WEBVTT - Close, but No Nuclear War 0:00:04.160 --> 0:00:07.160 Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how 0:00:07.240 --> 0:00:13.480 stuff works dot com. Be there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:13.520 --> 0:00:17.360 I'm your host, senior writer Jonathan Strickland from how stuff 0:00:17.360 --> 0:00:20.000 works dot com. And today I thought we'd take a 0:00:20.040 --> 0:00:23.079 look at a few times when cooler heads prevailed and 0:00:23.120 --> 0:00:28.840 we sidestepped a sticky situation, namely a nuclear strike. Now, 0:00:29.920 --> 0:00:31.960 there are a whole bunch of times when we have 0:00:32.760 --> 0:00:36.479 nearly gone to nuclear war with various superpowers. And before 0:00:36.479 --> 0:00:40.040 I talk about those cases in which we almost went 0:00:40.120 --> 0:00:42.879 over the brink, let's talk a bit about the weapons 0:00:42.920 --> 0:00:46.839 themselves and how they work. At the heart of the 0:00:46.880 --> 0:00:53.639 matter is the humble atom. That's atom, not atom. Uh. 0:00:53.760 --> 0:00:56.200 Let's go to basic science on this one. So I'm 0:00:56.200 --> 0:00:59.120 gonna start fundamental. I know you guys know this, but 0:00:59.200 --> 0:01:01.080 I feel like it's all is important to start from 0:01:01.120 --> 0:01:04.720 the base and build your way up. So you probably 0:01:04.840 --> 0:01:08.280 are familiar with this from elementary school science and atom 0:01:08.319 --> 0:01:11.680 consists of a nucleus orbited by one or more electrons, 0:01:11.720 --> 0:01:15.640 and the nucleus contains one or more protons and possibly 0:01:15.920 --> 0:01:20.520 some neutrons. Electrons have a negative charge, protons have a 0:01:20.520 --> 0:01:23.399 positive charge, and neutrons have no charge at all because 0:01:23.400 --> 0:01:26.080 of their credit is bad. Now, if you know the 0:01:26.160 --> 0:01:31.280 rules about electromagnetic charges, you remember that opposites attract and 0:01:31.360 --> 0:01:36.640 the same charges repel each other. So that raises a question, 0:01:37.040 --> 0:01:40.000 how can an atom have a nucleus with two or 0:01:40.000 --> 0:01:43.240 more protons in it and not just break apart? If 0:01:43.280 --> 0:01:49.480 you have two positively charged particles subatomic particles protons that 0:01:49.640 --> 0:01:51.680 close to each other, how come they don't just push 0:01:51.800 --> 0:01:55.559 against each other and the nucleus just pop splits apart. 0:01:55.600 --> 0:01:57.559 And then we would just end up with hydrogen atoms 0:01:57.560 --> 0:01:59.920 because an hydrogen atom is just a proton and electron, 0:02:00.520 --> 0:02:04.800 your basic hydrogen atom. That would all make sense, right 0:02:04.920 --> 0:02:08.280 if it If the entire universe was just hydrogen, why 0:02:08.440 --> 0:02:12.600 do we have nucleus is or nuclei should say, nuclei 0:02:12.720 --> 0:02:16.000 with multiple protons. Well, to answer this question, we have 0:02:16.080 --> 0:02:19.680 to turn to the standard model of physics, which is 0:02:19.960 --> 0:02:24.640 mostly how we think the universe works. Mostly, the standard 0:02:24.680 --> 0:02:29.000 model doesn't quite incorporate everything. It doesn't explain absolutely everything. 0:02:29.080 --> 0:02:31.960 Gravity is a big mystery with the standard model. We 0:02:32.000 --> 0:02:35.440 consider it one of the four fundamental forces, but we 0:02:35.480 --> 0:02:39.079 don't really have all the mechanisms explained under the standard 0:02:39.080 --> 0:02:42.200 model of physics. It does, however, give us a pretty 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:44.360 good idea of what's going on. It's held up to 0:02:44.560 --> 0:02:48.200 lots of experimentation and observations. So the standard model says 0:02:48.240 --> 0:02:50.800 that stuff like protons and neutrons are made up of 0:02:50.919 --> 0:02:55.880 even smaller particles called quarks, which is not as I 0:02:55.960 --> 0:02:59.520 learned the sound made by a Dirk. Quarks are the 0:02:59.560 --> 0:03:02.120 smallest building block we know of right now, and you 0:03:02.200 --> 0:03:05.040 can't split them up into smaller things. That's as small 0:03:05.080 --> 0:03:07.600 as you can get, at