Word: fusion
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General Destruction. The still-theoretical neutron bomb will use a "pure-fusion" reaction, a third generation in nuclear explosions. In old-fashioned fission (Abomb) explosions, nuclei of uranium or plutonium split roughly in half, and the big, heavy fragments are shoved apart by powerful electrical forces. Almost at once they collide with other nuclei, with other materials in the bomb and with the surrounding air. The collisions slow the nuclei down and turn their original energy into heat. The result is a high-temperature fireball that sears its surroundings with heat radiation and expands so violently that it generates...
...fission-fusion (H-bomb) explosions, a large part of the released energy appears in the form of high-speed neutrons. Since the neutrons are small and have no electric charge to make atoms repel them, they can penetrate a great deal of matter. So they escape from the fireball and travel a mile or more through the air. They are deadly killers, but existing H-bombs, which are bulky and require fission detonators, generate so much heat and blast that the neutrons they manufacture are lost in the general destruction...
High Temperature. If a small, pure-fusion bomb could be built to work with out a fission detonator, theorists believe that it would send its neutrons farther than the destructive reach of its heat or blast. Starting with 14 MEV (million electron volts) of energy, the neutrons would traverse about a half-mile of air and still have enough punch to kill humans protected by several feet of earth or concrete. There would be blast and heat too, but if the N-bomb was just the right size and was exploded at just the right height above the ground...
...such pure-fusion (neutron) bombs be built? As Senator Dodd remarked, scientists will not say that the job is impossible (TIME, Feb. 10). But nearly all agree that it is extremely difficult. Since N-bombs cannot have fission detonators and still act like N-bombs, some other detonator must be found that can raise the temperature of the fusion ingredients to some 1,000,000° C. so that they can start to react. So far, no chemical explosive or other nonfission detonator has remotely approached this temperature. Until something comes near this goal, there is little point in demanding...
...Wade concurred with Dr. Travell's diagnosis of an ordinary lumbosacral strain, unconnected with the President's old, nearly fatal spinal fusion. But back in New York, Wade parried a reporter's query with the words: "I don't want you to finish your question. I don't want to say a thing about it." All of which left it pretty much up to the U.S. to make its own judgments about the President's health-and the nation could hardly be happy about what it saw. A "cherry picker" elevator was used...