How does an atomic bomb work from the moment they are launched to the moment they cause mass destruction?
Depends on the delivery system, the kind of nuclear device and who built it. I will not go in depth about the details, I will however touch upon the basics. Type of Nuclear Device: An “atomic bomb” is considered a straight fission type bomb – like the ones dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. One way to build such a bomb is to have enough mass of fissile material come together reaching a critical mass. They have a fissile material (uranium, plutonium, etc) which is separated or divided into smaller pieces. When all of those pieces are together there is a ‘critical mass’ of fissile material, the exchange of subatomic particles accelerates to ‘explosive’ proportions. Another way is to have a smaller mass of fissile material surrounded in a ‘ball’ of conventional explosives (like C4 or TNT) the conventional charges are all ‘shaped’ meaning they are designed to concentrate their force inward and equally on a sphere of fissile material. The ‘compression’ upon the explosion of the conventional
