http://web.archive.org/web/20240512204543/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapon_design
(Archive link in case it's changed.)
This article is a surprisingly entertaining read for a few reasons:
- one or more people who wrote it clearly have very strong opinions about how nuclear weapons should be built
- the article contains a surprising amount of detail, including stuff that seems like it'd be classified or at least censored
- due to both of the above, there's a ton of
[]that I doubt will ever be resolved
As far as I understand it, nukes are pretty easy to put together with modern tech. The problem is finding enough fissile material of the right grade. That takes a massive industrial effort.
yeah this is not as surprising as it looks like
between pure fission design and thermonuke for a militarily relevant yields, say, 100-500 kt range, both designs are in principle working, but thermonuke is both compact and derives most of energy from cheap materials (natural to moderately enriched uranium and lithium deuteride). This is important if you remember that this thing has to fit in an ICBM
thermonukes have an extra advantage that they're staged, that means dial-a-yield becomes possible - not all parts have to be used
i was also surpised tbh, its much more thorough about both materials and reasoning (although it could all be false). Also very strong opinions about who built first thermonuclear, with whole paragraph discussing it.
