Nuclear explosions (Marsh mellows at ground zero)

So now that we've looked in depth about the explosions caused by large scale 'conventional' explosions, we can take a step into the massive releases of energy that are caused by 'nuclear' explosions. These are bombs and devices that are tightly controlled in the world because of their massive destructive power, and are likely to raise a few eyebrows with how much energy they can throw out. But how are nuclear bombs different? Conventional explosive rely on the chemical breakdown of bonds in materials, which releases the bonding energy in the heat, light, and shock-wave in one single instant. Nuclear explosions however, take advantage of the fact that the nuclei of atoms hold tremendous energy within them, and when large particles are broken apart (fission) or small particles are fused together (fusion), very very large amounts of energy are released, causing an explosion that can outmatch even the largest conventional bombs around, and giving nuclear explosions their 'nuclear' moniker. But as with before, we want to know exactly how much energy we can get out of nuclear bombs, so let's take our math with us, and look at some commonly known nuclear blasts. The first up is the trinity test, which was the first nuclear bomb to be detonated, and via some simple dimensional analysis, was found to be approximately equal to the same detonation of 18-20 Kilotons of TNT. that's already far bigger than the FOAB, so we should expect some fairly large numbers. Based on these calculations, that was around 84 terajoules of energy released. As expected, that was much larger than the FOAB was reportedly capable of causing. But trinity was not the largest nuclear explosion ever set off. Not by a long shot. The Russian air-force holds the record for the largest explosion ever set off by man, the Tsar Bomba. This fusion explosive was measured around 50,000 Kilotons of TNT. That's a far larger number, and it's mildly mind boggling to think of the equivalent amount of TNT that this is. But, dutifully, we're going to analyze it as before. Yes, that's a number of joules into the PetaJoules range, quite obviously we aren't dealing with any conventional explosives, and when you factor in the idea that the Tsar Bomba could have been twice as large, it becomes very humbling to know just how lucky we are that these aren't commonly use in warfare. However, humanity gets a big head when it comes to explosions, and the universe like to put us in our place next up is looking at some explosions that make nuclear explosions look less than child's play.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/Trinity_Test_Fireball_16ms.jpg (trinity fireball) http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c9/Tsar_photo11.jpg (Tsar Bomba cloud)

Title

What is an explosion, and how can we use it?

Energy in TNT

Energy in Nuclear Blasts

Energy in Supernovas

A little perspective

Should we be using explosions to fuel our world?

Sources