Chemists, Big People in a Big world

One event in the world closely linked to Chemistry was the first practical application of the process of fusion, the creation of the hydrogen bomb. The hydrogen bomb was created only 6 years after the atomic bombs, the products of the Manhattan project, were both dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of 1945. The hydrogen, or thermonuclear/fusion, bomb was the logical step after the creation the fission (atomic) bomb. Scientists had already known fusion was possible from studying our sun and other distant stars, and knew a fusion reaction had a higher yield of energy. As an example, the first atomic bombs had the force of about 20,000 tons of TNT, while the first hydrogen bomb had the force of about 2,000,000 tons of TNT. Thats 8.368*10^13 joules compared to 8.368*10^15 joules, all released in the space of a micro second. A hydrogen bomb uses a fission reaction so as to acquire enough ativation energy to fuse deuterium (isotope of hydrogen containing one proton and one neutron at its nucleus) and tritium (hydrogen containing two neutrons at the nucleus) together to create an immense amount of energy. The byproducts of this reaction is helium and a stray neutron, along with some residual radiation from the fission reaction used to trigger the bomb. The reactions chemical formula is this: ²H+³H=He+n. The hydrogen bomb did make some positive contributions to the world, including the current projects of creating a fusion reactor, which are much more productive and safe than fission reactors at nuclear power plants.