atomic bomb...becomes a critical one. This can be practically achieved by using high explosives to shoot two subcritical slugs of fissionable material together in a hollow tube. A second method used is that of implosion, in which a core of fissionable material is suddenly compressed into a smaller size and thus a greater density; because it is denser, the nuclei are more tightly packed and the chances of......of hydrodynamics and shock waves, an expertise that he had already applied to chemical explosives in the British war effort. At Los Alamos, New Mexico, von Neumann worked on Seth Neddermeyer’s implosion design for an atomic bomb. This called for a hollow sphere containing fissionable plutonium to be symmetrically imploded in order to drive the plutonium into a critical mass at the centre....In order to produce a nuclear explosion, subcritical masses of fissionable material must be rapidly assembled into a supercritical configuration. The simplest weapon design is the pure fission gun-assembly device, in which an explosive propellant is used to fire one subcritical mass down a “gun barrel” into another subcritical mass. Plutonium cannot be used as the fissile material...
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