Who developed atomic weapons. Hydrogen (thermonuclear) bomb: testing weapons of mass destruction

The world of the atom is so fantastic that understanding it requires a radical break in the usual concepts of space and time. Atoms are so small that if a drop of water could be enlarged to the size of the Earth, each atom in that drop would be smaller than an orange. In fact, one drop of water consists of 6000 billion billion (6000000000000000000000) hydrogen and oxygen atoms. And yet, despite its microscopic dimensions, the atom has a structure to some extent similar to the structure of ours. solar system. In its incomprehensibly small center, the radius of which is less than one trillionth of a centimeter, there is a relatively huge “sun” - the nucleus of the atom.

Tiny “planets” - electrons - revolve around this atomic “sun”. The nucleus consists of the two main building blocks of the Universe - protons and neutrons (they have a unifying name - nucleons). An electron and a proton are charged particles, and the amount of charge in each of them is exactly the same, but the charges differ in sign: the proton is always positively charged, and the electron is negatively charged. The neutron does not carry electric charge and as a result has very high permeability.

In the atomic scale of measurements, the mass of a proton and neutron is taken as unity. The atomic weight of any chemical element therefore depends on the number of protons and neutrons contained in its nucleus. For example, a hydrogen atom, with a nucleus consisting of only one proton, has an atomic mass of 1. A helium atom, with a nucleus of two protons and two neutrons, has an atomic mass of 4.

The nuclei of atoms of the same element always contain the same number of protons, but the number of neutrons may vary. Atoms that have nuclei with the same number of protons, but differ in the number of neutrons and are varieties of the same element are called isotopes. To distinguish them from each other, a number is assigned to the element symbol, equal to the sum all particles in the nucleus of a given isotope.

The question may arise: why does the nucleus of an atom not fall apart? After all, the protons included in it are electrically charged particles with the same charge, which must repel each other with great force. This is explained by the fact that inside the nucleus there are also so-called intranuclear forces that attract nuclear particles to each other. These forces compensate for the repulsive forces of protons and prevent the nucleus from spontaneously flying apart.

Intranuclear forces are very strong, but act only at very close distances. Therefore, the nuclei of heavy elements, consisting of hundreds of nucleons, turn out to be unstable. The particles of the nucleus are in continuous motion here (within the volume of the nucleus), and if you add some additional amount of energy to them, they can overcome the internal forces - the nucleus will split into parts. The amount of this excess energy is called excitation energy. Among the isotopes of heavy elements, there are those that seem to be on the very verge of self-disintegration. Just a small “push” is enough, for example, a simple neutron hitting the nucleus (and it doesn’t even have to accelerate to high speed) for the nuclear fission reaction to occur. Some of these “fissile” isotopes were later learned to be produced artificially. In nature, there is only one such isotope - uranium-235.

Uranus was discovered in 1783 by Klaproth, who isolated it from uranium tar and named it after the recently discovered planet Uranus. As it turned out later, it was, in fact, not uranium itself, but its oxide. Pure uranium, a silvery-white metal, was obtained
only in 1842 Peligo. The new element did not have any remarkable properties and did not attract attention until 1896, when Becquerel discovered the phenomenon of radioactivity in uranium salts. After this, uranium became an object scientific research and experiments, but practical application still didn't have it.

When, in the first third of the 20th century, physicists more or less understood the structure of the atomic nucleus, they first of all tried to fulfill the long-standing dream of alchemists - they tried to transform one chemical element into another. In 1934, French researchers, the spouses Frédéric and Irene Joliot-Curie, reported the following experience to the French Academy of Sciences: when bombarding aluminum plates with alpha particles (nuclei of a helium atom), aluminum atoms turned into phosphorus atoms, but not ordinary ones, but radioactive ones, which in turn became into a stable isotope of silicon. Thus, an aluminum atom, having added one proton and two neutrons, turned into a heavier silicon atom.

This experience suggested that if you “bombard” the nuclei of the heaviest element existing in nature - uranium - with neutrons, you can obtain an element that does not exist in natural conditions. In 1938 German chemists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann repeated in general terms the experience of the Joliot-Curie spouses, using uranium instead of aluminum. The results of the experiment were not at all what they expected - instead of a new superheavy element with a mass number greater than that of uranium, Hahn and Strassmann obtained light elements from the middle part periodic table: barium, krypton, bromine and some others. The experimenters themselves were unable to explain the observed phenomenon. Only the following year, physicist Lise Meitner, to whom Hahn reported his difficulties, found the correct explanation for the observed phenomenon, suggesting that when uranium is bombarded with neutrons, its nucleus splits (fissions). In this case, nuclei of lighter elements should have been formed (that’s where barium, krypton and other substances came from), as well as 2-3 free neutrons should have been released. Further research made it possible to clarify in detail the picture of what was happening.

Natural uranium consists of a mixture of three isotopes with masses 238, 234 and 235. The main amount of uranium is isotope-238, the nucleus of which includes 92 protons and 146 neutrons. Uranium-235 is only 1/140 of natural uranium (0.7% (it has 92 protons and 143 neutrons in its nucleus), and uranium-234 (92 protons, 142 neutrons) is only 1/17500 of total mass uranium (0.006%. The least stable of these isotopes is uranium-235.

From time to time, the nuclei of its atoms spontaneously divide into parts, as a result of which lighter elements of the periodic table are formed. The process is accompanied by the release of two or three free neutrons, which rush at enormous speed - about 10 thousand km/s (they are called fast neutrons). These neutrons can hit other uranium nuclei, causing nuclear reactions. Each isotope behaves differently in this case. Uranium-238 nuclei in most cases simply capture these neutrons without any further transformations. But in approximately one case out of five, when a fast neutron collides with the nucleus of the isotope-238, a curious nuclear reaction occurs: one of the neutrons of uranium-238 emits an electron, turning into a proton, that is, the uranium isotope turns into a more
heavy element - neptunium-239 (93 protons + 146 neutrons). But neptunium is unstable - after a few minutes, one of its neutrons emits an electron, turning into a proton, after which the neptunium isotope turns into the next element in the periodic table - plutonium-239 (94 protons + 145 neutrons). If a neutron hits the nucleus of unstable uranium-235, then fission immediately occurs - the atoms disintegrate with the emission of two or three neutrons. It is clear that in natural uranium, most of the atoms of which belong to the 238 isotope, this reaction has no visible consequences - all free neutrons will eventually be absorbed by this isotope.

Well, what if we imagine a fairly massive piece of uranium consisting entirely of isotope-235?

Here the process will go differently: neutrons released during the fission of several nuclei, in turn, hitting neighboring nuclei, cause their fission. As a result, a new portion of neutrons is released, which splits the next nuclei. Under favorable conditions, this reaction proceeds like an avalanche and is called a chain reaction. To start it, a few bombarding particles may be enough.