least as far as we 0:03:07.720 --> 0:03:11.840 know at the moment. Anyway, there's a force that holds 0:03:12.400 --> 0:03:18.440 these quark particles together to form larger particles called hadrons, 0:03:18.760 --> 0:03:22.440 among which are protons and neutrons. Those are both types 0:03:22.480 --> 0:03:25.880 of hadrons. There lots and lots of other ones as well, 0:03:26.600 --> 0:03:30.119 and this force is called the strong nuclear force. It's 0:03:30.160 --> 0:03:33.160 also what binds nuclei together so that they don't go 0:03:33.280 --> 0:03:35.480 splitting up all over the place, and out of the 0:03:35.560 --> 0:03:40.000 four fundamental forces of our universe, this is the strongest. However, 0:03:40.560 --> 0:03:45.720 it also takes effect over the smallest distance. The range 0:03:45.720 --> 0:03:49.120 is incredibly small. It's on the sub atomic scale. So 0:03:49.120 --> 0:03:53.800 while it's very strong, it doesn't reach very far. There's 0:03:53.880 --> 0:03:59.559 also a weak nuclear force. The physicist Enrico Fermi theorize 0:03:59.560 --> 0:04:03.400 that the weak nuclear force was what he was observing 0:04:03.440 --> 0:04:06.800 when he saw certain atoms undergoing What it's called beta decay. 0:04:08.280 --> 0:04:11.800 Has nothing to do with Siamese fish. Beta decay is 0:04:11.840 --> 0:04:16.279 about a neutron or a proton in an atoms nucleus 0:04:16.320 --> 0:04:20.279 switching sides. Essentially, a neutron will change it to a proton, 0:04:20.480 --> 0:04:23.560 and it will expel an electron in the process, so 0:04:23.600 --> 0:04:27.160 you've got a NEUTRALI charged particle. It expels an electron, 0:04:27.200 --> 0:04:30.200 it becomes positive as a result, And to make matters 0:04:30.240 --> 0:04:33.320 a bit more confusing, we call this electron that gets 0:04:33.360 --> 0:04:36.880 expelled a beta particle. So it is an electron, but 0:04:36.960 --> 0:04:42.000 specifically a beta particle. Another sub atomic particle also forms 0:04:42.120 --> 0:04:46.880 in this process. It's called an anti neutrino. So this 0:04:46.960 --> 0:04:51.440 type of beta decay is called beta minus decay. However, 0:04:51.440 --> 0:04:54.599 there's also a beta plus decay. That's when you have 0:04:54.720 --> 0:04:58.320 the opposite happen, where a proton becomes a neutron as 0:04:58.320 --> 0:05:01.719 opposed to a neutron becoming a proton. Beta plus decay 0:05:02.279 --> 0:05:06.200 uh products include not just the the brand new neutron. 0:05:06.279 --> 0:05:10.400 It also includes a subatomic particle called a positron and 0:05:10.520 --> 0:05:13.880 a new trino, So you get anti neutrinos and electrons 0:05:14.560 --> 0:05:18.640 with one and you get positrons and neutrinos with the other. Anyway, 0:05:19.080 --> 0:05:22.479 weak nuclear force explains this process of nuclear decay, this 0:05:22.560 --> 0:05:24.919 particular type of nuclear decay. There are a couple of 0:05:24.920 --> 0:05:29.039 others as well. So when atoms decay, one of the 0:05:29.040 --> 0:05:32.720 byproducts is also energy. They give off energy as they decay, 0:05:32.839 --> 0:05:37.600 they radiate it. So this is the source of radiation. Uh, 0:05:37.720 --> 0:05:41.920 that's why we call it nuclear radiation. Not all atoms 0:05:42.240 --> 0:05:45.600 do this because some of them are perfectly stable. That 0:05:45.640 --> 0:05:47.840 means that they're not going to decay into some other 0:05:47.920 --> 0:05:51.520 form because they're already stable. They're not there's nothing for 0:05:51.560 --> 0:05:55.080 them to to get more stable. It's kind of like 0:05:55.480 --> 0:05:59.560 if you were to have, um, you know, a stack 0:05:59.600 --> 0:06:04.160 of of things and they fall over to a certain point, 0:06:04.200 --> 0:06:08.240 they're not gonna fall anymore because they're flat against the ground. 0:06:08.279 --> 0:06:10.000 That's as far as they go. That's kind of the 0:06:10.040 --> 0:06:17.000 same idea. Now, in the case of nuclear weapons, the 0:06:17.000 --> 0:06:21.120 the elements we use. Their atoms need just the right 0:06:21.160 --> 0:06:25.960 push in order to have their nuclei split, and when 0:06:26.000 --> 0:06:29.320 that happens, the split nuclei shoot off a few neutrons, 0:06:29.360 --> 0:06:33.000 and that ultimately is the secret sauce to nuclear weapons. 