bonanza

Chapter 635 Thermonuclear Weapons
Due to special reasons, Yang Dongsheng deliberately checked the information on lithium deuteride six.

Lithium-7.5 is not uncommon, 0.02% of all lithium elements are lithium-[-], but the proportion of deuterium in hydrogen is only [-]%, and almost all hydrogen in nature is concentrated in the upper atmosphere.

One is in the sky and the other is underground. Lithium-[-] and deuterium have almost no chance to meet together. Even if lithium-deuteride-[-] is formed by accident, it will disappear soon!
Because lithium deuteride six is ​​very unstable, it will react violently and even explode when it encounters water, and finally generate more stable lithium hydroxide and deuterium gas.

From China to Australia, from Africa to North America, Yang Dongsheng has searched almost the entire earth, but he has not found natural lithium deuteride-[-], but found it in Greenland?

After zooming in on the picture, Yang Dongsheng understood what was going on.

I saw that this piece of lithium deuteride was wrapped in a tattered pointed metal object. It can be roughly seen that this metal object should have a conical shape!
This is a warhead, and it is also a warhead of a thermonuclear weapon!

The first thermonuclear weapon on earth weighed hundreds of tons and was nearly ten meters high. It looked like an oversized thermos.

That's because the boiling point of deuterium is minus 249.5 degrees Celsius, and the boiling point of tritium is minus 248 degrees Celsius. It is necessary to build a huge insulation structure to maintain deuterium and tritium in a liquid state.

Moreover, tritium is also highly radioactive. The cost of manufacturing and processing such a highly radioactive gas is as high as hundreds of millions of dollars per kilogram.

To make matters worse, tritium has a half-life of only 12.43 years.

Later, it was found that lithium deuteride can decompose deuterium at high temperature, and lithium six will be split into tritium and helium four after being hit by neutrons.

The melting point of lithium deuteride six is ​​as high as 680 degrees, and it will not decay.

At present, the thermonuclear weapons of major nuclear powers use lithium deuteride six.

Greenland is located on the front line of the confrontation between the two sides during the Cold War. The suzerain of Greenland is Denmark, and Denmark is a member of NATO. It is not surprising that there are lost nuclear warheads here!
Yang Dongsheng searched the Internet. During the Cold War, the United States did lose many nuclear warheads in Greenland.

But what is strange is that these publicly reported incidents never coincide with the location of this nuclear warhead.

Yang Dongsheng meditated on the computer for a while, then turned his gaze to the nuclear warhead again.

I don't know what happened to this warhead before. The body of the warhead was completely cracked, and a lot of internal materials were lost. Even the uranium or plutonium core was gone, and there was only a small piece of lithium deuterium six left. to two kilograms.

As for why this piece of lithium deuteride-[-] was able to be preserved, it is because although Greenland is full of water, it is basically solid, and there is no chance to react with lithium deuteride-[-] at all.

It is obviously unrealistic to use this lithium deuteride-[-] to manufacture a thermonuclear weapon.

However, this broken nuclear warhead is far more valuable to Yang Dongsheng than a pile of lithium deuteride-[-]. Yang Dongsheng saw the basic structure of a thermonuclear weapon through this warhead!
This should be the legendary "Taylor Ulam configuration".

The manufacturing technology of the atomic bomb is actually very simple. As long as you are willing to invest and spare no expense to produce enough weapons-grade enriched uranium-235 or plutonium-239, it is difficult to put them together and think about not bombing them.

The countries in the world that can manufacture atomic bombs cannot be counted on five fingers!

But until Yang Dongsheng was reborn, there were still only five countries in the world capable of producing thermonuclear weapons, and the number had not increased for more than half a century.

The technology of thermonuclear weapons is definitely not as simple as combining weapons-grade uranium-235 or plutonium-239 with six packs of lithium deuteride!
The most obvious example is that both North Korea and India have produced atomic bombs for many years, but they have never been able to produce thermonuclear weapons, even at the laboratory level. The thermonuclear weapons they claim are generally believed to be just the fission of thermonuclear materials. The enhanced atomic bomb, the explosive equivalent is still far from the real thermonuclear weapon.

Because of the critical mass of uranium-235 and plutonium-239, the explosive yield of 50 tons is almost the upper limit of the atomic bomb.

50 tons may seem huge, but the effective killing radius is only a few kilometers. For a modern big city densely covered with reinforced concrete buildings, the effect is even more than half.

With the high price of weapon-grade uranium-235 and plutonium-239, if you want to destroy a big country with an atomic bomb, you may go bankrupt before destroying others.

Unless they also have Yang Dongsheng's ability.

For nuclear powers, the real threat is thermonuclear weapons.

Thermonuclear weapons may be the technology with the highest level of secrecy in the world, but it is a pity that the warhead is a bit damaged, and many details are unclear. Yang Dongsheng can only speculate based on the shape and material of each part.

Yang Dongsheng wrapped the warhead with a whole rock.

You have to taste it slowly in the future!

Yang Dongsheng continued to search around the field, but he did not find any other missing materials, let alone other nuclear warheads.

But this time the harvest is quite rich, uranium, copper and molybdenum mines in Greenland, oil fields and oil sand mines in Canada...

James Whistler stayed in Shanghai for a week or so, and then hurried to the United States. There was news from the United States that the Ministry of Justice was going to investigate the bankruptcy of Enron, and they were likely to be involved in the short-selling of Enron before!
The new year is coming, and the Spring Festival is just around the corner.

The company has made great technological progress in the past year.

Dongsheng Semiconductor took out the first etching machine, and the first ion implanter will be rolled out soon. The coating technology of the lithography machine lens has recently made significant progress, and the research and development of photoresist and thin film deposition equipment is also progressing smoothly.

The shield machine manufactured by Dongsheng Heavy Industry has been put into use in the Shanghai subway, multiple blast furnace equipment has been delivered ahead of schedule, and the first heavy oil aircraft engine has been produced and is being tested.

Dongsheng Heavy Industry has been able to achieve a balance of payments, and there is no need to post a large amount of money as before.

The reliability of machine tools manufactured by the company has been greatly improved.

……

Yang Dongsheng met Jason Bourne again and explained that he wanted to buy AMD equipment.

This time, things are simpler. AMD's equipment is second-hand, but the amount of equipment is larger.

Yang Dongsheng hoped that they could help to speed up the approval process. The value of these second-hand equipment will be reduced by one day if it is one day late.

The wind of developing semiconductors in the company is almost blowing, Yang Dongsheng took the opportunity to call the vice presidents to hold a unified thinking conference!

After the meeting, Yang Dongsheng called Huang, the vice president of Dongsheng Semiconductor, and asked briefly about the construction of the new production line and the progress of the acquisition of several other semiconductor companies.

After chatting with Vice President Huang, Yang Dongsheng looked up and saw Vice President Wang of Dongsheng Heavy Industry standing aside and waiting for him.

(End of this chapter)