Indeed, let uranium-235 be bombarded by only 100 neutrons. They will separate 100 uranium nuclei. In this case, 250 new neutrons of the second generation will be released (on average 2.5 per fission). Second generation neutrons will produce 250 fissions, which will release 625 neutrons. In the next generation it will become 1562, then 3906, then 9670, etc. The number of divisions will increase indefinitely if the process is not stopped.

However, in reality only a small fraction of neutrons reach the nuclei of atoms. The rest, quickly rushing between them, are carried away into the surrounding space. A self-sustaining chain reaction can only occur in a sufficiently large array of uranium-235, which is said to have a critical mass. (This mass under normal conditions is 50 kg.) It is important to note that the fission of each nucleus is accompanied by the release of a huge amount of energy, which turns out to be approximately 300 million times more than the energy spent on fission! (It is estimated that the complete fission of 1 kg of uranium-235 releases the same amount of heat as the combustion of 3 thousand tons of coal.)

This colossal burst of energy, released in a matter of moments, manifests itself as an explosion of monstrous force and underlies the action of nuclear weapons. But in order for this weapon to become a reality, it is necessary that the charge consist not of natural uranium, but of a rare isotope - 235 (such uranium is called enriched). It was later discovered that pure plutonium is also a fissile material and could be used in an atomic charge instead of uranium-235.

All these important discoveries were made on the eve of World War II. Soon, secret work on creating an atomic bomb began in Germany and other countries. In the USA, this problem was addressed in 1941. The entire complex of works was given the name “Manhattan Project”.

Administrative management of the project was carried out by General Groves, and scientific management was carried out by University of California professor Robert Oppenheimer. Both were well aware of the enormous complexity of the task facing them. Therefore, Oppenheimer's first concern was recruiting a highly intelligent scientific team. In the USA at that time there were many physicists who emigrated from fascist Germany. It was not easy to attract them to create weapons directed against their former homeland. Oppenheimer spoke personally to everyone, using all the power of his charm. Soon he managed to gather a small group of theorists, whom he jokingly called “luminaries.” Indeed, it included the greatest specialists of that time in the field of physics and chemistry. (Among them are 13 Nobel Prize laureates, including Bohr, Fermi, Frank, Chadwick, Lawrence.) Besides them, there were many other specialists of various profiles.

The US government did not skimp on expenses, and the work took on a grand scale from the very beginning. In 1942, the world's largest research laboratory was founded at Los Alamos. The population of this scientific city soon reached 9 thousand people. In terms of the composition of scientists, the scope of scientific experiments, and the number of specialists and workers involved in the work, the Los Alamos laboratory had no equal in world history. The Manhattan Project had its own police, counterintelligence, communications system, warehouses, villages, factories, laboratories, and its own colossal budget.

The main goal of the project was to obtain enough fissile material from which several atomic bombs could be created. In addition to uranium-235, the charge for the bomb, as already mentioned, could be the artificial element plutonium-239, that is, the bomb could be either uranium or plutonium.

Groves and Oppenheimer agreed that work should be carried out simultaneously in two directions, since it was impossible to decide in advance which of them would be more promising. Both methods were fundamentally different from each other: the accumulation of uranium-235 had to be carried out by separating it from the bulk of natural uranium, and plutonium could only be obtained as a result of a controlled nuclear reaction when uranium-238 was irradiated with neutrons. Both paths seemed unusually difficult and did not promise easy solutions.

In fact, how can one separate two isotopes that differ only slightly in weight and chemically behave in exactly the same way? Neither science nor technology has ever faced such a problem. The production of plutonium also seemed very problematic at first. Before this, the entire experience of nuclear transformations was limited to a few laboratory experiments. Now it was necessary to master the production of kilograms of plutonium on an industrial scale, develop and create a special installation for this - a nuclear reactor, and learn to control the course of the nuclear reaction.

Both here and here a whole complex of complex problems had to be solved. Therefore, the Manhattan Project consisted of several subprojects, headed by prominent scientists. Oppenheimer himself was the head of the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory. Lawrence was in charge of the Radiation Laboratory at the University of California. Fermi conducted research at the University of Chicago to create a nuclear reactor.

At first, the most important problem was obtaining uranium. Before the war, this metal had virtually no use. Now, when it was needed immediately in huge quantities, it turned out that there was no industrial method its production.

The Westinghouse company took up its development and quickly achieved success. After purifying the uranium resin (uranium occurs in nature in this form) and obtaining uranium oxide, it was converted into tetrafluoride (UF4), from which uranium metal was separated by electrolysis. If at the end of 1941 American scientists had only a few grams of uranium metal at their disposal, then already in November 1942 its industrial production at Westinghouse factories reached 6,000 pounds per month.

At the same time, work was underway to create a nuclear reactor. The process of producing plutonium actually boiled down to irradiating uranium rods with neutrons, as a result of which part of the uranium-238 would turn into plutonium. The sources of neutrons in this case could be fissile atoms of uranium-235, scattered in sufficient quantities among atoms of uranium-238. But in order to maintain the constant production of neutrons, a chain reaction of fission of uranium-235 atoms had to begin. Meanwhile, as already mentioned, for every atom of uranium-235 there were 140 atoms of uranium-238. It is clear that neutrons scattering in all directions had a much higher probability of meeting them on their way. That is, a huge number of released neutrons turned out to be absorbed by the main isotope without any benefit. Obviously, under such conditions a chain reaction could not take place. How can this be?

At first it seemed that without the separation of two isotopes, the operation of the reactor was generally impossible, but one important circumstance was soon established: it turned out that uranium-235 and uranium-238 were susceptible to neutrons of different energies. The nucleus of a uranium-235 atom can be split by a neutron of relatively low energy, having a speed of about 22 m/s. Such slow neutrons are not captured by uranium-238 nuclei - for this they must have a speed of the order of hundreds of thousands of meters per second. In other words, uranium-238 is powerless to prevent the beginning and progress of a chain reaction in uranium-235 caused by neutrons slowed down to extremely low speeds - no more than 22 m/s. This phenomenon was discovered by the Italian physicist Fermi, who lived in the USA since 1938 and led the work here to create the first reactor. Fermi decided to use graphite as a neutron moderator. According to his calculations, the neutrons emitted from uranium-235, having passed through a 40 cm layer of graphite, should have reduced their speed to 22 m/s and begun a self-sustaining chain reaction in uranium-235.

Another moderator could be so-called “heavy” water. Since the hydrogen atoms included in it are very similar in size and mass to neutrons, they could best slow them down. (With fast neutrons, approximately the same thing happens as with balls: if a small ball hits a large one, it rolls back, almost without losing speed, but when it meets a small ball, it transfers a significant part of its energy to it - just like a neutron in an elastic collision bounces off a heavy nucleus, slowing down only slightly, and when colliding with the nuclei of hydrogen atoms very quickly loses all its energy.) However, plain water not suitable for moderation since its hydrogen tends to absorb neutrons. That is why deuterium, which is part of “heavy” water, should be used for this purpose.