0:06:33.320 --> 0:06:37.120 So here's how it all works. Let's say you get 0:06:37.160 --> 0:06:42.640 yourself a whole bunch of a particular large, unstable atom. 0:06:42.720 --> 0:06:45.040 Let's say, for argument's sake, it's oh, I don't know, 0:06:45.279 --> 0:06:50.440 uranium two thirty five, which is essentially weaponized uranium. Uh. 0:06:50.480 --> 0:06:54.520 It also actually it's out there in nature. It is 0:06:54.560 --> 0:06:57.920 not the most common form of uranium in nature because 0:06:58.360 --> 0:07:02.760 it is uh, by its very nature unstable. It will 0:07:02.839 --> 0:07:07.479 decay on its own over a very long period of time. UM. 0:07:07.520 --> 0:07:09.960 The more common form of uranium and nature is uranium 0:07:09.960 --> 0:07:13.160 two thirty eight. But for weapons, you want uranium two 0:07:13.160 --> 0:07:18.600 thirty five. It's an isotope of uranium. Isotopes are forms 0:07:18.640 --> 0:07:21.560 of an element that have the same number of protons, 0:07:21.600 --> 0:07:23.880 because if you change the number of protons, you change 0:07:23.920 --> 0:07:27.000 the element itself, So it has to have the exact 0:07:27.040 --> 0:07:29.760 same number of protons from isotope to isotope, but has 0:07:29.760 --> 0:07:34.760 a different number of neutrons UM. So, as another example, 0:07:34.800 --> 0:07:38.240 carbon twelve is a type of carbon that has six 0:07:38.280 --> 0:07:42.400 protons and six neutrons. Carbon fourteen is different, has got 0:07:42.440 --> 0:07:46.960 six protons and eight neutrons. Uh. It's also radioactive, meaning 0:07:46.960 --> 0:07:50.800 it will decay into a more stable form or another 0:07:50.960 --> 0:07:53.360 more stable atom and give off energy in that process 0:07:53.400 --> 0:07:57.200 as well as some neutrons. So uranium two thirty five 0:07:57.240 --> 0:08:02.000 has ninety two protons and ont reread neutrons. The half 0:08:02.080 --> 0:08:05.320 life of uranium two thirty five is seven hundred million 0:08:05.520 --> 0:08:09.960 years now half life. What that means is that if 0:08:10.000 --> 0:08:12.720 you had a chunk of uranium two thirty five, so 0:08:12.720 --> 0:08:14.720 they've got a whole bunch of these uranium two thirty 0:08:14.760 --> 0:08:19.560 five atoms, it's statistically probable that after seven hundred million 0:08:19.680 --> 0:08:23.040 years past, half of those atoms would decay have decayed 0:08:23.160 --> 0:08:27.400 to other more stable atoms. Statistically speaking, this is all 0:08:27.440 --> 0:08:32.360 about probability, not about a definite future. That's the thing 0:08:32.440 --> 0:08:35.760 you have to remember about half life. It's about probability, 0:08:36.040 --> 0:08:41.080 not definitive outcomes. Uranium two thirty eight, that more common 0:08:41.120 --> 0:08:43.640 form of uranium I talked about, has a half life 0:08:43.640 --> 0:08:48.040 of four point five billion years. So while uranium to 0:08:48.120 --> 0:08:50.480 thirty five is seven hundred million years half life, that's 0:08:50.520 --> 0:08:54.240 a long long time. I mean, particularly for human species right, 0:08:54.400 --> 0:08:57.360 four point five billion years leaves it in the dust. 0:08:58.880 --> 0:09:01.000 All right, So back to your ranium two thirty five. 0:09:01.160 --> 0:09:05.280 Fermine was able to create a controlled nuclear reaction using 0:09:05.400 --> 0:09:07.240 uranium two thirty five. So what he did was he 0:09:07.280 --> 0:09:10.800 took a He took low speed neutrons and fired them 0:09:11.000 --> 0:09:13.800 at atoms of uranium two thirty five in order to 0:09:13.840 --> 0:09:18.280 break the isotope apart, splitting it. That's what we call 0:09:18.400 --> 0:09:22.800 nuclear fission. We're splitting an atom. In this process, the 0:09:22.800 --> 0:09:25.960 atom gives off heat and radiation as well as generating 0:09:26.440 --> 0:09:29.960 new atoms, right, because you you split into two or 0:09:29.960 --> 0:09:33.440 more components. Also in that process, it shoots off some 0:09:33.520 --> 0:09:37.680 extra neutrons, so those go spinning off. Now that means 0:09:37.720 --> 0:09:40.280 that if you had enough