The Germans took over first. In December 1938, their physicists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann, for the first time in the world, carried out artificial fission of the uranium atom nucleus. In April 1939, the military leadership of Germany received a letter from professors of the University of Hamburg P. Harteck and V. Groth, which indicated the fundamental possibility of creating a new type of highly effective explosive. The scientists wrote: "The country that is the first to be able to practically master the achievements of nuclear physics will gain absolute superiority over others." And now, in the Imperial Ministry of Science and Education, a meeting is being held on the topic "On a self-propagating (that is, a chain) nuclear reaction." Among the participants is Professor E. Schumann, head of the research department of the Third Reich Arms Administration. Without delay, we moved from words to deeds. Already in June 1939, the construction of Germany's first reactor plant began at the Kummersdorf test site near Berlin. A law was passed to ban the export of uranium outside Germany, and a large amount of uranium ore was urgently purchased in the Belgian Congo.
The American uranium bomb that destroyed Hiroshima was of a cannon design. Soviet nuclear scientists, creating RDS-1, were guided by the "Nagasaki bomb" - Fat Boy, made of plutonium according to the implosion scheme.
Germany starts and… loses
On September 26, 1939, when war was already raging in Europe, it was decided to classify all work related to the uranium problem and the implementation of the program, called the "Uranium Project". The scientists involved in the project were initially very optimistic: they considered it possible to create nuclear weapons within a year. Wrong, as life has shown.
22 organizations were involved in the project, including such well-known scientific centers as the Physical Institute of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, the Institute of Physical Chemistry of the University of Hamburg, the Physical Institute of the Higher Technical School in Berlin, the Physical and Chemical Institute of the University of Leipzig and many others. The project was personally supervised by the Imperial Minister of Armaments Albert Speer. The IG Farbenindustri concern was entrusted with the production of uranium hexafluoride, from which it is possible to extract the uranium-235 isotope capable of maintaining a chain reaction. The same company was entrusted with the construction of an isotope separation facility. Such venerable scientists as Heisenberg, Weizsacker, von Ardenne, Riehl, Pose, Nobel laureate Gustav Hertz and others directly participated in the work.
Within two years, the Heisenberg group carried out the research needed to create an atomic reactor using uranium and heavy water. It was confirmed that only one of the isotopes, namely, uranium-235, contained in very small concentrations in ordinary uranium ore, can serve as an explosive. The first problem was how to isolate it from there. The starting point of the bombing program was an atomic reactor, which required either graphite or heavy water as a reaction moderator. German physicists chose water, thereby creating a serious problem for themselves. After the occupation of Norway, the only heavy water plant in the world at that time passed into the hands of the Nazis. But there, the stock of the product needed by physicists by the beginning of the war was only tens of kilograms, and the Germans did not get them either - the French stole valuable products literally from under the noses of the Nazis. And in February 1943, the British commandos abandoned in Norway, with the help of local resistance fighters, disabled the plant. The implementation of Germany's nuclear program was in jeopardy. The misadventures of the Germans did not end there: an experimental nuclear reactor exploded in Leipzig. The uranium project was supported by Hitler only as long as there was hope of obtaining a super-powerful weapon before the end of the war unleashed by him. Heisenberg was invited by Speer and asked bluntly: "When can we expect the creation of a bomb capable of being suspended from a bomber?" The scientist was honest: "I think it will take several years of hard work, in any case, the bomb will not be able to affect the outcome of the current war." The German leadership rationally considered that there was no point in forcing events. Let scientists work quietly - by the next war, you see, they will have time. As a result, Hitler decided to concentrate scientific, industrial and financial resources only on projects that would give the fastest return in the creation of new types of weapons. State funding for the uranium project was curtailed. Nevertheless, the work of scientists continued.
Manfred von Ardenne, who developed a method for gas diffusion purification and separation of uranium isotopes in a centrifuge.
