The planet's most destructive weapon: what is the difference between atomic and nuclear bombs

Few things in modern history evoke as much horror as atomic and nuclear weapons. At the same time, these terms are often used interchangeably - but in fact they denote different types of destructive power, differing in both their mode of operation and historical significance, Wion writes.

The resource reminds us: every atomic bomb is a nuclear weapon, but not every nuclear weapon is an atomic bomb. It was the atomic bomb that was the first type of nuclear weapon created by mankind.

The atomic bomb is the birth of the nuclear age

The power of atomic bombs is based on the process of nuclear fission - the splitting of uranium-235 or plutonium-239 atoms, which causes a chain reaction and releases a colossal amount of energy according to Einstein's formula E = mc². The first use of the weapon occurred in 1945 when the US dropped the Little Boy bomb on Hiroshima and the Fat Man bomb on Nagasaki. More than 200,000 people died in the two explosions, and the world entered the nuclear age forever.

Emergence of nuclear (thermonuclear) weapons

The term "nuclear bomb" is much broader. It includes not only atomic charges, but also hydrogen - thermonuclear charges. In 1952, the US tested the first ever Ivy Mike hydrogen bomb, which had a yield of more than 10 megatons - hundreds of times greater than Hiroshima.

This jump in power was the transition from atomic to thermonuclear weapons," the authors of the material note.

A thermonuclear bomb uses a two-stage reaction: first fission, then fusion, providing a destructive potential that has virtually no upper limit.

Key differences: atomic vs. nuclear

• Atomic bomb - energy from the splitting of heavy atoms.

• Hydrogen (nuclear/thermonuclear) - energy from the fusion of light elements under monstrous pressure and temperature.

Atomic charges are measured in kilotons, thermonuclear in megatons, which is thousands of times greater. Even a compact hydrogen bomb can be many times more powerful than an atomic bomb," the resource writes.

But, as the authors of the material point out, the differences go beyond physics. Atomic bombs defined the early years of nuclear deterrence. Thermonuclear devices became the basis of the "balance of terror" during the Cold War. Countries possessing a hydrogen bomb automatically join the club of states with existential-level strategic power.

Today, most deployed warheads are thermonuclear. But there are also tactical, smaller fission-based warheads.

Despite disarmament treaties, states continue to modernise nuclear weapons. Thousands of active warheads remain in the world. Their destructive power has increased, but with it has grown the complexity of managing such weapons - political, technological, moral. The atomic bomb was the beginning, the nuclear bomb is its evolution," the source concludes.