uranium two thirty five, and 0:09:40.320 --> 0:09:42.920 you had a means of making sure those neutrons that 0:09:43.040 --> 0:09:46.520 gave off could hit those other atoms of uranium two 0:09:46.520 --> 0:09:50.880 thirty five, you could continue this reaction. It becomes a 0:09:50.960 --> 0:09:54.679 chain reaction. It the neutrons that get fired off hit 0:09:54.840 --> 0:10:00.400 other uranium two thirty five atoms, which then produce more 0:10:00.400 --> 0:10:05.000 free neutrons flying outward, which can hit more uranium two atoms, 0:10:05.000 --> 0:10:07.040 and so on and so forth, and each time you're 0:10:07.040 --> 0:10:09.560 doing this, it's generating more and more heat and energy 0:10:09.600 --> 0:10:12.480 and radiation uh than us. If you were to do 0:10:12.520 --> 0:10:15.600 this in an uncontrolled way, you get a bomb. If 0:10:15.640 --> 0:10:17.440 you do it in a controlled way, you can have 0:10:17.480 --> 0:10:20.600 a nuclear power plant. Our power plants are based off 0:10:20.679 --> 0:10:25.080 nuclear fission because that's the type of nuclear power we 0:10:25.120 --> 0:10:28.840 have found to be sustainable. Right now, there's a real 0:10:28.920 --> 0:10:34.839 push to make nuclear fusion a sustainable means of generating electricity, 0:10:34.880 --> 0:10:38.120 but right now it is very difficult to create a 0:10:38.120 --> 0:10:42.079 sustainable version of that. We can we can start nuclear fusion, 0:10:42.840 --> 0:10:45.720 but generally speaking, we tend to put as much or 0:10:45.720 --> 0:10:48.839 more energy into the system as we're getting out of it, 0:10:49.440 --> 0:10:51.800 and so that doesn't really work if you want a 0:10:51.800 --> 0:10:56.600 sustainable form of generating electricity. If you're spending more than 0:10:56.640 --> 0:11:02.959 you take in, you go broke eventually. Anyway, this uncontrolled 0:11:03.800 --> 0:11:07.360 chain reaction could be more of a bomb situation, although 0:11:07.400 --> 0:11:10.080 to be fair, in nuclear weapons it's still very much 0:11:10.080 --> 0:11:13.840 a controlled system. It's just controlled in a way to 0:11:13.920 --> 0:11:20.200 release an enormous amount of energy in a very destructive way. Now, 0:11:20.200 --> 0:11:24.199 this requires enriched uranium, and it it requires a lot of uranium. 0:11:24.240 --> 0:11:26.960 Two thirty five. You need a really high concentration of 0:11:27.040 --> 0:11:30.360 uranium two thirty five because uranium two thirty eight doesn't 0:11:30.360 --> 0:11:35.319 accept neutrons as readily. So if you shoot neutrons at 0:11:35.440 --> 0:11:38.440 uranium two thirty five, you're it's much easier to split 0:11:38.520 --> 0:11:40.840 that than if you were to fire it off uranium 0:11:40.880 --> 0:11:46.200 two thirty eight. So weapons grade uranium is typically about 0:11:46.400 --> 0:11:49.800 uranium two thirty five. This is a much higher concentration 0:11:49.840 --> 0:11:53.400 than you would find out in nature. So with these 0:11:53.480 --> 0:11:55.880 nuclear bombs, you have to make sure that the fuel 0:11:56.040 --> 0:12:00.720 is kept in separate subcritical masses to prevent premature detonation. 0:12:01.440 --> 0:12:03.880 So you you obviously don't want this thing to go 0:12:03.960 --> 0:12:06.360 off before you intend it to, or else you're going 0:12:06.400 --> 0:12:09.640 to destroy yourself. To make it explode, You need the 0:12:09.640 --> 0:12:13.640 bomb to achieve what is called critical mass. This is 0:12:13.679 --> 0:12:16.400 the minimum amount of mass you need of fission noble 0:12:16.520 --> 0:12:19.920 material to create a nuclear chain reaction sufficient enough to 0:12:19.960 --> 0:12:22.720 act as a weapon. So over at how stuff works 0:12:22.760 --> 0:12:25.640 dot com, we have an article all about this about 0:12:25.640 --> 0:12:29.720 how nuclear weapons work, and it contains a really helpful analogy. 0:12:30.280 --> 0:12:33.760 It says, imagine that the fission noble material, the stuff 0:12:33.800 --> 0:12:37.120 that you are going to split is represented as a 0:12:37.160 --> 0:12:40.560 bunch of marbles inside a circle. If the marbles are 0:12:40.559 --> 0:12:43.640 really close together, then you shoot a marble into that circle, 0:12:43.679 --> 0:12:45.679 it's going to hit against a couple of other marbles. 