"How were they able to achieve 50 megatons?" By reducing the originally-intended 100 megatons by half.

I am alive. if anybody is interested in seeing some behind the scenes stuff - ukposts.info/have/v-deo/sId-oXtpgnmc2XU.html

The scariest fact about the Tsar Bomba is it was originally designed to be 100 megatons but at the last moment the bombs designer got scared that it might be too powerful and reduced it down to 50 megatons

I used to sit in the bushes of Northern Italy at the hot end of a Sargeant missile armed with a 200kt warhead pointed east at the Warsaw Pact, waiting to play my part in the end of humanity. Its easy to forget or ignore just how real that threat was and still is watching this clean and rational description of the mechanics of utter destruction. We must not gloss over that horror, ever.

Fun fact: subject zero died but using some Automated Space Science Magic (or A.S.S. Magic for short) he managed to resurect himself, explaining the hiatus he took from youtube...

That "Alright folks, we're done here" reminds me so much of Cave Johnson. You know what, this whole thing can already be made into a Aperture Science AD

I love how he got little boy’s projectile right. (It’s commonly switched up with the target)

Welcome back! I missed your ultra high quality content, keep it up 🌸

Subject Zero: *showing detailed animations of exactly how nuclear bombs work* The CIA: “...not sure if we should keep on eye on this guy, or hire him”

Big errors - Fat Man didn't use U-235, (04.10) but Pu-239. And "Radiation Implosion" is for the secondary stage in a multi-stage weapon. It used RADIAL implosion.

This is the most aesthetically pleasing video about mass destruction I have yet seen

New here and just wanted to say I love the way you present these topics. Love the graphics and the 3D work and the way its all explained. Really good job!

Our scheduled dose of quality right here. Good stuff

4:08 - "With only 6.4 kg of plutonium, ... compression uranium-235 to twice its normal density." Well, which was it - plutonium or uranium-235? The answer is it was plutonium, and there was a uranium tamper in Fat Man in addition to the core, but it was uranium-238, not -235. The core was compressed to 2.5 times its diameter, which is 17 times its volume, therefore 17 times its density. This is NOT radiation implosion - that refers to the manner in which the fusion secondary of a thermonuke (like the Tsar) is imploded. The implosion in the Fat Man was straight-forward explosive compression. 6:12 - "Since details are not available, I'll have to extrapolate..." The details have been available since published in a popular magazine in 1977, which the AEC made a huge stink over. The magazine claimed all the details were published piecemeal in other unclassified documents; they won their case. That was 40-50 years ago. The details are available. The internals of the Tsar are available; hell, in Wikipedia, in an article charmingly named "Tsar Bomba". There were two primaries and two secondaries on each end of the massive tertiary stage; special work was done on the electronics to synchronize all of the pieces. 6:35 "...but lithium also breaks down, increasing yield." You betcha. If the lithium did not breakdown into tritium, there would have been no secondary yield. The reaction is very specifically "deuterium-tritium fusion", other combinations of hydrogen require even higher temperatures. 6:41 - The Castle Bravo contained large quantities of Li-6 and Li-7 which were responsible for a 2.5 times increase in blast yield, from 6 to 15 megatons." Very confusing - 2.5 times what? Actually, the Li-7 was thought to be unreactive, so the 6 megaton yield was based on the 40% Li-6 in the "Sausage" test bomb. The Li-7 turned out to be (surprise!) just as reactive as the Li-6, thereby increasing the yield by 1.5 times over the estimate. 8:51 "At first the Tsar Bomba was supposed to have a third stage capable of adding an extra 50 megatons.", Well, this is often confused when speaking of nukes. The Tsar had three stages - the primary is the fission bombs, the secondary was two fusion stages on either side of the tertiary stage - another fusion stage of a massive scale. That combination raised 50 megatons. Surrounding all three stages individually was that uranium-238 tamper, a fixture of (nearly) all nukes, starting with Trinity. That is not referred to as a "stage" in bomb engineering literature; it is simply the tamper. Surrounding fusion stages, the tamper releases huge amounts of fission (obviously of much higher yield than the primary fission bombs) from the high-energy neutrons. As you say, THAT was what was absented from the Tsar (or rather replaced by a "base metal" tamper) to keep its yield to 50 megatons. So it had three stages, and the tamper was replaced to keep the yield rational from a safety and PR standpoint. Insult to injury - your title is click-baity, which I'm sure you realize. Your point is that the Tsar could have been 100 MT and was, therefore, mightier than the actual Tsar, but you don't state that in the video, so the point of your title is lost. The Tsar, as is, is the world's record-holder in terms of actual, realized yield.

