Going Nuclear - Nuclear Science - Part 3 - Plutonium Implosion

The Manhattan project investigated Uranium and Plutonium devices and technical problems with the Plutonium forced the development of a much more complex, and ultimately more efficient system which used implosion to assemble the critical mass.

Background music is Tranquility Base by Kevin Macleod

[Chlorate]

My favourite factoid about the Trinity test is that after the war they released photos of the test...which included a time stamp and distance scale. A physicist named G.I. Taylor (who had worked on the manhatten project) used those images, with a spot of dimensional analysis, and published papers wherein he calculated (to a remarkable degree of accuracy) what the explosive yield of the device was.
He got in a little bit of trouble for this, as the number he'd worked out was very classified...but when it was discovered that he was able to work this out from information that was in the public domain, he was let off, and an important lesson was learnt about never underestimating what a clever person will do with information.

[ArztvomDienst]

Sitting at the fireplace, having a coffee, feeding my brain watching your video, a saturday morning can't start better.
☕️

[thedreadnote]

Explosive lenses are such a cool idea! Great video :)

[vovanikotin]

When you do nuclear science CHECK YO STAGIN!

[RaDeus]

Is part 5 going to be about how to remove yourself from government-watchlists ?

[Evan_Bell]

I'll fill in what Scott left out after the 8 min mark.
Detonation wave profiles take the form of a leading edge pressure spike followed by a region of rarefaction. The shock reflection that would occur at the Al/U interface would produce a higher pressure behind the shock front, minimising the rarefaction that occurred behind the shock front, thus maintaining pressure for a good distance behind it, and thus allowing for the entirety of the core to be compressed to a higher degree, rather than the material that was just behind the shock front at that period of time.

[ekscalybur]

The engineers involved absolutely earned their slide-rules.

[johndoyle]

Thanks, chilling stuff. I grew up in the cold war and we were warned about 6 minutes before explosion. Hope those days are gone forever.
Thanks for your very professional presentation.

[heavyheadbanger]

After 4 years, a question I've had about why gun type isn't more widespread today is finally answered, and with 2 good reasons instead of 1 half-arsed answer. Thank you very much Scott!

[pyrolopez]

I still say Scott can be a bond villian

Fly safe Mr bond.... hahahaha

[flaplaya]

We as a species didn't know about radioactivity until the late 1800's. not even half a century later we figured all this out. Will always boggle my mind. Smart people? Alien tech? Amazing stuff that 99.9% of the population doesn't think about.. 
Amazing explanation/simplification Mr. Manely!

[theironblitz]

Scott, I'm really enjoying these Going Nuclear videos so far but could you please skip ahead to the DIY episodes?

Sincerely,
Kim

[nodoxplz]

I worked on submarine nuclear reactors when I was in the US navy and these videos cover most of the material taught pretty well, I’d love to see many more videos like this, I would definitely watch a series about shock dynamics

[uegvdczuVF]

Premature detonation while the core is not even fully inserted. I hate when that happens...

[MrRandomcommentguy]

Plutonium - not only highly radioactive but phenomenally toxic as well. Lovely stuff.

[crusier]

The more details I learn about nuclear weapons development, the more impressed I am about the speed at which they were able to create them.

[ightwoman]

I love the way you expect everyone is following along! In this episode I was fascinated to learn about the U238 tamper. It's amazing to think that U238 actually accounted for as much as 20% of the total yield of the Fat Man

[therealjustincase]

Scientists: Wait! There is a possibility to ignite the whole Earth atmosphere!
Same Scientists: COOL! Let’s place bets!

[auto]

“Shock dynamics are incredibly complex and worth videos of their own.”

Please?

[Talamd]

You have to cover the accidents that occurred with the demon core.