0:12:45.679 --> 0:12:47.960 If you've used enough force, it's going to create a 0:12:47.960 --> 0:12:51.520 little chain reaction. That's what we're talking about with fissionable 0:12:51.640 --> 0:12:55.440 material and a nuclear bomb. But if you fire a 0:12:55.480 --> 0:12:58.120 marble off into a circle and all the individual marbles 0:12:58.160 --> 0:13:01.440 are further apart from each other, it's less likely that 0:13:01.480 --> 0:13:03.800 you're going to be able to set off that nuclear 0:13:03.880 --> 0:13:08.439 chain reaction because even if you hit another marble, uh, 0:13:08.840 --> 0:13:11.719 it's far enough away from its fellow marbles that you're 0:13:11.760 --> 0:13:17.640 not likely to to make it a consistent, persistent nuclear 0:13:17.720 --> 0:13:21.520 chain reaction. And so that's really the difference between critical 0:13:21.559 --> 0:13:25.760 and subcritical masses. Now. To start the whole reaction, nuclear 0:13:25.760 --> 0:13:31.040 weapons typically use a pellet of polonium and beryllium separated 0:13:31.040 --> 0:13:35.040 by a piece of foil. When the subcritical masses come together, 0:13:35.120 --> 0:13:37.200 as in when a bomb is set to detonate, and 0:13:37.240 --> 0:13:40.440 more about that in a second, it causes the polonium 0:13:40.480 --> 0:13:44.080 to emit alpha particles, and an alpha particle, in case 0:13:44.080 --> 0:13:47.200 you're curious, is a pair of protons and a pair 0:13:47.200 --> 0:13:51.280 of neutrons that are bound together. The alpha particles make 0:13:51.440 --> 0:13:54.840 contact with a brillium which cause it to transform into 0:13:54.880 --> 0:13:59.520 an isotope of brillium and emit neutrons. So the burrillium 0:13:59.600 --> 0:14:02.480 changes to a different type of brillium, a different isotope 0:14:02.480 --> 0:14:05.520 of brillium, and it ejects these neutrons as part of it. 0:14:05.920 --> 0:14:08.439 Those ejected neutrons, they become the starting point for the 0:14:08.520 --> 0:14:15.920 nuclear chain reaction. Now, surrounding your enriched uranium to thirty 0:14:16.000 --> 0:14:22.280 five is a casing called a tamper. That's what's designed 0:14:22.320 --> 0:14:25.400 to contain the energy of the nuclear fission until it's 0:14:25.400 --> 0:14:28.760 time to release it in the form of the nuclear explosion. 0:14:29.600 --> 0:14:33.360 And typically it's uranium two thirty eight that ends up 0:14:33.400 --> 0:14:37.000 redirecting those free neutrons back into the core so that 0:14:37.040 --> 0:14:42.200 they can more efficiently impact other uranium two thirty five atoms, 0:14:42.800 --> 0:14:45.520 and it aids in the continuation of fission. The more 0:14:45.520 --> 0:14:48.920 fissionable material gets activated, the more efficient the bomb is 0:14:49.000 --> 0:14:53.000 and the bigger the explosion you get as a result. Now, 0:14:53.040 --> 0:14:55.640 one way to detonate a nuclear weapon is with the 0:14:55.840 --> 0:15:00.920 uranium bullet method. So typically you have the tampa, which 0:15:01.120 --> 0:15:04.160 UH you you know, is this container of some sort 0:15:04.280 --> 0:15:06.320 kind of like it's usually kind of a cylinder shape 0:15:06.320 --> 0:15:09.240 because you're fitting it inside a larger form factor of 0:15:09.280 --> 0:15:12.480 a bomb, and that's what's made of uranium two thirty eight. 0:15:12.760 --> 0:15:16.440 Inside of this you have a sphere of uranium two 0:15:16.440 --> 0:15:19.560 thirty five, and in the center of the sphere is 0:15:19.640 --> 0:15:23.000 your neutron generator, in other words, your little pellet of 0:15:23.040 --> 0:15:28.120 polonium and brillium. You've got a tube leading down into 0:15:28.160 --> 0:15:30.760 the center of the sphere. At the other end of 0:15:30.760 --> 0:15:34.600 the tube are some explosives, and inside the tube is 0:15:34.720 --> 0:15:38.800 a bullet of uranium two thirty five. So when it's 0:15:38.840 --> 0:15:42.480 time to detonate the bomb, you explode the explosives. These 0:15:42.480 --> 0:15:47.040 are conventional explosives, not nuclear explosives. That propels the uranium 0:15:47.080 --> 0:15:50.960 two thirty five bullet at a very high rate