ABK Bhuiyan
October 09, 2017
0
What Is the Difference Between a Hydrogen
Bomb and an Atomic Bomb?
North Korea tested a
powerful hydrogen bomb in the Pacific Ocean, after saying the country had
already successfully detonated one.
A hydrogen bomb has
never been used in battle by any country, but experts say it has the power to
wipe out entire cities and kill significantly more people than the already
powerful atomic bomb, which the U.S. dropped in Japan during World War II,
killing tens of thousands of people.
As global tensions
continue to rise over North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, here’s what to
know about atomic and hydrogen bombs:
Why is a hydrogen
bomb stronger than an atomic bomb?
More than 200,000
people died in Japan after the U.S. dropped the world’s first atomic bomb on
Hiroshima and then another one three days later in Nagasaki during World War II
in 1945, according to the Associated Press. The bombings in the two cities were
so devastating, they forced Japan to surrender.
But a hydrogen bomb
has the potential to be 1,000 times more powerful than an atomic bomb,
according to several nuclear experts. The U.S. witnessed the magnitude of a
hydrogen bomb when it tested one within the country in 1954, the New York Timesreported.
Hydrogen bombs cause a
bigger explosion, which means the shock waves, blast, heat and radiation all
have larger reach than an atomic bomb, according to Edward Morse, a professor
of nuclear engineering at University of California, Berkeley.
 |
| An calculation of Nuclear weapon stock. |
Although no other
country has used such a weapon of mass destruction since World War II, experts
say it would be even more catastrophic if a hydrogen bomb were to be dropped
instead of an atomic one.
“With the [atomic]
bomb we dropped in Nagasaki, it killed everybody within a mile radius,” Morse
told TIME on Friday, adding that a hydrogen bomb's reach would be closer to 5
or 10 miles. “In other words, you kill more people,” he said.
 |
| First ever atom bomb blast. |
Hall, director of the
University of Tennessee’s Institute for Nuclear Security, called the hydrogen
bomb a “city killer” that would probably annihilate between 100 and 1,000 times
more people than an atomic bomb.
“It will basically
wipe out any of modern cities,” Hall said. “A regular atomic bomb would still
be devastating, but it would not do nearly as much damage as an H-bomb.”
Hiroshima in ruins following the atomic bomb
blast.
What’s the
difference between hydrogen bombs and atomic bombs?
Simply speaking,
experts say a hydrogen bomb is the more advanced version of an atomic bomb.
“You have to master the A-bomb first,” Hall said.
An atomic bomb uses
either uranium or plutonium and relies on fission, a nuclear reaction in which
a nucleus or an atom breaks apart into two pieces. To make a hydrogen bomb, one
would still need uranium or plutonium as well as two other isotopes of
hydrogen, called deuterium and tritium. The hydrogen bomb relies on fusion, the
process of taking two separate atoms and putting them together to form a third
atom.
 |
| Structure of a Nuclear |
“The way the hydrogen
bomb works — it’s really a combination of fission and fusion together,” said
Eric Norman, who also teaches nuclear engineering at UC Berkeley.
In both cases, a
significant amount of energy is released, which drives the explosion, experts
say. However, more energy is released during the fusion process, which causes a
bigger blast. “The extra yield is going to give you more bang,” Morse said.
Morse said the atomic
bombs dropped on Japan were each equivalent to just about 10,000 kilotons of
TNT. “Those were the little guys,” Morse said. “Those were small bombs, and
they were bad enough.” Hydrogen bombs, he said, would result in a yield of
about 100,000 kilotons of TNT, up to several million kilotons of TNT, which
would mean more deaths.
 |
| Firing a nuclear weapon enabled missile. |
Hydrogen bombs are
also harder to produce but lighter in weight, meaning they could travel farther
on top of a missile, according to experts.
What are the
similarities between hydrogen bombs and atomic bombs?
Both bombs are
extremely lethal and have the power to kill people within seconds, as well as
hours later due to radiation. Blasts from both bombs would also instantly burn
wood structures to the ground, topple big buildings and render roads unusable.
LIFE magazine described
such devastation in an article published on March 11, 1946, on the aftermath of
the atomic bombs dropped on Japan. The piece read: "In the following waves
[after the initial blast] people's bodies were terribly squeezed, then their
internal organs ruptured. Then the blast blew the broken bodies at 500 to 1,000
miles per hour through the flaming, rubble-filled air. Practically everybody
within a radius of 6,500 feet was killed or seriously injured and all buildings
crushed or disemboweled."
Danger