Loving the quality of your work so I don't mind the time it takes between videos!

A thing you're missing is that the Tsar Bomba and the B41 both had multiple 'spark plug' assemblies, so that they were fission-fusion-fusion weapons. The B41 had only one extra fusion stage, while the Tsar Bomba is reported to have had several. The primary (fission) stage caused the secondary (fusion) stage to detonate, and that in turn set of the tertiary (fusion) stages. (As I understand it. This stuff is hard to work out the details of, if you don't have clearance.)

“Their designs were so simple, it makes me wonder why the Germans never figured it out” Actually, the hard part isn’t the design used, Little Boy’s design didn’t even get the dignity of a test, the hard part is the fissile material. Iirc, the Germans couldn’t get any to test with in the first place.

"There was no need for these megabombs" Russia's 20 megaton R-36 Satan ICBM warhead and Poseidon Autonomous Torpedo: "AM I A JOKE TO YOU?"

Nice work and amazing graphics 👌

Just discovered your channel and I think you've been doing great on your videos, hope the algorithm will check ya in cause theres so much work put in these videos

good to see some activaty, and fantastic video

ERROR in this video - Fat Man is first described correctly as a plutonium bomb at 4:05. Then at 4:12 the core of the Fat Man bomb is described as U-235. WRONG. The core was Pu-239. Also, the video misses the REAL reason a plutonium bomb has to have such a complex implosion triggering mechanism. Pu-239, unlike U-235, fissions and goes into a chain reaction much much faster and easier. The gun device is far too slow in compacting enough Pu-239 together into a critical mass fast enough to create a powerful nuclear explosion. Instead, enough of a runaway chain reaction would have started at the leading edges of the impact point between the two sub-critical masses to blow the two fissile masses apart before most of the Pu-239 had entered into a good size bomb quality runaway chain reaction. The result would be a "fizzle" a very very low yield explosion. Some of North Korea's atomic bomb tests have been like this - so low yield they were probably fizzles. Pu-239 is a natural byproduct of most nuclear reactors using uranium and can be separated out relatively easily using chemical means. However, Pu-240 will also be in the mix, and it has a lower ability to undergo fission after getting hit by a neutron (it tends to capture the neutron instead and turn into Pu-241), which ruins the explosive fission chain reaction qualities of Pu-239. And so plutonium derived from ordinary uranium reactors has to also undergo isotope enrichment to bomb grade Pu-239. The other option is to build a special breeder reactor using U-238 to specifically produce highly concentrated Pu-239. U-235 occurs naturally in mineral ores, while Pu-239 with its shorter half life does not. And, so in any start up program to build an atomic bomb, it's a lot easier and you save a lot of steps by going for a U-235 enrichment program to make your first bomb. Uranium enrichment thus becomes the first step towards building an atomic bomb.

Those animations are some of the best on UKposts! Keep up the good work, man.

Fantastic descriptions bro!! Keep it up

More technical errors: 4:00 shows Fat Man bomb labeled with "Radiation Implosion". Wrong, it's high explosive compression. Radiation implosion is the mechanism for igniting the secondary of the Teller-Ulam thermonuclear bomb.

Some of the best science content on UKposts. Thank you, SZS.

Just came across your channel for the first time today: Brilliant!

I love this channel so much🙏 Always interesting topic and results based on science... Keep them coming 😉

Nice graphics, but tons of wrong... What you show as "Radiation Implosion" most definitely isn't. You also misrepresent a single stage of the Tsar Bomba as being two stages. The components you describe are inherently part of a single stage. Also, you show particles bouncing around within the Hohlraum interior of the bomb when it is WAVES of soft X-rays that create the radiation pressure that implodes the secondary.

How the hell do you animate these videos so perfectly!

“Making a bomb is simple” is where your incompetence shows. It not only hard to produce enriched uranium, is also quite hard to create a clean explosion by compressing the fissile material quickly enough. If you don’t do this properly, they yield will be small, parts of fissile material will just melt and fly in all directions. There’s plenty of math and engineering tricks involved. And Plutonium is different from U235, harder to work with. Fusion bombs are hard too.

Great video! As always :)

Little Boy was a security failsafe weapon. Even if the altitude triggers AND explosives all failed, it was going to hit the ground nose first and the rear mass would have slammed into the front mass anyway. That was the point of the design, an insurance plan.