down 0:15:51.000 --> 0:15:56.000 the tube, colliding with the pellet and thus UH initiating 0:15:56.000 --> 0:16:00.600 the neutron generator, which shoots out neutrons and thus starts 0:16:00.640 --> 0:16:08.280 to fission the uranium two. This fissioning activity happens in 0:16:08.320 --> 0:16:11.720 a in an instant like a fraction of a fraction 0:16:11.720 --> 0:16:14.320 of a fraction of a second but in that fraction 0:16:14.480 --> 0:16:18.160 each time this is happening so so fast that energy 0:16:18.200 --> 0:16:20.360 builds and builds and builds and builds until it's greater 0:16:20.400 --> 0:16:23.240 than what the bomb itself can contain. And then it explodes. 0:16:26.520 --> 0:16:30.560 It takes place uh in so fast that uh it's 0:16:30.640 --> 0:16:35.200 it's it's like billions of a second um And you 0:16:35.240 --> 0:16:38.480 want to be super careful with that, obviously, because it's 0:16:38.480 --> 0:16:42.280 a massive amount of destruction. Now, there's another method for 0:16:42.400 --> 0:16:48.040 detonating it nuclear weapon called the implosion method, in which 0:16:48.120 --> 0:16:51.600 high explosives around the tamper. So again that uranium two 0:16:51.960 --> 0:16:58.360 eight typically uh explosive surrounding it create a powerful shock 0:16:58.400 --> 0:17:01.480 wave when they go off. So the explosives go off, 0:17:01.960 --> 0:17:06.760 creates a shock wave generated into the center of this 0:17:07.800 --> 0:17:10.920 that compresses the tamper and thus compresses the fission norble 0:17:11.040 --> 0:17:14.840 core inside the tamper, and that triggers the fission ng reaction, 0:17:15.200 --> 0:17:17.080 and you get the same result as the one I 0:17:17.080 --> 0:17:21.640 mentioned earlier. Now, in World War Two, we dropped two 0:17:21.640 --> 0:17:24.720 atomic bombs. We the United States dropped two atomic bombs 0:17:24.760 --> 0:17:28.159 on Japan. One of them called Little Boy, and that 0:17:28.320 --> 0:17:31.120 was a uranium bullet style bomb. The other was called 0:17:31.160 --> 0:17:34.000 Fat man, and that was an implosion style bomb, and 0:17:34.040 --> 0:17:36.720 it also used plutonium two thirty nine as its core, 0:17:36.840 --> 0:17:42.480 not uranium, but plutonium nine. Later, a guy named Edward Teller, 0:17:42.520 --> 0:17:46.080 who we've talked about on tech stuff before, improve the 0:17:46.200 --> 0:17:49.959 yield of nuclear weapons using what is called the boosting method. 0:17:51.080 --> 0:17:56.280 This combines fusion reactions with fission bombs. The fusion reactions 0:17:56.280 --> 0:18:00.280 would create the neutrons, which then would trigg are the 0:18:00.359 --> 0:18:04.439 fission reactions at a really high rate, so more efficiently, 0:18:04.560 --> 0:18:06.840 so you you get more of the fission norble material 0:18:06.920 --> 0:18:12.560 to split, thus generating more energy, and nearly of American 0:18:12.640 --> 0:18:16.760 nuclear weapons follow that particular design. But then you've also 0:18:16.800 --> 0:18:20.040 got fusion bombs. Now, fusion is when you fuse two 0:18:20.119 --> 0:18:23.240 atoms together and you still get a big release of 0:18:23.440 --> 0:18:29.400 energy in this process. H Essentially, these bombs fuse hydrogen 0:18:29.640 --> 0:18:36.199 isotopes including deuterium and tritium together and that ends up 0:18:36.200 --> 0:18:38.520 releasing an enormous amount of energy. So to explode a 0:18:38.560 --> 0:18:42.080 bomb of this type, you reverse the roles of fusion 0:18:42.200 --> 0:18:44.440 and fission. You know, I just mentioned that to make 0:18:44.440 --> 0:18:48.600 a really efficient fission bomb, you could incorporate fusion into 0:18:48.680 --> 0:18:50.680 it as well. Well. In this case, you're talking about 0:18:50.760 --> 0:18:54.440 using fission reactions in order to fuel a fusion reaction 0:18:54.480 --> 0:18:57.440 which will generate the massive amount of energy for the bomb. 0:18:59.520 --> 0:19:03.400 So the fission bomb would create an implosion shock wave, 0:19:03.520 --> 0:19:06.160 kind of like the explosives I talked about in the 0:19:06.200 --> 0:19:11.080 previous example with fat Man. And in that shock wave 0:19:11.160 --> 0:19:13.320 you would also get a release