In 1944, Heisenberg received cast uranium plates for a large reactor plant, under which a special bunker was already being built in Berlin. The last experiment to achieve a chain reaction was scheduled for January 1945, but on January 31, all equipment was hastily dismantled and sent from Berlin to the village of Haigerloch near the Swiss border, where it was deployed only at the end of February. The reactor contained 664 cubes of uranium with a total weight of 1525 kg, surrounded by a graphite neutron moderator-reflector weighing 10 tons. In March 1945, an additional 1.5 tons of heavy water was poured into the core. On March 23, it was reported to Berlin that the reactor had started working. But the joy was premature - the reactor did not reach a critical point, the chain reaction did not start. After recalculations, it turned out that the amount of uranium must be increased by at least 750 kg, proportionally increasing the mass of heavy water. But there were no reserves left. The end of the Third Reich was inexorably approaching. On April 23, American troops entered Haigerloch. The reactor was dismantled and taken to the USA.
Meanwhile across the ocean
In parallel with the Germans (with only a slight lag), the development of atomic weapons was taken up in England and the USA. They began with a letter sent in September 1939 by Albert Einstein to US President Franklin Roosevelt. The initiators of the letter and the authors of most of the text were émigré physicists from Hungary Leo Szilard, Eugene Wigner and Edward Teller. The letter drew the president's attention to the fact that Nazi Germany was conducting active research, as a result of which it could soon acquire an atomic bomb.
In 1933, the German communist Klaus Fuchs fled to England. After receiving a degree in physics from the University of Bristol, he continued to work. In 1941, Fuchs reported his involvement in atomic research to Soviet intelligence agent Jurgen Kuchinsky, who informed Soviet ambassador Ivan Maisky. He instructed the military attache to urgently establish contact with Fuchs, who, as part of a group of scientists, was going to be transported to the United States. Fuchs agreed to work for Soviet intelligence. Many illegal Soviet spies were involved in working with him: the Zarubins, Eitingon, Vasilevsky, Semyonov and others. As a result of their active work, already in January 1945, the USSR had a description of the design of the first atomic bomb. At the same time, the Soviet residency in the United States reported that it would take the Americans at least one year, but no more than five years, to create a significant arsenal of atomic weapons. The report also said that the explosion of the first two bombs might be carried out in a few months. Pictured is Operation Crossroads, a series of atomic bomb tests conducted by the United States on Bikini Atoll in the summer of 1946. The goal was to test the effect of atomic weapons on ships.
In the USSR, the first information about the work carried out by both the allies and the enemy was reported to Stalin by intelligence as early as 1943. It was immediately decided to deploy similar work in the Union. Thus began the Soviet atomic project. Tasks were received not only by scientists, but also by intelligence officers, for whom the extraction of nuclear secrets has become a super task.
The most valuable information about the work on the atomic bomb in the United States, obtained by intelligence, greatly helped the promotion of the Soviet nuclear project. The scientists participating in it managed to avoid dead-end search paths, thereby significantly accelerating the achievement of the final goal.
Experience of Recent Enemies and Allies
Naturally, the Soviet leadership could not remain indifferent to German nuclear developments. At the end of the war, a group of Soviet physicists was sent to Germany, among whom were the future academicians Artsimovich, Kikoin, Khariton, Shchelkin. All were camouflaged in the uniform of colonels of the Red Army. The operation was led by First Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs Ivan Serov, which opened any door. In addition to the necessary German scientists, the “colonels” found tons of metallic uranium, which, according to Kurchatov, reduced work on the Soviet bomb by at least a year. The Americans also took out a lot of uranium from Germany, taking the specialists who worked on the project with them. And in the USSR, in addition to physicists and chemists, they sent mechanics, electrical engineers, glassblowers. Some were found in POW camps. For example, Max Steinbeck, the future Soviet academician and vice-president of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR, was taken away when he was making a sundial at the whim of the head of the camp. In total, at least 1000 German specialists worked on the atomic project in the USSR. From Berlin, the von Ardenne laboratory with a uranium centrifuge, equipment of the Kaiser Institute of Physics, documentation, reagents were completely taken out. Within the framework of the atomic project, laboratories "A", "B", "C" and "G" were created, the scientific supervisors of which were scientists who arrived from Germany.
K.A. Petrzhak and G. N. Flerov In 1940, in the laboratory of Igor Kurchatov, two young physicists discovered a new, very peculiar type of radioactive decay of atomic nuclei - spontaneous fission.
