Theory
See also: Nuclear weapon designThe hydrogen in uranium hydride (UH3) or plutonium hydride moderates (slows) the neutrons, thereby increasing the nuclear cross section for neutron absorption. The result would be a lower required critical mass, thereby reducing the amount of pure U235 or plutonium needed for an explosion. The result was that the slower neutrons delayed the reaction time too much, and reduced the efficiency of the weapon. It increased the time between subsequent neutron generation events necessary for rapid explosion. It creates a problem in the containment of the explosion; the inertia that is used to confine implosion type bombs will not be able to confine the reaction. The end result may be a fizzle instead of a bang. The predicted energy yield would be 1000 tons TNT equivalent.
Read more about this topic: Uranium Hydride Bomb
Famous quotes containing the word theory:
“A theory if you hold it hard enough
And long enough gets rated as a creed....”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“The theory [before the twentieth century] ... was that all the jobs in the world belonged by right to men, and that only men were by nature entitled to wages. If a woman earned money, outside domestic service, it was because some misfortune had deprived her of masculine protection.”
—Rheta Childe Dorr (1866–1948)
“We commonly say that the rich man can speak the truth, can afford honesty, can afford independence of opinion and action;—and that is the theory of nobility. But it is the rich man in a true sense, that is to say, not the man of large income and large expenditure, but solely the man whose outlay is less than his income and is steadily kept so.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)