Fun fact, the tzar bomba was actually a nerfed version, supposedly they originally wanted (correct me if I'm wrong) a 100 mt bomb, but someone thankfully convinced them to do a "smaller" one.

Thank you for information, will test.

Glad to see you back!

The main reason for a tamper, is for kinetic impetus and inertial containment of the fissile material; to keep it in a supercritical state for as long as possible. The ingenious later addition to this, was to introduce an air-gap between the inner wall of explosives and the tamper. Unfortunately little was known about the nuclear cross-section of lithium7 at the time of Castle Bravo.

1:22 How could the japanese have disabled the first two types of nuclear weapons??

Well done! The animation isuperb! Thank you.

Excellent production, very informative!

I think you have conflated tamper and reflector. The neutron reflector is a material that reflects neutrons back into the reaction so they have a second chance to trigger a fission event. The tamper was jus a really heavy she'll surrounding the reaction so it's inertial mass would hold the reaction from expanding for a few extra microseconds because a few extra microseconds can dramatically increase the yield of the reaction. They were usually in the same layer but not the same materials. I believe beryllium is usually used as the reflector and whatever the heaviest material they have available when designing the device is used for the tamper.

The first British Thermonuclear bombs had a layered structure with the fusion fuel layered around the fission primary. The Tsar Bomba was also a layer cake design. In theory you could just add more layers to make it as big as you like.

Congrats on your 200k subs!!!

I loved how it was clearly and efficiently explained ♥️

3 months ago, but I'm no lord. I do hope you're doing alright though.

YES!!!!!! IT'S BACK!!!!!!

Ty, awesome animations

Quality of the video is amazing 👏

The hard part is always manufacturing the fuel. Uranium enrichment is still the bottleneck that stops most countries from making their own bombs. The plutonium has to be made in a uranium fission reactor then separated chemically. So it's not any easier since the reactor designs good at making plutonium need enriched uranium too.

It was my understand the Rusians determined any weapon above 50 MT would waste most of its force into space. The Tzar bomba wa originally design to yield 100 MT but was scaled down.

Good video thanks for sharing !

Wow you are amazing, thank you.

4:24 Ah yes, I also layout my explosives in the classic soccer ball pattern.

You forgot to mention, that Tsar bomba was tested only at half power

Great video! Thank you.

Nicely presented! Frighteningly real!

8:45 I forget which type of fallacy this is, but NO. That's not how it works. These do NOT scale linearly.

Fun Fact: The eruption of the volcano Krakatoa was actually about 4 times more powerful than Tsar Bomba, and even if the B41 was the same weight as Tsar Bomba, it would still be smaller than Krakatoa's explosion.

What a great video !! 👍👍

I've been fascinated with nuclear weapons since I was in primary school. My mathematical abilities kept me from pursuing any profession in the physical sciences. Your breakdown here is very informative and greatly appreciated.

Thanks for the video. Few interesting facts you didn't mentioned though. -Sources don't agree on the yield, US sources says it was 58 MT, Soviet source says the bomb had 50 MT -Tsar bomba original yield was about 100 MT but was reduced for the live test by about a half -Theoretical limit for TB design was about 150 MT -Sakharov in his memoirs mentions that the main design in theory could be modified to increase the yield to 1 GT! Creating huge single bombs is not practical because a lot of power is simply wasted by escaping into space. A single missile with power of 30 or 40 MT but divided into many smaller warheads will be able to basically destroy the whole country size of France. For example new Russian missile R-28 Sarmat can have yield up to 50 MT but in 20 or more warheads or MIRVs. This will mean 20 bombs 2.5 MT each. So in case of France, 20 big cities can be destroyed with just one missile. A whole country would collapse in the matter of minutes. A single 50 MT bomb would not be able to do that.

Just a small notice, MK41 of the same size would probably have around or less than 100Mt as it doesnt increased linearly with weight The more the matter, the further apart are the furthest individual atoms, unless you increase density.

Welcome back! ☺️

Thank You 🙏✌️

I think there may be some inaccuracies here regarding what's meant by "radiation implosion" and "stages"

nice video, lots of good info and well presented. One very minor nitpick: "Mk. 41" is pronounced "Mark 41" not "Emkay 41"

Visuals and narration are goddamn good.

I love the "we're done here" cave Johnson ref at the end

What my dad drops in the toilet is really the most powerful, not even Russian engineering can defeat the demonic bowel movements of a father.