Laboratory "A" was headed by Baron Manfred von Ardenne, a talented physicist who developed a method for gaseous diffusion purification and separation of uranium isotopes in a centrifuge. At first, his laboratory was located on the Oktyabrsky field in Moscow. Five or six Soviet engineers were assigned to each German specialist. Later, the laboratory moved to Sukhumi, and over time, the famous Kurchatov Institute grew up on the Oktyabrsky field. In Sukhumi, on the basis of the von Ardenne laboratory, the Sukhumi Institute of Physics and Technology was formed. In 1947, Ardenne was awarded the Stalin Prize for the creation of a centrifuge for the purification of uranium isotopes on an industrial scale. Six years later, Ardenne became twice a Stalin laureate. He lived with his wife in a comfortable mansion, his wife played music on a piano brought from Germany. Other German specialists were not offended either: they came with their families, brought with them furniture, books, paintings, were provided with good salaries and food. Were they prisoners? Academician A.P. Alexandrov, himself an active participant in the atomic project, remarked: "Of course, the German specialists were prisoners, but we ourselves were prisoners."
Nikolaus Riehl, a native of St. Petersburg who moved to Germany in the 1920s, became the head of Laboratory B, which conducted research in the field of radiation chemistry and biology in the Urals (now the city of Snezhinsk). Here Riehl worked with his old acquaintance from Germany, the outstanding Russian biologist-geneticist Timofeev-Resovsky (“Zubr” based on the novel by D. Granin).
In December 1938, German physicists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann for the first time in the world carried out artificial fission of the uranium atom nucleus.
Recognized in the USSR as a researcher and talented organizer, able to find effective solutions to the most complex problems, Dr. Riehl became one of the key figures in the Soviet atomic project. After the successful testing of the Soviet bomb, he became a Hero of Socialist Labor and a laureate of the Stalin Prize.
The work of laboratory "B", organized in Obninsk, was headed by Professor Rudolf Pose, one of the pioneers in the field of nuclear research. Under his leadership, fast neutron reactors were created, the first nuclear power plant in the Union, and the design of reactors for submarines began. The object in Obninsk became the basis for the organization of the A.I. Leipunsky. Pose worked until 1957 in Sukhumi, then at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna.
Gustav Hertz, the nephew of the famous physicist of the 19th century, himself a famous scientist, became the head of the laboratory "G", located in the Sukhumi sanatorium "Agudzery". He received recognition for a series of experiments that confirmed Niels Bohr's theory of the atom and quantum mechanics. The results of his very successful activities in Sukhumi were later used on an industrial plant built in Novouralsk, where in 1949 the filling for the first Soviet atomic bomb RDS-1 was developed. For his achievements in the framework of the atomic project, Gustav Hertz was awarded the Stalin Prize in 1951.
German specialists who received permission to return to their homeland (of course, to the GDR) signed a non-disclosure agreement for 25 years about their participation in the Soviet atomic project. In Germany, they continued to work in their specialty. Thus, Manfred von Ardenne, twice awarded the National Prize of the GDR, served as director of the Physics Institute in Dresden, created under the auspices of the Scientific Council for the Peaceful Applications of Atomic Energy, led by Gustav Hertz. Hertz also received a national prize as the author of a three-volume textbook on nuclear physics. In the same place, in Dresden, at the Technical University, Rudolf Pose also worked.
The participation of German scientists in the atomic project, as well as the successes of intelligence officers, in no way detract from the merits of Soviet scientists, who ensured the creation of domestic atomic weapons with their selfless work. However, it must be admitted that without the contribution of both, the creation of the atomic industry and atomic weapons in the USSR would have dragged on for many years.
On August 12, 1953, the first Soviet hydrogen bomb was tested at the Semipalatinsk test site.
And on January 16, 1963, at the height of the Cold War, Nikita Khrushchev announced to the world that the Soviet Union possesses new weapons of mass destruction in its arsenal. A year and a half earlier, the most powerful explosion of a hydrogen bomb in the world was carried out in the USSR - a charge with a capacity of over 50 megatons was blown up on Novaya Zemlya. In many ways, it was this statement by the Soviet leader that made the world aware of the threat of a further escalation of the nuclear arms race: already on August 5, 1963, an agreement was signed in Moscow banning nuclear weapons tests in the atmosphere, outer space and under water.