In early 1942, under Fermi's leadership, construction began on the first nuclear reactor in history in the tennis court area under the west stands of Chicago Stadium. The scientists carried out all the work themselves. The reaction can be controlled in the only way - by adjusting the number of neutrons participating in the chain reaction. Fermi intended to achieve this using rods made of substances such as boron and cadmium, which strongly absorb neutrons. The moderator was graphite bricks, from which the physicists built columns 3 m high and 1.2 m wide. Rectangular blocks with uranium oxide were installed between them. The entire structure required about 46 tons of uranium oxide and 385 tons of graphite. To slow down the reaction, rods of cadmium and boron were introduced into the reactor.

If this were not enough, then for insurance, two scientists stood on a platform located above the reactor with buckets filled with a solution of cadmium salts - they were supposed to pour them onto the reactor if the reaction got out of control. Fortunately, this was not necessary. On December 2, 1942, Fermi ordered all control rods to be extended and the experiment began. After four minutes, the neutron counters began to click louder and louder. With every minute the intensity of the neutron flux became greater. This indicated that a chain reaction was taking place in the reactor. It lasted for 28 minutes. Then Fermi gave the signal, and the lowered rods stopped the process. Thus, for the first time, man freed the energy of the atomic nucleus and proved that he could control it at will. Now there was no longer any doubt that nuclear weapons were a reality.

In 1943, the Fermi reactor was dismantled and transported to the Aragonese National Laboratory (50 km from Chicago). Was here soon
Another nuclear reactor was built in which heavy water was used as a moderator. It consisted of a cylindrical aluminum tank containing 6.5 tons of heavy water, into which were vertically immersed 120 rods of uranium metal, encased in an aluminum shell. The seven control rods were made of cadmium. Around the tank there was a graphite reflector, then a screen made of lead and cadmium alloys. The entire structure was enclosed in a concrete shell with a wall thickness of about 2.5 m.

Experiments at these pilot reactors confirmed the possibility of industrial production of plutonium.

The main center of the Manhattan Project soon became the town of Oak Ridge in the Tennessee River Valley, whose population grew to 79 thousand people in a few months. Here, the first enriched uranium production plant in history was built in a short time. An industrial reactor producing plutonium was launched here in 1943. In February 1944, about 300 kg of uranium was extracted from it daily, from the surface of which plutonium was obtained by chemical separation. (To do this, the plutonium was first dissolved and then precipitated.) The purified uranium was then returned to the reactor. That same year, construction began on the huge Hanford plant in the barren, bleak desert on the south bank of the Columbia River. It housed three powerful nuclear reactors that produced several hundred grams of plutonium every day.

In parallel, research was in full swing to develop an industrial process for uranium enrichment.

Having considered different options, Groves and Oppenheimer decided to focus their efforts on two methods: gaseous diffusion and electromagnetic.

The gas diffusion method was based on a principle known as Graham's law (it was first formulated in 1829 by the Scottish chemist Thomas Graham and developed in 1896 by the English physicist Reilly). According to this law, if two gases, one of which is lighter than the other, are passed through a filter with negligibly small holes, then several more light gas than heavy gas. In November 1942, Urey and Dunning from Columbia University created a gaseous diffusion method for separating uranium isotopes based on the Reilly method.

Since natural uranium is a solid, it was first converted into uranium fluoride (UF6). This gas was then passed through microscopic - on the order of thousandths of a millimeter - holes in the filter partition.

Since the difference in the molar weights of the gases was very small, behind the partition the content of uranium-235 increased by only 1.0002 times.

In order to increase the amount of uranium-235 even more, the resulting mixture is again passed through a partition, and the amount of uranium is again increased by 1.0002 times. Thus, to increase the uranium-235 content to 99%, it was necessary to pass the gas through 4000 filters. This took place at a huge gaseous diffusion plant in Oak Ridge.

In 1940, under the leadership of Ernest Lawrence, research began on the separation of uranium isotopes by the electromagnetic method at the University of California. It was necessary to find physical processes that would allow isotopes to be separated using the difference in their masses. Lawrence attempted to separate isotopes using the principle of a mass spectrograph, an instrument used to determine the masses of atoms.

The principle of its operation was as follows: pre-ionized atoms were accelerated by an electric field and then passed through a magnetic field, in which they described circles located in a plane perpendicular to the direction of the field. Since the radii of these trajectories were proportional to their mass, light ions ended up on circles of smaller radius than heavy ones. If traps were placed along the path of the atoms, then different isotopes could be collected separately in this way.

That was the method. In laboratory conditions it gave good results. But building a facility where isotope separation could be carried out on an industrial scale proved extremely difficult. However, Lawrence eventually managed to overcome all difficulties. The result of his efforts was the appearance of calutron, which was installed in a giant plant in Oak Ridge.

This electromagnetic plant was built in 1943 and turned out to be perhaps the most expensive brainchild of the Manhattan Project. Lawrence's method required large quantity complex, not yet developed devices associated with high voltage, high vacuum and strong magnetic fields. The scale of the costs turned out to be enormous. Calutron had a giant electromagnet, the length of which reached 75 m and weighed about 4000 tons.

Several thousand tons of silver wire were used for the windings for this electromagnet.

The entire work (not counting the cost of $300 million in silver, which the State Treasury provided only temporarily) cost $400 million. The Ministry of Defense paid 10 million for the electricity consumed by calutron alone. Much of the equipment at the Oak Ridge plant was superior in scale and precision to anything that had ever been developed in this field of technology.

But all these costs were not in vain. Having spent a total of about 2 billion dollars, US scientists by 1944 created a unique technology for uranium enrichment and plutonium production. Meanwhile, at the Los Alamos laboratory they were working on the design of the bomb itself. The principle of its operation was, in general terms, clear for a long time: the fissile substance (plutonium or uranium-235) had to be transferred to a critical state at the moment of the explosion (for a chain reaction to occur, the mass of the charge must be even noticeably greater than the critical one) and irradiated with a beam of neutrons, which entailed is the beginning of a chain reaction.

According to calculations, the critical mass of the charge exceeded 50 kilograms, but they were able to significantly reduce it. In general, the value of the critical mass is strongly influenced by several factors. The larger the surface area of the charge, the more neutrons are uselessly emitted into the surrounding space. A sphere has the smallest surface area. Consequently, spherical charges with other equal conditions have the smallest critical mass. In addition, the value of the critical mass depends on the purity and type of fissile materials. It is inversely proportional to the square of the density of this material, which allows, for example, by doubling the density, reducing the critical mass by four times. The required degree of subcriticality can be obtained, for example, by compacting the fissile material due to the explosion of a charge of a conventional explosive made in the form of a spherical shell surrounding the nuclear charge. The critical mass can also be reduced by surrounding the charge with a screen that reflects neutrons well. Lead, beryllium, tungsten, natural uranium, iron and many others can be used as such a screen.