Fastest I have ever clicked! Glad to see a new video!

High quality content👌👌👌

holy long time no see Subject Zero

Okay, Fat Man was NOT easy to build. You try getting a perfectly symmetrical implosion. Took a breakthrough in explosives lensing plus extremely precise machining.

There are enough mistakes in this video that people shouldn't watch it. 0:20 "thermonuclear bombs are quite easy to make" - not really. Perhaps easier than acquiring plutonium, but still not easy. 1:20 There were good and sufficient reasons that Germany, and 180 other countries in the world, didn't create nuclear weapons. 2:00 You're confusing tamping with reflecting. A tamper uses inertia to contain the fissile material for a fraction of a second; a reflector bounces neutrons back into the core. 4:08 Fat Man did not use "radiation implosion". That's a different concept than explosive implosion. 4:58 The core of Fat Man wasn't "tuballoy" (natural uranium). It was plutonium. 7:00 Oh god please stop.

What a fantastic invention. I mean the people who created these things must be so proud of their invention they couldn't wait to tell their stories to their grandchildren. Who wouldn't 🤦‍♂️

Neutrons do not reflect, the tamper acts to both slow the neutrons so they will cause fission and the high density holds the reacting material together longer and therefore increases the yield.

Tzar bomba was almost certainly three stage. It is not teller-ulam architecture

There are a lot of inaccuracies in here. Take it with a pinch of salt.

Nice, you add about speculation about 3rd stage of Tsar Bomba

If I wasn't on a watchlist already then I'm certain I am now. Thanks for that. You should probably post a warning beforehand for those who would rather not have an FBI big brother

Little correction: you need slow-moving neutrons to achieve fission. They're called thermal neutrons. The faster ones will bounce off of the nucleus. A slow one will impact and stick, further destabilising the structure of the nucleus and causing it to fiss.

Don't forget Atomic Annie. Not just missiles... Nukes in artillery shells! (rumor has it, some were made to be fired from the 14-16" guns of battleships.)

very interesting thank you

Edward Teller and his 10 Gt nuke: Indeed.

I know you probably don't care and I'm not sure if you even read the comments, but I wanted to say that your channel was absolutely excellent, there are almost no flaws in the video in terms of what people want to learn and what you explain, and you have the technical knowledge to talk about subjects that no one else covers, not only that but also give your opinion on them, really great stuff If I had one complainbt and it would be very small, it would be that maybe the videos do not go in as much depth and detail as they could, I realize you do a lot of editing and very well made graphics so of course the longer the video the more work has to be put in it, but idk, maybe keep the same ammount of graphics and work on the visual aspects of the video, but have the video be a bit longer by including some more technical talk and details, it's not that the videos are surface level, but I feel like they would be even better by being slightly longer and really explaining everything there has to explain, something like 15-20 minute long videos with the same ammount of graphics and editing, but a more thorough look Regardless, really really great channel, some of the best stuff on youtube

dude's subscriber count should be 100 times bigger

If I remember, the B41's yield was estimated at 25 MT for the production version. There were studies for a 40 MT version but it was determined such a bomb would be overkill for most Soviet military targets.

Very interesting 💯🔥🔥🔥

I thought the reason the tsar bomb was "only" 50 MT when tested compared with a design yield of 100 MT was because they used an non fissionable lead tamper to reduce fallout. Using a uranium tamper instead would have increased the yield considerably through fission due to the neutrons released by the fusion stage or stages. I think I read this in Richard Rhodes book "Dark Sun".

Possibly the first time I've seen a doc mention the lithium oopsie at castle bravo. Very good stuff.

could you please tell me what music you used for the first few seconds till around 0:40 ? awesome video

Are the 3D models used for this available for download anywhere?

It’s pronounced “Mark” not MK.

4:00 ah no, radiation implosion is when soft xrays from the fission compresses the holram containing the fusion fuel in a hydrogen bomb.

Great animation.

Except that the designed yield of the tsar bomba was 100Mt, which means it only surpasses it by ~1.5x

It was the most powerful, just not the most efficient.

Sure thing, if the B41 weighted as much as the Tsar Bomba, it would've been more powerful. But it didn't, and the Tsar Bomba still is the most powerful to this day. Also, you should consider that the Tsar Bomba's yield was decreased from 100 to 50 Mtons so that the pilot who had to drop the bomb would not die haha

Thank you for explaining beautifully this would help me very much. Ha ha ha.

Another quality video, this channel deserves more attention.