of X rays. That's 0:19:13.680 --> 0:19:15.760 one of the types of energy you would get as 0:19:15.880 --> 0:19:20.080 released from a fission reaction. The X rays will end 0:19:20.160 --> 0:19:23.080 up heating the tamper, which you still have, just like 0:19:23.119 --> 0:19:25.919 you would with the other types of nuclear weapons, and 0:19:25.960 --> 0:19:29.840 that would still be uranium to eight typically inside of 0:19:29.840 --> 0:19:34.160 which is a fuel of lithium deuteride, and that would 0:19:34.240 --> 0:19:36.359 end up heating up because the X rays, the X 0:19:36.440 --> 0:19:39.840 rays heat up the the lithium deuteride. The shock wave 0:19:39.880 --> 0:19:42.959 would compress the lithium deuteride by a factor of like thirty. 0:19:43.040 --> 0:19:47.639 It's crazy how compressed it gets. And also inside the 0:19:47.640 --> 0:19:50.760 tampa is a plutonium rod which would start to fission 0:19:51.080 --> 0:19:54.000 as result of all this, and that would release more 0:19:54.080 --> 0:19:58.120 heat more neutrons. Those neutrons would combine with the compressed 0:19:58.160 --> 0:20:03.120 lithium deuteride to fuel to create tritium so you then 0:20:03.240 --> 0:20:07.200 have enough temperature and pressure to support fusion reactions. That's 0:20:07.240 --> 0:20:10.800 one of the problems with nuclear fusion power plants is 0:20:10.840 --> 0:20:13.359 that you have to create such an intense amount of 0:20:13.400 --> 0:20:16.919 pressure and temperature that the energy you pour in is 0:20:17.320 --> 0:20:20.040 equal to or greater than the energy you're getting out 0:20:20.080 --> 0:20:23.479 of the actual fusion. Well, in a bomb, that's not 0:20:23.560 --> 0:20:26.320 so much a concern. You want to generate as much 0:20:26.320 --> 0:20:29.359 of this heat and pressure as you possibly can, so 0:20:29.440 --> 0:20:33.639 because the fission reactions are creating that tremendous amount of 0:20:33.720 --> 0:20:36.520 heat and pressure, nuclear fusion can actually occur, and you 0:20:36.560 --> 0:20:41.600 start getting tritium deuterium and deuterium deuterium reactions, and that 0:20:41.680 --> 0:20:45.160 generates even more heat and more radiation, which is enough 0:20:45.200 --> 0:20:48.360 to induce fission in the uranium two thirty eight tamper. 0:20:50.040 --> 0:20:53.240 So remember the uranium two thirty eight tamper doesn't typically 0:20:53.720 --> 0:20:57.760 fission in most of these bombs, it requires so much 0:20:57.880 --> 0:21:00.280 energy to do that, But these fusion bombs can actually 0:21:00.320 --> 0:21:02.879 create that kind of energy. The combination of all that 0:21:03.040 --> 0:21:06.600 energy is enormous, and then the bomb explodes, releasing it 0:21:06.920 --> 0:21:11.680 into the environment. Now, at the point of explosion, you 0:21:11.720 --> 0:21:16.760 would easily imagine there's an intense release of an incredible 0:21:16.800 --> 0:21:20.159 amount of heat, and the blast also creates a really 0:21:20.200 --> 0:21:24.639 powerful pressure wave moving outward from the point of explosion. Then, 0:21:24.760 --> 0:21:27.960 on top of that, you've got the radiation, the energy 0:21:28.000 --> 0:21:31.000 being radiated radiated out like gamma rays and other very 0:21:31.080 --> 0:21:35.040 harmful forms of radiation, followed by radiation fallout, which is 0:21:35.080 --> 0:21:41.400 typically radioactive dust and debris that originated inside the bomb itself. 0:21:43.240 --> 0:21:46.840 Stuff close to the hypocenter, which is another term for 0:21:46.920 --> 0:21:52.080 ground zero, would be vaporized because of the temperatures involved. 0:21:52.080 --> 0:21:56.119 We're talking three hundred million degrees celsius or five hundred 0:21:56.160 --> 0:22:00.760 million degrees fahrenheit. Further out from the center of the 0:22:00.760 --> 0:22:04.480 pressure wave could cause entire buildings to collapse because it's 0:22:04.520 --> 0:22:07.399 so powerful, and the heat is still intense enough to 0:22:07.440 --> 0:22:12.240 cause fatalities. It's hot enough to burn people alive even 0:22:12.280 --> 0:22:14.719 if you're not right there at the point of explosion. 