One possible design of an atomic bomb consists of two pieces of uranium, which, when combined, form a mass greater than critical. In order to cause a bomb explosion, you need to bring them closer together as quickly as possible. The second method is based on the use of an inward-converging explosion. In this case, a stream of gases from a conventional explosive was directed at the fissile material located inside and compressed it until it reached a critical mass. Combining a charge and intensely irradiating it with neutrons, as already mentioned, causes a chain reaction, as a result of which in the first second the temperature increases to 1 million degrees. During this time, only about 5% of the critical mass managed to separate. The rest of the charge in early bomb designs evaporated without
any benefit.

The first atomic bomb in history (it was given the name Trinity) was assembled in the summer of 1945. And on June 16, 1945, the first atomic explosion on Earth was carried out at the nuclear test site in the Alamogordo desert (New Mexico). The bomb was placed in the center of the test site on top of a 30-meter steel tower. Recording equipment was placed around it at a great distance. There was an observation post 9 km away, and a command post 16 km away. The atomic explosion made a stunning impression on all witnesses to this event. According to eyewitnesses' descriptions, it felt as if many suns had united into one and illuminated the test site at once. Then a huge fireball and a round cloud of dust and light began to rise towards him slowly and ominously.

Taking off from the ground, this fireball soared to a height of more than three kilometers in a few seconds. With every moment it grew in size, soon its diameter reached 1.5 km, and it slowly rose into the stratosphere. Then the fireball gave way to a column of billowing smoke, which stretched to a height of 12 km, taking the shape of a giant mushroom. All this was accompanied by a terrible roar that made the earth tremble. The power of the exploding bomb exceeded all expectations.

As soon as the radiation situation allowed, several Sherman tanks, lined with lead plates on the inside, rushed to the area of the explosion. On one of them was Fermi, who was eager to see the results of his work. What appeared before his eyes was a dead, scorched earth, on which all living things had been destroyed within a radius of 1.5 km. The sand had baked into a glassy greenish crust that covered the ground. In a huge crater lay the mangled remains of a steel support tower. The force of the explosion was estimated at 20,000 tons of TNT.

The next step was to be combat use bombs against Japan, which, after the surrender of Nazi Germany, alone continued the war with the United States and its allies. There were no launch vehicles at that time, so the bombing had to be carried out from an airplane. The components of the two bombs were transported with great care by the cruiser Indianapolis to Tinian Island, where the 509th Combined Air Force Group was based. These bombs differed somewhat from each other in the type of charge and design.

The first bomb - "Baby" - was a large air bomb with an atomic charge of highly enriched uranium-235. Its length was about 3 m, diameter - 62 cm, weight - 4.1 tons.

The second bomb - "Fat Man" - with a charge of plutonium-239 was egg-shaped with a large stabilizer. Its length
was 3.2 m, diameter 1.5 m, weight - 4.5 tons.

On August 6, Colonel Tibbets' B-29 Enola Gay bomber dropped "Little Boy" on the major Japanese city of Hiroshima. The bomb was lowered by parachute and exploded, as planned, at an altitude of 600 m from the ground.

The consequences of the explosion were terrible. Even for the pilots themselves, the sight of a peaceful city destroyed by them in an instant made a depressing impression. Later, one of them admitted that at that second they saw the worst thing a person can see.

For those who were on earth, what was happening resembled true hell. First of all, a heat wave passed over Hiroshima. Its effect lasted only a few moments, but was so powerful that it melted even tiles and quartz crystals in granite slabs, turned telephone poles 4 km away into coal, and finally incinerated human bodies that all that remained of them were shadows on the asphalt of pavements or on the walls of houses. Then a monstrous gust of wind burst out from under the fireball and rushed over the city at a speed of 800 km/h, destroying everything in its path. Houses that could not withstand his furious onslaught collapsed as if they had been knocked down. There is not a single intact building left in the giant circle with a diameter of 4 km. A few minutes after the explosion, black radioactive rain fell over the city - this moisture turned into steam condensed in the high layers of the atmosphere and fell to the ground in the form of large drops mixed with radioactive dust.

After the rain, a new gust of wind hit the city, this time blowing in the direction of the epicenter. It was weaker than the first, but still strong enough to uproot trees. The wind fanned a gigantic fire in which everything that could burn burned. Of the 76 thousand buildings, 55 thousand were completely destroyed and burned. Witnesses of this terrible catastrophe recalled torch-men, from whom burnt clothes fell to the ground along with rags of skin, and of crowds of maddened people, covered with terrible burns, rushing screaming through the streets. There was a suffocating stench of burnt human flesh in the air. There were people lying everywhere, dead and dying. There were many who were blind and deaf and, poking in all directions, could not make out anything in the chaos that reigned around them.

The unfortunate people, who were located at a distance of up to 800 m from the epicenter, literally burned out in a split second - their insides evaporated and their bodies turned into lumps of smoking coals. Those located 1 km from the epicenter were affected by radiation sickness in an extremely severe form. Within a few hours, they began to vomit violently, their temperature jumped to 39-40 degrees, and they began to experience shortness of breath and bleeding. Then non-healing ulcers appeared on the skin, the composition of the blood changed dramatically, and hair fell out. After terrible suffering, usually on the second or third day, death occurred.

In total, about 240 thousand people died from the explosion and radiation sickness. About 160 thousand received radiation sickness in a milder form - their painful death was delayed by several months or years. When news of the disaster spread throughout the country, all of Japan was paralyzed with fear. It increased further after Major Sweeney's Box Car dropped a second bomb on Nagasaki on August 9. Several hundred thousand inhabitants were also killed and injured here. Unable to resist the new weapons, the Japanese government capitulated - the atomic bomb ended World War II.

The war is over. It lasted only six years, but managed to change the world and people almost beyond recognition.

Human civilization before 1939 and human civilization after 1945 are strikingly different from each other. There are many reasons for this, but one of the most important is the emergence of nuclear weapons. It can be said without exaggeration that the shadow of Hiroshima lies over the entire second half of the 20th century. It became a deep moral burn for many millions of people, like former contemporaries this catastrophe, and those born decades after it. Modern man can no longer think about the world the way they thought about it before August 6, 1945 - he understands too clearly that this world can turn into nothing in a few moments.

Modern man cannot look at war the way his grandfathers and great-grandfathers did - he knows for certain that this war will be the last, and there will be neither winners nor losers in it. Nuclear weapons have left their mark on all areas public life, and modern civilization cannot live by the same laws as sixty or eighty years ago. No one understood this better than the creators of the atomic bomb themselves.