History of creation
The theoretical possibility of obtaining energy by thermonuclear fusion was known even before the Second World War, but it was the war and the subsequent arms race that raised the question of creating a technical device for the practical creation of this reaction. It is known that in Germany in 1944, work was underway to initiate thermonuclear fusion by compressing nuclear fuel using charges of conventional explosives - but they were unsuccessful, since they could not obtain the necessary temperatures and pressures. The USA and the USSR have been developing thermonuclear weapons since the 1940s, having tested the first thermonuclear devices almost simultaneously in the early 1950s. In 1952, on the Enewetok Atoll, the United States carried out an explosion of a charge with a capacity of 10.4 megatons (which is 450 times the power of the bomb dropped on Nagasaki), and in 1953 a device with a capacity of 400 kilotons was tested in the USSR.The designs of the first thermonuclear devices were ill-suited for real combat use. For example, a device tested by the United States in 1952 was an above-ground structure as high as a 2-story building and weighing over 80 tons. Liquid thermonuclear fuel was stored in it with the help of a huge refrigeration unit. Therefore, in the future, the mass production of thermonuclear weapons was carried out using solid fuel - lithium-6 deuteride. In 1954, the United States tested a device based on it at Bikini Atoll, and in 1955, a new Soviet thermonuclear bomb was tested at the Semipalatinsk test site. In 1957, a hydrogen bomb was tested in the UK. In October 1961, a thermonuclear bomb with a capacity of 58 megatons was detonated in the USSR on Novaya Zemlya - the most powerful bomb ever tested by mankind, which went down in history under the name "Tsar Bomba".
Further development was aimed at reducing the size of the design of hydrogen bombs in order to ensure their delivery to the target by ballistic missiles. Already in the 60s, the mass of devices was reduced to several hundred kilograms, and by the 70s, ballistic missiles could carry more than 10 warheads at the same time - these are missiles with multiple warheads, each of the parts can hit its own target. To date, the United States, Russia and Great Britain have thermonuclear arsenals, tests of thermonuclear charges were also carried out in China (in 1967) and France (in 1968).
How the hydrogen bomb works
The action of a hydrogen bomb is based on the use of energy released during the reaction of thermonuclear fusion of light nuclei. It is this reaction that takes place in the interiors of stars, where, under the influence of ultrahigh temperatures and gigantic pressure, hydrogen nuclei collide and merge into heavier helium nuclei. During the reaction, part of the mass of hydrogen nuclei is converted into a large amount of energy - thanks to this, stars release a huge amount of energy constantly. Scientists have copied this reaction using hydrogen isotopes - deuterium and tritium, which gave the name "hydrogen bomb". Initially, liquid isotopes of hydrogen were used to produce charges, and later lithium-6 deuteride, a solid compound of deuterium and an isotope of lithium, was used.
Lithium-6 deuteride is the main component of the hydrogen bomb, thermonuclear fuel. It already stores deuterium, and the lithium isotope serves as a raw material for the formation of tritium. To start a fusion reaction, it is necessary to create high temperatures and pressures, as well as to isolate tritium from lithium-6. These conditions are provided as follows.
The shell of the container for thermonuclear fuel is made of uranium-238 and plastic, next to the container is placed a conventional nuclear charge with a capacity of several kilotons - it is called a trigger, or a charge-initiator of a hydrogen bomb. During the explosion of the initiating plutonium charge, under the influence of powerful X-ray radiation, the container shell turns into plasma, shrinking thousands of times, which creates the necessary high pressure and enormous temperature. At the same time, neutrons emitted by plutonium interact with lithium-6, forming tritium. The nuclei of deuterium and tritium interact under the influence of ultra-high temperature and pressure, which leads to a thermonuclear explosion.
If you make several layers of uranium-238 and lithium-6 deuteride, then each of them will add its power to the bomb explosion - that is, such a "puff" allows you to increase the power of the explosion almost unlimitedly. Thanks to this, a hydrogen bomb can be made of almost any power, and it will be much cheaper than a conventional nuclear bomb of the same power.
