alt Hacker NewsWas it a single solid core that was imploded? I thought it was at least two non-critical-mass hemispheres, or more, that were smashed together by the conventional explosives/detonators, to create a critical mass.
Was it a single solid core that was imploded? I thought it was at least two non-critical-mass hemispheres, or more, that were smashed together by the conventional explosives/detonators, to create a critical mass.
You’re thinking of the other bomb, the U-235 one, which they didn’t test at Trinity and which was dropped on Hiroshima. That is two separate pieces of Uranium that are slammed together to create a critical mass. The Pu-239 core was a single sphere of metal. It was subcritical until you compress it down with a spherical implosion from explosive charges all around it (from the size of a grapefruit to the size of a lime), at which point it reaches a high enough density to go critical.