"People of our planet , wrote Robert Oppenheimer, must unite. Terror and destruction sown the last war, dictate this thought to us. The explosions of atomic bombs proved it with all cruelty. Other people at other times have already said similar words - only about other weapons and about other wars. They weren't successful. But anyone who today would say that these words are useless is misled by the vicissitudes of history. We cannot be convinced of this. The results of our work leave humanity no choice but to create a united world. A world based on legality and humanity."

A democratic form of governance must be established in the USSR.
Vernadsky V.I.

The atomic bomb in the USSR was created on August 29, 1949 (the first successful launch). The project was led by academician Igor Vasilievich Kurchatov. The period of development of atomic weapons in the USSR lasted from 1942, and ended with testing on the territory of Kazakhstan. This broke the US monopoly on such weapons, because since 1945 they were the only nuclear power. The article is devoted to describing the history of the emergence of the Soviet nuclear bomb, as well as characterizing the consequences of these events for the USSR.

History of creation

In 1941, representatives of the USSR in New York conveyed information to Stalin that a meeting of physicists was being held in the United States, which was devoted to the development of nuclear weapons. Soviet scientists in the 1930s also worked on atomic research, the most famous being the splitting of the atom by scientists from Kharkov led by L. Landau. However, it never came to the point of actual use in weapons. In addition to the United States, Nazi Germany worked on this. At the end of 1941, the United States began its atomic project. Stalin learned about this at the beginning of 1942 and signed a decree on the creation of a laboratory in the USSR to create an atomic project, Academician I. Kurchatov became its leader.

There is an opinion that the work of US scientists was accelerated by the secret developments of German colleagues who came to America. In any case, in the summer of 1945 at the Potsdam Conference new president USA G. Truman informed Stalin about the completion of work on a new weapon - the atomic bomb. Moreover, to demonstrate the work of American scientists, the US government decided to test the new weapon in combat: on August 6 and 9, bombs were dropped on two Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This was the first time that humanity learned about a new weapon. It was this event that forced Stalin to speed up the work of his scientists. I. Kurchatov was summoned by Stalin and promised to fulfill any demands of the scientist, as long as the process proceeded as quickly as possible. Moreover, it was created state committee under the Council of People's Commissars, which oversaw the Soviet nuclear project. It was headed by L. Beria.

Development has moved to three centers:

The design bureau of the Kirov plant, working on the creation of special equipment.
A diffuse plant in the Urals, which was supposed to work on the creation of enriched uranium.
Chemical and metallurgical centers where plutonium was studied. It was this element that was used in the first Soviet-style nuclear bomb.

In 1946, the first Soviet unified nuclear center was created. It was a secret facility Arzamas-16, located in the city of Sarov (Nizhny Novgorod region). In 1947 they created the first nuclear reactor, at an enterprise near Chelyabinsk. In 1948, a secret training ground was created on the territory of Kazakhstan, near the city of Semipalatinsk-21. It was here that on August 29, 1949, the first explosion of the Soviet atomic bomb RDS-1 was organized. This event was kept completely secret, but American Pacific aviation was able to record a sharp increase in radiation levels, which was evidence of the testing of a new weapon. Already in September 1949, G. Truman announced the presence of an atomic bomb in the USSR. Officially, the USSR admitted to the presence of these weapons only in 1950.

Several main consequences of the successful development of atomic weapons by Soviet scientists can be identified:

Loss of US status single state with atomic weapons. This not only equated the USSR with the USA in terms of military power, but also forced the latter to think through their every military step, since now they had to fear for the response of the USSR leadership.
The presence of atomic weapons in the USSR secured its status as a superpower.
After the USA and the USSR were equalized in the availability of atomic weapons, the race for their quantity began. States spent huge amounts of money to outdo their competitors. Moreover, attempts began to create even more powerful weapons.
These events marked the start of the nuclear race. Many countries have begun to invest resources to add to the list of nuclear weapons states and ensure their security.

Ancient Indian and ancient Greek scientists assumed that matter consists of the smallest indivisible particles; they wrote about this in their treatises long before the beginning of our era. In the 5th century BC e. the Greek scientist Leucippus from Miletus and his student Democritus formulated the concept of the atom (Greek atomos “indivisible”). For many centuries, this theory remained rather philosophical, and only in 1803 the English chemist John Dalton proposed a scientific theory of the atom, confirmed by experiments.

At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. this theory was developed in their works by Joseph Thomson, and then by Ernest Rutherford, called Father nuclear physics. It was found that the atom, contrary to its name, is not an indivisible finite particle, as previously stated. In 1911, physicists adopted Rutherford Bohr's "planetary" system, according to which an atom consists of a positively charged nucleus and negatively charged electrons orbiting around it. Later it was found that the nucleus is also not indivisible; it consists of positively charged protons and uncharged neutrons, which, in turn, consist of elementary particles.

As soon as scientists became more or less clear about the structure of the atomic nucleus, they tried to fulfill the long-standing dream of alchemists - the transformation of one substance into another. In 1934, French scientists Frederic and Irene Joliot-Curie, when bombarding aluminum with alpha particles (nuclei of a helium atom), obtained radioactive phosphorus atoms, which, in turn, turned into a stable isotope of silicon, a heavier element than aluminum. The idea arose to conduct a similar experiment with the heaviest natural element, uranium, discovered in 1789 by Martin Klaproth. After Henri Becquerel discovered the radioactivity of uranium salts in 1896, this element seriously interested scientists.

E. Rutherford.

Mushroom of a nuclear explosion.

In 1938, German chemists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann conducted an experiment similar to the Joliot-Curie experiment, however, taking uranium instead of aluminum, they expected to obtain a new superheavy element. However, the result was unexpected: instead of super-heavy, we got light elements from the middle part periodic table. After some time, physicist Lise Meitner suggested that bombarding uranium with neutrons leads to the splitting (fission) of its nucleus, resulting in the nuclei of light elements and leaving a certain number of free neutrons.

Further research showed that natural uranium consists of a mixture of three isotopes, the least stable of which is uranium-235. From time to time, the nuclei of its atoms spontaneously split into parts; this process is accompanied by the release of two or three free neutrons, which rush at a speed of about 10 thousand kms. The nuclei of the most common isotope-238 in most cases simply capture these neutrons; less often, uranium transforms into neptunium and then into plutonium-239. When a neutron hits a uranium-2 3 5 nucleus, it immediately undergoes a new fission.

It was obvious: if you take a large enough piece of pure (enriched) uranium-235, the nuclear fission reaction in it will proceed like an avalanche; this reaction was called a chain reaction. Each nucleus fission releases a huge amount of energy. It was calculated that with complete fission of 1 kg of uranium-235, the same amount of heat is released as when burning 3 thousand tons of coal. This colossal release of energy, released in a matter of moments, was supposed to manifest itself as an explosion of monstrous force, which, of course, immediately interested the military departments.