In the 30s of the last century, many physicists worked on the creation of an atomic bomb. It is officially believed that the United States was the first to create, test and use the atomic bomb. However, I recently read books by Hans-Ulrich von Krantz, 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, scientists and the samples themselves (there were, allegedly, 13). So the Americans had 3 samples available, 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 USA there was no news of bomb tests of more than 1.5, and after that the tests were unsuccessful. This, in his opinion, would not be possible if the bombs were created by the United States itself.
We are unlikely to know the truth.
In 1940, Enrico Fermi finished working on a theory called Nuclear Chain Reaction. After that, the Americans created their first nuclear reactor. In 1945, the Americans created three atomic bombs. The first was blown up in their state of 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 the predecessors, there would be no final result. But, many call it Otto Hahn, a German-born 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 of mass destruction is considered to be Igor Kurchatov and Soviet intelligence and personally Klaus Fuchs. However, do not forget about the discoveries of our scientists in the late 30s. Work on the fission of uranium was carried out by A. K. Peterzhak and G. N. Flerov.
The atomic bomb is a product that was not invented immediately. In order to come to a result, it took decades of various studies. Before copies were invented for the first time in 1945, many experiments and discoveries were made. 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, then there was a whole team, it is better to read about this on Wikipedia.
A large number of scientists and engineers from various industries took part in the creation of the atomic bomb. To name just one would be unfair. 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 the information on the Internet, I concluded that the USSR and the USA began to work on the creation of these bombs at the same time.
More details, I think, you will read 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, there is no 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, the 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 had a mass of 3175 kg.
Currently, they are completely different in size and shape.
Work on nuclear projects in the US and the USSR began simultaneously. In July 1945, an American atomic bomb (Robert Oppenheimer, head of the laboratory) was detonated at the test site, and then bombs were also dropped on the notorious Nagasaki and Hiroshima, respectively, in August. 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, in general, the Germans were the creators of the atomic bomb .. For example, you can read about this here ..
There is simply no unambiguous answer to this question - many of the most talented physicists and chemists, whose names are listed in this article, worked on the creation of a deadly weapon capable of destroying the planet - as you can see, the inventor was far from alone.
There are many different political clubs in the world. Big, now already, seven, G20, BRICS, SCO, NATO, European Union, to some extent. However, none of these clubs can boast a unique function - the ability to destroy the world as we know it. The "nuclear club" possesses similar possibilities.
To date, there are 9 countries with nuclear weapons:
- Russia;
- Great Britain;
- France;
- India
- Pakistan;
- Israel;
- DPRK.
Countries are ranked according to the appearance of nuclear weapons in their arsenal. If the list were built by the number of warheads, then Russia would be in first place with its 8,000 units, 1,600 of which can be launched right now. The states are only 700 units behind, but "at hand" they have 320 more charges. "Nuclear club" is a purely conditional concept, in fact there is no club. There are a number of agreements between the countries on non-proliferation and the reduction of stockpiles of nuclear weapons.
The first tests of the atomic bomb, as you know, were carried out by the United States back in 1945. This weapon was tested in the "field" conditions of the Second World War on the inhabitants of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They operate on the principle of division. During the explosion, a chain reaction is started, which provokes the fission of the nuclei into two, with the accompanying release of energy. Uranium and plutonium are mainly used for this reaction. It is with these elements that our ideas about what nuclear bombs are made of are connected. Since uranium occurs in nature only as a mixture of three isotopes, of which only one is capable of supporting such a reaction, it is necessary to enrich uranium. The alternative is plutonium-239, which does not occur naturally and must be produced from uranium.
If a fission reaction takes place in a uranium bomb, then a fusion reaction occurs in a hydrogen bomb - this is the essence of how a hydrogen bomb differs from an atomic bomb. We all know that the sun gives us light, warmth, and one might say life. The same processes that take place in the sun can easily destroy cities and countries. The explosion of a hydrogen bomb was born by the fusion reaction of light nuclei, the so-called thermonuclear fusion. This "miracle" is possible thanks to hydrogen isotopes - deuterium and tritium. That is why the bomb is called a hydrogen bomb. You can also see the name "thermonuclear bomb", from the reaction that underlies this weapon.
