Is burning hydrogen like the hydrogen bomb?
No. Burning hydrogen, just like burning gasoline, natural gas, or a candle, is a chemical reaction, which means that only the electrons get shifted around and new compounds are made, like water, but the basic atoms are the same. In a nuclear reaction, hydrogen nuclei collide and fuse into helium nuclei, releasing tremendous amounts of energy. Because hydrogen nuclei are positively charged, they repel one another. To get hydrogen nuclei close enough together to fuse, the hydrogen nuclei must be heated to fantastic temperatures (typically hundreds of millions of degrees). This heating is done with a fission bomb—a uranium or plutonium bomb. When the fission bomb explodes, its heat is enough to trigger the hydrogen bomb.