The Joliot-Curie couple. 1940s

L. Meitner and O. Hahn. 1925

Before the outbreak of World War II, highly classified work was carried out in Germany and some other countries to create nuclear weapons. In the United States, research referred to as the “Manhattan Project” began in 1941, and a year later the world’s largest research laboratory was founded in Los Alamos. Administratively, the project was subordinate to General Groves; scientific leadership was provided by University of California professor Robert Oppenheimer. The largest authorities in the field of physics and chemistry took part in the project, including 13 Nobel Prize laureates: Enrico Fermi, James Frank, Niels Bohr, Ernest Lawrence and others.

The main task was to obtain a sufficient amount of uranium-235. It was found that plutonium-2 39 could also serve as a bomb charge, so work was carried out in two directions at once. The accumulation of uranium-235 was to be carried out by separating it from the bulk of natural uranium, and plutonium could only be obtained as a result of a controlled nuclear reaction when uranium-238 was irradiated with neutrons. Enrichment of natural uranium was carried out at Westinghouse plants, and to produce plutonium it was necessary to build a nuclear reactor.

It was in the reactor that the process of irradiating uranium rods with neutrons took place, as a result of which part of the uranium-238 was supposed to turn into plutonium. The sources of neutrons in this case were fissile atoms of uranium-235, but the capture of neutrons by uranium-238 did not allow a chain reaction to begin. The discovery of Enrico Fermi helped solve the problem, who discovered that neutrons slowed down to a speed of 22 ms cause a chain reaction of uranium-235, but are not captured by uranium-238. As a moderator, Fermi proposed a 40-centimeter layer of graphite or heavy water, which contains the hydrogen isotope deuterium.

R. Oppenheimer and Lieutenant General L. Groves. 1945

Calutron in Oak Ridge.

An experimental reactor was built in 1942 under the stands of the Chicago Stadium. On December 2, its successful experimental launch took place. A year later, a new enrichment plant was built in the city of Oak Ridge and a reactor for the industrial production of plutonium was launched, as well as a calutron device for the electromagnetic separation of uranium isotopes. The total cost of the project was about $2 billion. Meanwhile, at Los Alamos, work was underway directly on the design of the bomb and methods for detonating the charge.

On June 16, 1945, near the city of Alamogordo in New Mexico, during tests codenamed Trinity, the world's first nuclear device with a plutonium charge and an implosive (using chemical explosives for detonation) detonation scheme. The power of the explosion was equivalent to an explosion of 20 kilotons of TNT.

The next step was the combat use of nuclear weapons against Japan, which, after the surrender of Germany, alone continued the war against the United States and its allies. On August 6, a B-29 Enola Gay bomber, under the control of Colonel Tibbetts, dropped a Little Boy bomb on Hiroshima with a uranium charge and a cannon (using the connection of two blocks to create a critical mass) detonation scheme. The bomb was lowered by parachute and exploded at an altitude of 600 m from the ground. On August 9, Major Sweeney's Box Car dropped the Fat Man plutonium bomb on Nagasaki. The consequences of the explosions were terrible. Both cities were almost completely destroyed, more than 200 thousand people died in Hiroshima, about 80 thousand in Nagasaki. Later, one of the pilots admitted that at that second they saw the worst thing a person can see. Unable to resist the new weapons, the Japanese government capitulated.

Hiroshima after the atomic bombing.

The explosion of the atomic bomb put an end to the Second World War, but actually began new war“cold”, accompanied by an unbridled nuclear arms race. Soviet scientists had to catch up with the Americans. In 1943, the secret “laboratory No. 2” was created, headed by the famous physicist Igor Vasilyevich Kurchatov. Later the laboratory was transformed into the Institute of Atomic Energy. In December 1946, the first chain reaction was carried out at the experimental nuclear uranium-graphite reactor F1. Two years later, the first plutonium plant with several industrial reactors was built in the Soviet Union, and in August 1949, the first Soviet atomic bomb with a plutonium charge, RDS-1, with a yield of 22 kilotons, was tested at the Semipalatinsk test site.

In November 1952, the United States detonated the first thermonuclear charge on the Eniwetak Atoll in the Pacific Ocean. destructive force which arose due to the energy released during the nuclear fusion of light elements into heavier ones. Nine months later, at the Semipalatinsk test site, Soviet scientists tested the RDS-6 thermonuclear, or hydrogen, bomb with a yield of 400 kilotons, developed by a group of scientists led by Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov and Yuli Borisovich Khariton. In October 1961 at the archipelago training ground New Earth The 50-megaton Tsar Bomba, the most powerful hydrogen bomb ever tested, was detonated.

I. V. Kurchatov.

At the end of the 2000s, the United States had approximately 5,000 and Russia 2,800 nuclear weapons on deployed strategic delivery vehicles, as well as a significant number of tactical nuclear weapons. This supply is enough to destroy the entire planet several times over. Just one thermonuclear bomb average power (about 25 megatons) is equal to 1500 Hiroshimas.

In the late 1970s, research was carried out to create a neutron weapon, a type of low-yield nuclear bomb. A neutron bomb differs from a conventional nuclear bomb in that it artificially increases the portion of the explosion energy that is released in the form of neutron radiation. This radiation affects the enemy’s manpower, affects his weapons and creates radioactive contamination of the area, while the impact shock wave and light radiation is limited. However, not a single army in the world has ever adopted neutron charges.

Although the use of atomic energy has brought the world to the brink of destruction, it also has a peaceful aspect, although it is extremely dangerous when it gets out of control, this was clearly shown by the accidents at the Chernobyl and Fukushima nuclear power plants. The world's first nuclear power plant with a capacity of only 5 MW was launched on June 27, 1954 in the village of Obninskoye, Kaluga Region (now the city of Obninsk). Today, more than 400 nuclear power plants are operated in the world, 10 of them in Russia. They generate about 17% of all global electricity, and this figure is likely to only increase. Currently, the world cannot do without the use of nuclear energy, but I would like to believe that in the future humanity will find a safer source of energy.

Control panel of a nuclear power plant in Obninsk.

Chernobyl after the disaster.

In the 30s of the last century, many physicists worked on creating an atomic bomb. Officially considered to be the first to create, test and use atomic bomb USA. However, recently I read books by Hans-Ulrich von Kranz, a researcher of the secrets of the Third Reich, where he claims that the Nazis invented the bomb, and the world's first atomic bomb was tested by them in March 1944 in Belarus. The Americans seized all the documents about the atomic bomb, the scientists, and the samples themselves (there were supposedly 13 of them). So the Americans had access to 3 samples, and the Germans transported 10 to a secret base in Antarctica. Kranz confirms his conclusions by the fact that after Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the United States there was no news of testing bombs larger than 1.5, and after that the tests were unsuccessful. This, in his opinion, would have been impossible if the bombs had been created by the United States itself.

We are unlikely to know the truth.