After the world saw the destructive power of nuclear weapons, in August 1945, the USSR began a race that continued until its collapse. The United States was the first to create, test and use nuclear weapons, the first to detonate a hydrogen bomb, but the USSR can be credited with the first production of a compact hydrogen bomb that can be delivered to the enemy on a conventional Tu-16. The first US bomb was the size of a three-story house, a hydrogen bomb of this size is of little use. The Soviets received such weapons as early as 1952, while the first "adequate" US bomb was adopted only in 1954. If you look back and analyze the explosions in Nagasaki and Hiroshima, you can conclude that they were not so powerful. . Two bombs in total destroyed both cities and killed, according to various sources, up to 220,000 people. Carpet bombing Tokyo in a day could take the lives of 150-200,000 people without any nuclear weapons. This is due to the low power of the first bombs - only a few tens of kilotons of TNT. Hydrogen bombs were tested with an eye to overcoming 1 megaton or more.
The first Soviet bomb was tested with a claim of 3 Mt, but in the end 1.6 Mt was tested.
The most powerful hydrogen bomb was tested by the Soviets in 1961. Its capacity reached 58-75 Mt, while the declared 51 Mt. "Tsar" plunged the world into a slight shock, in the literal sense. The shock wave circled the planet three times. There was not a single hill left at the test site (Novaya Zemlya), the explosion was heard at a distance of 800 km. The fireball reached a diameter of almost 5 km, the “mushroom” grew by 67 km, and the diameter of its cap was almost 100 km. The consequences of such an explosion in a large city are hard to imagine. According to many experts, it was the test of a hydrogen bomb of such power (the United States at that time had four times less bombs in strength) that was the first step towards signing various treaties to ban nuclear weapons, test them and reduce production. The world for the first time thought about its own security, which was really under threat.
As mentioned earlier, the principle of operation of a hydrogen bomb is based on a fusion reaction. Thermonuclear fusion is the process of fusion of two nuclei into one, with the formation of a third element, the release of a fourth and energy. The forces that repel the nuclei are colossal, so for the atoms to get close enough to merge, the temperature must be simply enormous. Scientists have been puzzling over cold thermonuclear fusion for centuries, trying to bring the fusion temperature down to room temperature, ideally. In this case, humanity will have access to the energy of the future. As for the fusion reaction at the present time, to start it you still need to light a miniature sun here on Earth - usually bombs use a uranium or plutonium charge to start the fusion.
In addition to the consequences described above from the use of a bomb of tens of megatons, a hydrogen bomb, like any nuclear weapon, has a number of consequences from its use. Some people tend to think that the hydrogen bomb is a "cleaner weapon" than a conventional bomb. Perhaps it has something to do with the name. People hear the word "water" and think that it has something to do with water and hydrogen, and therefore the consequences are not so dire. In fact, this is certainly not the case, because the action of the hydrogen bomb is based on extremely radioactive substances. It is theoretically possible to make a bomb without a uranium charge, but this is impractical due to the complexity of the process, so the pure fusion reaction is "diluted" with uranium to increase power. At the same time, the amount of radioactive fallout grows to 1000%. Everything that enters the fireball will be destroyed, the zone in the radius of destruction will become uninhabitable for people for decades. Radioactive fallout can harm people's health hundreds and thousands of kilometers away. Specific figures, the area of infection can be calculated, knowing the strength of the charge.
However, the destruction of cities is not the worst thing that can happen "thanks" to weapons of mass destruction. After a nuclear war, the world will not be completely destroyed. Thousands of large cities, billions of people will remain on the planet, and only a small percentage of the territories will lose their status as “livable”. In the long term, the whole world will be at risk due to the so-called "nuclear winter". Undermining the nuclear arsenal of the "club" can provoke the release into the atmosphere of a sufficient amount of matter (dust, soot, smoke) to "diminish" the brightness of the sun. A veil that can spread across the planet will destroy crops for several years to come, provoking famine and inevitable population decline. There has already been a “year without a summer” in history, after a major volcanic eruption in 1816, so a nuclear winter looks more than real. Again, depending on how the war proceeds, we can get the following types of global climate change:
- cooling by 1 degree, will pass unnoticed;
- nuclear autumn - cooling by 2-4 degrees, crop failures and increased formation of hurricanes are possible;
- an analogue of the "year without summer" - when the temperature dropped significantly, by several degrees per year;
- the little ice age - the temperature can drop by 30 - 40 degrees for a considerable time, will be accompanied by depopulation of a number of northern zones and crop failures;
- ice age - the development of a small ice age, when the reflection of sunlight from the surface can reach a certain critical level and the temperature will continue to fall, the difference is only in temperature;
- irreversible cooling is a very sad version of the ice age, which, under the influence of many factors, will turn the Earth into a new planet.
