both positive and negative potential energies
Speaker 1: for all the scientific research. Well, I hope that through
Speaker 1: your mind it fews some ideas in your head together
Speaker 1: it's split your view of the world. And jokes aside,
Speaker 1: Please do not try to build a nuclear weapon in
Speaker 1: your garage. It will not end well. And if you
Speaker 1: listen to this podcast, be very careful about what you
Speaker 1: Google is always listening. They were listening. Yeah, Well, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for joining us, See you next time.
Speaker 1: If you still have a question after listening to all
Speaker 1: these explanations, please drop us a line. We'd love to
Speaker 1: hear from you. You can find us at Facebook, Twitter,
Speaker 1: and Instagram at Daniel and Jorge That's one word, or
Speaker 1: email us at Feedback at Daniel and Jorge dot com