In one thousand nine hundred and forty, Enrico Fermi finished working on a theory called the Nuclear Chain Reaction. After this, the Americans created their first nuclear reactor. In one thousand nine hundred and forty-five, the Americans created three atomic bombs. The first was blown up in New Mexico, and the next two were dropped on Japan.

It is hardly possible to specifically name any person that he is the creator of atomic (nuclear) weapons. Without the discoveries of predecessors there would have been no final result. But many people call Otto Hahn, a German by birth, a nuclear chemist, the father of the atomic bomb. Apparently, it was his discoveries in the field of nuclear fission, together with Fritz Strassmann, that can be considered fundamental in the creation of nuclear weapons.

The father of Soviet weapons mass destruction It is generally accepted to consider Igor Kurchatov and Soviet intelligence and Klaus Fuchs personally. However, we should not forget about the discoveries of our scientists in the late 30s. Work on uranium fission was carried out by A.K. Peterzhak and G.N. Flerov.

The atomic bomb is a product that was not invented immediately. It took dozens of years of various studies to reach the result. Before specimens were first invented in 1945, many experiments and discoveries were carried out. All scientists who are related to these works can be counted among the creators of the atomic bomb. Besom speaks directly about the team of inventors of the bomb itself, there was a whole team, it’s better to read about it on Wikipedia.

A large number of scientists and engineers from various industries took part in the creation of the atomic bomb. It would be unfair to name just one. The material from Wikipedia does not mention the French physicist Henri Becquerel, the Russian scientists Pierre Curie and his wife Maria Sklodowska-Curie, who discovered the radioactivity of uranium, and the German theoretical physicist Albert Einstein.

Quite an interesting question.

After reading information on the Internet, I came to the conclusion that the USSR and the USA began working on creating these bombs at the same time.

I think you will read in more detail in the article. Everything is written there in great detail.

Many discoveries have their own parents, but inventions are often the collective result of a common cause, when everyone contributed. In addition, many inventions are, as it were, a product of their era, so work on them is carried out simultaneously in different laboratories. so with the atomic bomb, it does not have one single parent.

Quite a difficult task, it is difficult to say who exactly invented the atomic bomb, because many scientists were involved in its appearance, who consistently worked on the study of radioactivity, uranium enrichment, chain reaction of fission of heavy nuclei, etc. Here are the main points of its creation:

By 1945, American scientists had invented two atomic bombs Baby weighed 2722 kg and was equipped with enriched Uranium-235 and Fat man with a charge of Plutonium-239 with a power of more than 20 kt, it had a mass of 3175 kg.

At this time, they are completely different in size and shape.

Work on nuclear projects in the USA and USSR began simultaneously. In July 1945, an American atomic bomb (Robert Oppenheimer, head of the laboratory) was exploded at the test site, and then, in August, bombs were also dropped on the infamous Nagasaki and Hiroshima. The first test of a Soviet bomb took place in 1949 (project manager Igor Kurchatov), but as they say, its creation was made possible thanks to excellent intelligence.

There is also information that the Germans were the creators of the atomic bomb. You can, for example, read about this here..

There is simply no clear answer to this question - many talented physicists and chemists worked on the creation of a deadly weapon capable of destroying the planet, whose names are listed in this article - as we see, the inventor was far from alone.

The hydrogen bomb (Hydrogen Bomb, HB) is a weapon of mass destruction with incredible destructive power (its power is estimated at megatons of TNT). The principle of operation of the bomb and its structure are based on the use of the energy of thermonuclear fusion of hydrogen nuclei. The processes occurring during the explosion are similar to those occurring on stars (including the Sun). The first test of a VB suitable for transportation over long distances (designed by A.D. Sakharov) was carried out in the Soviet Union at a test site near Semipalatinsk.

Thermonuclear reaction

The sun contains huge reserves of hydrogen, which is under constant influence of ultra-high pressure and temperature (about 15 million degrees Kelvin). At such an extreme plasma density and temperature, the nuclei of hydrogen atoms randomly collide with each other. The result of collisions is the fusion of nuclei, and as a consequence, the formation of nuclei of a heavier element - helium. Reactions of this type are called thermonuclear fusion; they are characterized by the release of colossal amounts of energy.

The laws of physics explain the energy release during a thermonuclear reaction as follows: part of the mass of light nuclei involved in the formation of heavier elements remains unused and is converted into pure energy in colossal quantities. That is why our celestial body loses approximately 4 million tons of matter per second, while releasing a continuous flow of energy into outer space.

Isotopes of hydrogen

The simplest of all existing atoms is the hydrogen atom. It consists of only one proton, forming the nucleus, and a single electron orbiting around it. As a result of scientific studies of water (H2O), it was found that it contains so-called “heavy” water in small quantities. It contains “heavy” isotopes of hydrogen (2H or deuterium), the nuclei of which, in addition to one proton, also contain one neutron (a particle close in mass to a proton, but devoid of charge).

Science also knows tritium, the third isotope of hydrogen, the nucleus of which contains 1 proton and 2 neutrons. Tritium is characterized by instability and constant spontaneous decay with the release of energy (radiation), resulting in the formation of a helium isotope. Traces of tritium are found in the upper layers of the Earth's atmosphere: it is there, under the influence cosmic rays The gas molecules that make up air undergo similar changes. It is also possible to obtain tritium in nuclear reactor by irradiating the lithium-6 isotope with a powerful neutron flux.

Development and first tests of the hydrogen bomb

As a result of a thorough theoretical analysis, experts from the USSR and the USA came to the conclusion that a mixture of deuterium and tritium makes it easiest to launch a thermonuclear fusion reaction. Armed with this knowledge, scientists from the United States in the 50s of the last century began to create a hydrogen bomb. And already in the spring of 1951, a test test was carried out at the Enewetak test site (an atoll in the Pacific Ocean), but then only partial thermonuclear fusion was achieved.

A little more than a year passed, and in November 1952 the second test of a hydrogen bomb with a yield of about 10 Mt of TNT was carried out. However, that explosion can hardly be called an explosion of a thermonuclear bomb in the modern sense: in fact, the device was a large container (the size of a three-story building) filled with liquid deuterium.

Russia also took up the task of improving atomic weapons, and the first hydrogen bomb of the A.D. project. Sakharov was tested at the Semipalatinsk test site on August 12, 1953. RDS-6 (this type of weapon of mass destruction was nicknamed Sakharov’s “puff”, since its design involved the sequential placement of layers of deuterium surrounding the initiator charge) had a power of 10 Mt. However, unlike the American “three-story house”, soviet bomb It was compact and could be quickly delivered to the drop site on enemy territory on a strategic bomber.

Accepting the challenge, the United States in March 1954 exploded a more powerful aerial bomb (15 Mt) at a test site on Bikini Atoll ( Pacific Ocean). The test resulted in the release of a large amount of radioactive substances, some of which fell with precipitation hundreds of kilometers from the epicenter of the explosion. The Japanese ship "Lucky Dragon" and instruments installed on Rogelap Island recorded a sharp increase in radiation.