The nuclear winter theory is constantly being criticized, and its implications seem a little overblown. However, one should not doubt its imminent offensive in any global conflict with the use of hydrogen bombs.
The Cold War is long over, and therefore, nuclear hysteria can only be seen in old Hollywood films and on the covers of rare magazines and comics. Despite this, we may be on the verge of a serious nuclear conflict, if not a big one. All this thanks to the lover of rockets and the hero of the fight against the imperialist habits of the United States - Kim Jong-un. The DPRK hydrogen bomb is still a hypothetical object, only circumstantial evidence speaks of its existence. Of course, the North Korean government constantly reports that they have managed to make new bombs, so far no one has seen them live. Naturally, the States and their allies, Japan and South Korea, are a little more concerned about the presence, even if hypothetical, of such weapons in the DPRK. The reality is that at the moment, the DPRK does not have enough technology to successfully attack the United States, which they announce to the whole world every year. Even an attack on neighboring Japan or the South may not be very successful, if at all, but every year the danger of a new conflict on the Korean peninsula is growing.
Sergey LESKOV
On August 12, 1953, the world's first hydrogen bomb was tested at the Semipalatinsk test site. It was the fourth Soviet test of a nuclear weapon. The power of the bomb, which had the secret code “RDS-6 s product,” reached 400 kilotons, 20 times more than the first atomic bombs in the USA and the USSR. After the test, Kurchatov turned to the 32-year-old Sakharov with a deep bow: “Thank you, the savior of Russia!”
Which is better - Bee Line or MTS? One of the most pressing issues of Russian everyday life. Half a century ago, in a narrow circle of nuclear physicists, the question was equally acute: which is better - an atomic bomb or a hydrogen bomb, which is also thermonuclear? The atomic bomb, which the Americans made in 1945, and we made in 1949, is based on the principle of releasing colossal energy by splitting heavy nuclei of uranium or artificial plutonium. A thermonuclear bomb is built on a different principle: energy is released by the fusion of light isotopes of hydrogen, deuterium and tritium. Materials based on light elements do not have a critical mass, which was a major design challenge in the atomic bomb. In addition, the synthesis of deuterium and tritium releases 4.2 times more energy than the fission of nuclei of the same mass of uranium-235. In short, the hydrogen bomb is a much more powerful weapon than the atomic bomb.
In those years, the destructive power of the hydrogen bomb did not scare away any of the scientists. The world entered the era of the Cold War, McCarthyism was raging in the United States, and another wave of revelations rose in the USSR. Only Pyotr Kapitsa allowed himself demarches, who did not even appear at the solemn meeting at the Academy of Sciences on the occasion of Stalin's 70th birthday. The question of his expulsion from the ranks of the academy was discussed, but the situation was saved by the president of the Academy of Sciences Sergei Vavilov, who noted that the first to be excluded was the classic writer Sholokhov, who skimps on all meetings without exception.
In creating the atomic bomb, as you know, intelligence data helped scientists. But our agents almost ruined the hydrogen bomb. The information obtained from the famous Klaus Fuchs led to a dead end for both Americans and Soviet physicists. The group under the command of Zeldovich lost 6 years to check the erroneous data. Intelligence provided the opinion of the famous Niels Bohr about the unreality of the "superbomb". But the USSR had its own ideas, to prove the prospects of which to Stalin and Beria, who were "chasing" the atomic bomb with might and main, was not easy and risky. This circumstance must not be forgotten in fruitless and stupid disputes about who worked harder on nuclear weapons - Soviet intelligence or Soviet science.
