• Question: why are nuclear bombs so powerful?

    Asked by anon-174852 to Alex, Carl, Hayley, Melanie, Tim, Yewande on 18 Jun 2018. This question was also asked by anon-174185.
    • Photo: Alex Seeney

      Alex Seeney answered on 18 Jun 2018:

      Bombs rapidly release energy, which heats up the air or material surrounding them, causing an explosion. This happens due to changes of state happening between atoms, releasing energy in the process. With a nuclear bomb, the change of state happens within atoms instead, allowing for more energy to get stored and releasing a lot more energy compared to the reaction inside a non-nuclear bomb.

    • Photo: Carl Barford

      Carl Barford answered on 18 Jun 2018:

      The famous equation is E=mc[2]. Energy is the mass times the speed of light, squared. Now the speed of light is huge, so not a lot of mass is required to get huge amounts of energy. Adding hydrogen to hydrogen in the sun gives helium, but there is actually a tiny difference in mass

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