Question: How do atomic bombs work?

Ceri-Wyn Thomas answered on 17 Jun 2010:

There are two types of atomic bombs: The Atom bomb relies on nuclear fission where a material like Uranium or Plutonium is assembled to form what’s called a critical mass (this is done either by firing a smaller bit into a larger bit or by imploding the material to rapidly increase its density). This causes an explosive nuclear chain reaction.

The second type is the Hydrogen bomb: this relies on the fusion of different types (isotopes) of hydrogen- deuterium and tritium. This bomb is remarkably complicated in its workings (it relies on having a fission bomb too and fuel) but it can produce almost unlimited amounts of explosive energy. I don’t think that’s a good thing!