Since the processes that occur during the detonation of a hydrogen bomb produce stable, harmless helium, it was expected that radioactive emissions should not exceed the level of contamination from an atomic fusion detonator. But calculations and measurements of actual radioactive fallout varied greatly, both in quantity and composition. Therefore, the US leadership decided to temporarily suspend the design of this weapon until its impact on the environment and humans is fully studied.

Video: tests in the USSR

Tsar Bomba - thermonuclear bomb of the USSR

Fat point in the chain of tonnage recruitment hydrogen bombs set by the USSR when, on October 30, 1961, a 50-megaton (the largest in history) “Tsar Bomb” was tested on Novaya Zemlya - the result of many years of work research group HELL. Sakharov. The explosion occurred at an altitude of 4 kilometers, and the shock wave was recorded three times by instruments around the globe. Despite the fact that the test did not reveal any failures, the bomb never entered service. But the very fact that the Soviets possessed such weapons made an indelible impression on the whole world, and the United States stopped accumulating the tonnage of its nuclear arsenal. Russia, in turn, decided to abandon the introduction of warheads with hydrogen charges into combat duty.

The hydrogen bomb is the most complex technical device, the explosion of which requires the sequential occurrence of a number of processes.

First, the initiator charge located inside the shell of the VB (miniature atomic bomb) detonates, resulting in a powerful release of neutrons and the creation of the high temperature required to begin thermonuclear fusion in the main charge. Massive neutron bombardment of the lithium deuteride insert (obtained by combining deuterium with the lithium-6 isotope) begins.

Under the influence of neutrons, lithium-6 splits into tritium and helium. The atomic fuse in this case becomes a source of materials necessary for thermonuclear fusion to occur in the detonated bomb itself.

A mixture of tritium and deuterium triggers a thermonuclear reaction, causing the temperature inside the bomb to rapidly increase, and more and more hydrogen is involved in the process.
The principle of operation of a hydrogen bomb implies the ultra-fast occurrence of these processes (the charge device and the arrangement of the main elements contribute to this), which to the observer appear instantaneous.

Superbomb: fission, fusion, fission

The sequence of processes described above ends after the start of the reaction of deuterium with tritium. Next, it was decided to use nuclear fission rather than fusion of heavier ones. After the fusion of tritium and deuterium nuclei, free helium and fast neutrons are released, the energy of which is sufficient to initiate the fission of uranium-238 nuclei. Fast neutrons are capable of splitting atoms from the uranium shell of a superbomb. The fission of a ton of uranium generates energy of about 18 Mt. In this case, energy is spent not only on creating a blast wave and releasing a colossal amount of heat. Each uranium atom decays into two radioactive “fragments.” A whole “bouquet” of various chemical elements (up to 36) and about two hundred radioactive isotopes is formed. It is for this reason that numerous radioactive fallouts are formed, recorded hundreds of kilometers from the epicenter of the explosion.

After the fall of the Iron Curtain, it became known that the USSR was planning to develop a “Tsar Bomb” with a capacity of 100 Mt. Due to the fact that at that time there was no aircraft capable of carrying such a massive charge, the idea was abandoned in favor of a 50 Mt bomb.

Consequences of a hydrogen bomb explosion

Shock wave

The explosion of a hydrogen bomb entails large-scale destruction and consequences, and the primary (obvious, direct) impact is threefold. The most obvious of all direct impacts is a shock wave of ultra-high intensity. Its destructive ability decreases with distance from the epicenter of the explosion, and also depends on the power of the bomb itself and the height at which the charge detonated.

Thermal effect

The effect of the thermal impact of an explosion depends on the same factors as the power of the shock wave. But one more thing is added to them - the degree of transparency air masses. Fog or even slight cloudiness sharply reduces the radius of damage over which a thermal flash can cause serious burns and loss of vision. The explosion of a hydrogen bomb (more than 20 Mt) generates an incredible amount of thermal energy, sufficient to melt concrete at a distance of 5 km, evaporate almost all the water from a small lake at a distance of 10 km, destroy enemy personnel, equipment and buildings at the same distance . In the center, a funnel with a diameter of 1-2 km and a depth of up to 50 m is formed, covered with a thick layer of glassy mass (several meters of rocks with a high sand content melt almost instantly, turning into glass).

According to calculations based on real-life tests, people have a 50% chance of surviving if they:

They are located in a reinforced concrete shelter (underground) 8 km from the epicenter of the explosion (EV);
They are located in residential buildings at a distance of 15 km from the EV;
They will find themselves in an open area at a distance of more than 20 km from the EV with poor visibility (for a “clean” atmosphere, the minimum distance in this case will be 25 km).

With distance from EVs, the likelihood of surviving in people who find themselves in open areas increases sharply. So, at a distance of 32 km it will be 90-95%. A radius of 40-45 km is the limit for the primary impact of an explosion.

Fireball

Another obvious impact from the explosion of a hydrogen bomb is self-sustaining firestorms (hurricanes), formed as a result of colossal masses of combustible material being drawn into the fireball. But despite this, the most dangerous consequence of the explosion in terms of impact will be radiation pollution environment for tens of kilometers around.

Fallout

The fireball that appears after the explosion is quickly filled with radioactive particles in huge quantities (products of the decay of heavy nuclei). The particle size is so small that when they enter the upper atmosphere, they can stay there for a very long time. Everything that the fireball reaches on the surface of the earth instantly turns into ash and dust, and then is drawn into the pillar of fire. Flame vortices mix these particles with charged particles, forming a dangerous mixture of radioactive dust, the process of sedimentation of the granules of which lasts for a long time.

Coarse dust settles quite quickly, but fine dust is carried by air currents over vast distances, gradually falling out of the newly formed cloud. Large and most charged particles settle in the immediate vicinity of the EC; ash particles visible to the eye can still be found hundreds of kilometers away. They form a deadly cover several centimeters thick. Anyone who gets close to him risks receiving a serious dose of radiation.

Smaller and indistinguishable particles can “float” in the atmosphere for many years, repeatedly circling the Earth. By the time they fall to the surface, they have lost a fair amount of radioactivity. The most dangerous is strontium-90, which has a half-life of 28 years and generates stable radiation throughout this time. Its appearance is detected by instruments around the world. "Landing" on the grass and foliage, he becomes involved in food chains. For this reason, examinations of people located thousands of kilometers from the test sites reveal strontium-90 accumulated in the bones. Even if its content is extremely small, the prospect of becoming a “storage site” radioactive waste“does not bode well for a person, leading to the development of bone malignant neoplasms. In regions of Russia (as well as other countries) close to the sites of test launches of hydrogen bombs, an increased radioactive background is still observed, which once again proves the ability of this type of weapon to leave significant consequences.