The work on the hydrogen bomb was the first intellectual race in human history. To create an atomic bomb, it was important, first of all, to solve engineering problems, to launch large-scale work in mines and combines. The hydrogen bomb, on the other hand, led to the emergence of new scientific areas - the physics of high-temperature plasma, the physics of ultrahigh energy densities, and the physics of anomalous pressures. For the first time I had to resort to the help of mathematical modeling. Lagging behind the United States in the field of computers (von Neumann's devices were already in use overseas), our scientists compensated with ingenious computational methods on primitive adding machines.
In a word, it was the world's first battle of wits. And the USSR won this battle. An alternative scheme for the hydrogen bomb was invented by Andrei Sakharov, an ordinary member of the Zeldovich group. Back in 1949, he proposed the original idea of the so-called "puff", where cheap uranium-238 was used as an effective nuclear material, which was considered as garbage in the production of weapons-grade uranium. But if this "waste" is bombarded by fusion neutrons, which are 10 times more energy-intensive than fission neutrons, then uranium-238 begins to fission and the cost of producing each kiloton decreases many times over. The phenomenon of ionization compression of thermonuclear fuel, which became the basis of the first Soviet hydrogen bomb, is still called "saccharization". Vitaly Ginzburg proposed lithium deuteride as a fuel.
Work on the atomic and hydrogen bombs proceeded in parallel. Even before the atomic bomb tests in 1949, Vavilov and Khariton informed Beria about the "sloika". After the infamous directive of President Truman at the beginning of 1950, at a meeting of the Special Committee chaired by Beria, it was decided to speed up work on the Sakharov design with a TNT equivalent of 1 megaton and a test period in 1954.
On November 1, 1952, at Elugelub Atoll, the United States tested the Mike thermonuclear device with an energy release of 10 megatons, 500 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. However, "Mike" was not a bomb - a giant structure the size of a two-story house. But the power of the explosion was amazing. The neutron flux was so great that two new elements, einsteinium and fermium, were discovered.
All forces were thrown at the hydrogen bomb. The work was not slowed down either by the death of Stalin or by the arrest of Beria. Finally, on August 12, 1953, the world's first hydrogen bomb was tested in Semipalatinsk. The environmental consequences were horrendous. The share of the first explosion for the entire time of nuclear tests in Semipalatinsk accounts for 82% of strontium-90 and 75% of cesium-137. But then no one thought about radioactive contamination, as well as about ecology in general.
The first hydrogen bomb was the reason for the rapid development of Soviet cosmonautics. After the nuclear tests, the Korolyov Design Bureau was given the task of developing an intercontinental ballistic missile for this charge. This rocket, called the "seven", launched the first artificial satellite of the Earth into space, and the first cosmonaut of the planet, Yuri Gagarin, launched on it.
On November 6, 1955, the test of a hydrogen bomb dropped from a Tu-16 aircraft was carried out for the first time. In the United States, the drop of the hydrogen bomb did not take place until May 21, 1956. But it turned out that Andrei Sakharov's first bomb was also a dead end, and it was never tested again. Even earlier, on March 1, 1954, near Bikini Atoll, the United States blew up a charge of unheard of power - 15 megatons. It was based on the idea of Teller and Ulam about the compression of a thermonuclear assembly not by mechanical energy and a neutron flux, but by the radiation of the first explosion, the so-called initiator. After the ordeal, which turned out to be casualties among the civilian population, Igor Tamm demanded that his colleagues abandon all previous ideas, even the national pride of the “sloika” and find a fundamentally new way: “Everything that we have done so far is of no use to anyone. We are unemployed. I am sure that in a few months we will reach the goal.”
And already in the spring of 1954, Soviet physicists came up with the idea of an explosive initiator. The authorship of the idea belongs to Zeldovich and Sakharov. On November 22, 1955, a Tu-16 dropped a bomb with a design capacity of 3.6 megatons over the Semipalatinsk test site. During these tests, there were dead, the radius of destruction reached 350 km, Semipalatinsk suffered.
Ahead was a nuclear arms race. But in 1955 it became clear that the USSR had achieved nuclear parity with the United States.
