Science Memes

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logs are for quitters (mander.xyz)

submitted 2 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

The only real purpose of the lithium deuteride is that it's a dry, shelf-stable, room-temperature fuel. The very first hydrogen "bomb" (actually a building-sized device) used supercooled liquid hydrogen as the fusion fuel, but this was obviously not practical for a deliverable bomb.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

I get that part, it's still the reaction I can't wrap my head around mainly because I don't understand how chemistry is any different than alchemy.

I know that lithium itself doesnt fuse to create He+T+D, and I know it can't undergo fission. Since lithium isn't left over, and lithium-6 and 7 are stable, does that mean the neutron with extremely high kinetic energy really knocks like two of the LiD mokecules into each other, causing dueterium -dueterium fusion resulting in He4, and the Li6 gets more neutrons that for it to be come unstable enough to decay into tritium or deuterium?