0:22:15.520 --> 0:22:19.040 The further out you go, the less effect those initial 0:22:19.200 --> 0:22:22.240 events will have. The heat will become less intense the 0:22:22.240 --> 0:22:25.560 further out. The pressure wave less effective further out, but 0:22:25.600 --> 0:22:27.840 there are a lot of secondary problems that could still 0:22:27.920 --> 0:22:33.000 be life threatening, including things like fallout, radiation fallout, is 0:22:33.000 --> 0:22:35.679 going to spread really far and will continue to spread 0:22:35.840 --> 0:22:39.280 based upon prevailing winds of the area, and also stuff 0:22:39.320 --> 0:22:41.960 like fires. The heat's going to be hot enough to 0:22:42.000 --> 0:22:43.840 generate a lot of fires and a lot of areas, 0:22:43.880 --> 0:22:47.160 and that could that could end up being a very 0:22:47.280 --> 0:22:58.680 um prevalent and immediate danger to you. So that's cheerful, right. 0:22:59.720 --> 0:23:03.320 New clear weapons are terrifying, There's no question about it. Uh. 0:23:03.400 --> 0:23:06.960 They can reach devastation greater than anything humans have ever witnessed. 0:23:07.520 --> 0:23:10.200 And since World War Two, many have worked really hard 0:23:10.200 --> 0:23:13.600 to make sure no more nuclear weapons see use ever again. 0:23:13.800 --> 0:23:17.840 But we've had a whole lot of close calls and 0:23:17.880 --> 0:23:20.080 I'm gonna go more into that in just a minute, 0:23:20.160 --> 0:23:24.080 but first let's take a quick break to thank our sponsor. 0:23:30.760 --> 0:23:37.440 All Right, We're gonna start with probably the closest we've 0:23:37.520 --> 0:23:44.240 ever been to getting into a full on nuclear confrontation. Uh. 0:23:44.280 --> 0:23:46.959 There were other events that happened before this, and there 0:23:46.960 --> 0:23:48.960 are other events that happened after this, and I'll cover 0:23:49.040 --> 0:23:51.680 some of those later on, but let's start with the granddaddy, 0:23:51.720 --> 0:23:56.360 the big one. That would be October nineteen sixty two, 0:23:56.640 --> 0:23:59.720 when the United States of America and the then Soviet 0:23:59.800 --> 0:24:03.480 un and we're at the height of the Cold War. 0:24:04.480 --> 0:24:07.639 So you had these two powerful countries standing in opposition 0:24:07.720 --> 0:24:10.720 to each other, and both were building up their respective 0:24:10.760 --> 0:24:14.000 militaries and arsenals in an effort to stay on top 0:24:14.119 --> 0:24:19.360 or at least not fall behind their great rival. Has 0:24:19.400 --> 0:24:22.320 a pretty terrifying time for everybody, whether you lived in 0:24:22.359 --> 0:24:25.359 the Soviet Union or the United States or one of 0:24:25.560 --> 0:24:29.480 countless other nations that felt helpless because these two giants 0:24:29.560 --> 0:24:35.679 were posturing against each other. And Uh, one could argue, 0:24:35.880 --> 0:24:38.280 we're sort of returning to that kind of world now, 0:24:38.359 --> 0:24:42.280 but that's really a discussion for a different show. Anyway. 0:24:42.280 --> 0:24:45.720 In October ninety two, an event called the Cuban Missile 0:24:45.920 --> 0:24:50.560 Crisis happened. This was a nuclear game of chess between 0:24:50.600 --> 0:24:53.320 the White House and the Kremlin, and it was the 0:24:53.400 --> 0:24:56.160 closest the United States and the uss are ever got 0:24:56.200 --> 0:25:01.480 to a full fledged nuclear conflict on both sides. Uh. 0:25:01.840 --> 0:25:04.240 This at least, this was the closest anyone got. That 0:25:04.400 --> 0:25:09.600 wasn't the creation of a computational error. More on those 0:25:09.640 --> 0:25:13.359 types of close calls in a little bit. So to 0:25:13.400 --> 0:25:15.520 catch you guys up on some history in case you 0:25:15.720 --> 0:25:18.879 don't know about the Cuban Missile Crisis. The government in 0:25:18.960 --> 0:25:22.359 Cuba was Communist and that was something that made the 0:25:22.440 --> 0:25:26.520 United States government really nervous. So the US attempted to 0:25:26.600 --> 0:25:30.760 overthrow the Cuban government, but that was a total disaster. 0:25:31.080 --> 0:25:33.399 That was the Bay of Pigs invasion, as well as 0:25:33.440 --> 0:25:37.480 some other events that were around that time. Meanwhile, the 0:25:37.520 --> 0:25:41.640