The Teller–Ulam design is the technical concept behind thermonuclear weapons, also known as hydrogen bombs. The design relies on the radiation implosion principle, using thermal X-rays released from a
Physicist Edward Teller was for many years the chief force lobbying for research into developing fusion weapons.
A view of the "Sausage" device casing, with its instrumentation and cryogenic equipment attached. The long pipes were for measurement purposes; their function was to transmit the first radiation from the "primary" and "secondary" stages (known as "Teller light") to instruments just as the device was detonated, before being destroyed in the explosion. The man seated lower right shows scale.
Fireball of the Tsar Bomba (RDS-220), the largest weapon ever detonated (1961). Dropped from over 10 km and detonated at 4 km high, its fireball would have touched the ground were it not for the shock wave from the explosion reflecting off the ground and striking the bottom of the fireball, and nearly reached as high as the altitude of the deploying Tu-95 bomber. The RDS-220 test demonstrated how "staging" could be used to develop arbitrarily powerful weapons.
Photographs of warhead casings, such as this one of the W80 nuclear warhead, allow for some speculation as to the relative size and shapes of the primaries and secondaries in US thermonuclear weapons.
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A thermonuclear weapon, fusion weapon or hydrogen bomb is a second-generation nuclear weapon, using nuclear fusion. The most destructive weapons ever created, their yields typically exceed first-gener
History of the Teller–Ulam design
…The Teller–Ulam design is the technical concept behind thermonuclear weapons, also known as hydrogen bombs. The design relies on the radiation implosion principle, using thermal X-rays released from a fission nuclear primary to…
Edward Teller in 1958
Operation Castle thermonuclear test, Castle Romeo shot
Casing of the Soviet Tsar Bomba, the largest nuclear weapon ever built and tested, Sarov, Russia.
Operation Grapple on Christmas Island was the first British hydrogen bomb test.