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A nuclear weapon [a] is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion.
May 9, 2018 · Nuclear weapons are enormously powerful explosives. They get their energy from splitting or joining tiny particles inside an atom. This is why you might hear a nuclear bomb being called an atomic...
Oct 12, 2024 · nuclear weapon, device designed to release energy in an explosive manner as a result of nuclear fission, nuclear fusion, or a combination of the two processes. Fission weapons are commonly referred to as atomic bombs.
- A nuclear weapon is a device designed to release energy in an explosive manner as a result of nuclear fission, nuclear fusion, or a combination of...
- Concerns about the devastating effects of nuclear weapons have driven governments to negotiate arms control agreements. Some of the earliest ones i...
- The first test of a nuclear weapon occurred in the United States on July 16, 1945, at the Alamogordo Bombing Range in south-central New Mexico. The...
- The Soviet Union had the most nuclear weapons during the Cold War. The Soviet stockpile reached a peak of about 33,000 operational warheads in 1988...
- Nuclear Bombs and Hydrogen Bombs
- Manhattan Project
- Who Invented The Atomic Bomb?
- Hiroshima and Nagasaki Bombings
- The Cold War
- Cuban Missile Crisis
- Three Mile Island
- Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
- Illegal Nuclear Weapon States
- North Korea
A discovery by nuclear physicists in a laboratory in Berlin, Germany, in 1938 made the first atomic bomb possible, after Otto Hahn, Lise Meitner and Fritz Strassman discovered nuclear fission. In nuclear fission, the nucleus of an atom of radioactive material splits into two or more smaller nuclei, which causes a sudden, powerful release of energy....
On December 28, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the formation of the Manhattan Projectto bring together various scientists and military officials working on nuclear research. The Manhattan Project was the code name for the American-led effort to develop a functional atomic bomb during World War II. The project was started in respon...
Much of the work in the Manhattan Project was performed in Los Alamos, New Mexico, under the direction of theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, the “father of the atomic bomb.” On July 16, 1945, in a remote desert location near Alamogordo, New Mexico, the first atomic bomb was successfully detonated—the Trinity Test. It created an enormous m...
Scientists at Los Alamos had developed two distinct types of atomic bombs by 1945—a uranium-based design called “the Little Boy” and a plutonium-based weapon called “the Fat Man.” (Uranium and plutonium are both radioactive elements.) While the war in Europe had ended in April, fighting in the Pacific continued between Japanese forces and U.S. troo...
The United States was the only country with nuclear weaponry in the years immediately following World War II. The Soviet Unioninitially lacked the knowledge and raw materials to build nuclear warheads. Within just a few years, however, the U.S.S.R. had obtained—through a network of spies engaging in international espionage—blueprints of a fission-s...
Over the next few decades, each world superpower would stockpile tens of thousands of nuclear warheads. Other countries, including Great Britain, France, and China, developed nuclear weapons during this time, too. To many observers, the world appeared on the brink of nuclear war in October of 1962. The Soviet Union had installed nuclear-armed missi...
Many Americans became concerned about the health and environmental effects of nuclear fallout—the radiation left in the environment after a nuclear blast—in the wake of World War II and after extensive nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific during the 1940s and 1950s. The antinuclear movement emerged as a social movement in 1961 at the height of th...
The United States and Soviet Union took the lead in negotiating an international agreement to halt the further spread of nuclear weapons in 1968. The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons(also called the Non-Proliferation Treaty or NPT) went into effect in 1970. It separated the world’s countries into two groups—nuclear weapons states ...
Some countries wanted the option of developing their own nuclear weapons arsenal and never signed the NPT. India was the first country outside of the NPT to test a nuclear weapon in 1974. Other non-signatories to the NTP include: Pakistan, Israeland South Sudan. Pakistan has a known nuclear weapons program. Israel is widely believed to possess nucl...
North Koreainitially signed the NPT treaty, but announced its withdrawal from the agreement in 2003. Since 2006, North Korea has openly tested nuclear weapons, drawing sanctions from various nations and international bodies. North Korea tested two long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles in 2017—one reportedly capable of reaching the United S...
- Missy Sullivan
- 1 min
A nuclear weapon, nuclear bomb or a nuke, is a weapon that suddenly releases the energy in the nucleus of certain types of atoms. When triggered, the device releases a huge amount of energy in the form of a nuclear explosion .
Mar 1, 2022 · Nuclear bombs involve the forces — strong and weak — that hold the nucleus of an atom together, especially atoms with unstable nuclei. There are two basic ways that nuclear energy can be released from an atom. In nuclear fission, scientists split the nucleus of an atom into two smaller fragments with a neutron.
Jan 14, 2020 · These five countries are called nuclear-weapon states - and are allowed to have weapons because they built and tested a nuclear explosive device before the treaty came into effect on 1...
