Don’t waste your time…

(This page dedicated to Self Help Tactics)

“Don’t waste your time striving for perfection; instead, strive for excellence, doing your best.”

A Sir Lawrence Olivier Quote

Mushroom cloud from the Soviet 50-megaton Tsar Bomba, the largest weapon ever detonated (1961)

Self-help-tactics.com is a website that offers free self-improvement tips. We have self-improvement tips for you if you’d like to improve yourself in any of these plus other areas;

* Continuing Education
* Depression
* Goal Setting
* Law of Attraction
* Negativity
* Productivity
* Relationships
* Self Improvement
* Self-esteem
* Stress

Take a look and see if there is anything that might benefit you. Like many other sites Self-Help Tactics is a continuous work in progress so expect to find new information added between visits.

If you’ve been successful in any self improvement areas others would like to hear your story. You can contact them on their Contact form.

Self-Help Tactics welcomes all visitors of Wish Good Luck to come by and see what they have to offer.

A Different kind of Self-improvement!

Striving for the best H-bomb

The Soviets

The Soviets demonstrated the power of the “staging” concept in October 1961, when they detonated the massive and unwieldy Tsar Bomba, a 50 megaton hydrogen bomb that derived almost 97% of its energy from fusion. It was the largest nuclear weapon developed and tested by any country, but was far too large for military purpose to use as a weapon – even though it was dropped from an airplane in its lone test over Novaya Zemlya.

The Americans

A photograph of Operation Castle thermonuclear test, Castle Romeo shot.

An H-Bomb using a solid lithium deuteride fusion fuel concept was tested in the “Castle Bravo” shot, which had a yield of 15 megatons and was the largest U.S. bomb ever tested.

Most of what is known to the public today about the Teller–Ulam design comes from a 1979 magazine article.

After 1954 efforts in the United States toward H-bomb development shifted towards developing miniaturized Teller–Ulam weapons which could easily outfit intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-launched ballistic missiles. By 1960, with the W47 warhead deployed on Polaris ballistic missile submarines, megaton-class warheads were as small as 18 inches in diameter and 720 pounds in weight. It was later found in live testing that the Polaris warhead did not work reliably and had to be redesigned. Further innovation in miniaturizing warheads was accomplished by the mid-1970s, when versions of the Teller–Ulam design were created which could fit ten or more warheads on the end of a small MIRVed missile.

The British

In 1957 the Operation Grapple tests were carried out. The first test, Green Granite was a prototype fusion bomb, but failed to produce equivalent yields compared to the Americans and Soviets, only achieving approximately 300 kilotons. The second test Orange Herald was the modified fission bomb and produced 700 kilotons—making it the largest fission explosion ever. At the time almost everyone (including the pilots of the plane that dropped it) thought that this was a fusion bomb.

A second set of tests was scheduled, with testing recommencing in September 1957. The first test was based on a “… new simpler design. A two stage thermonuclear bomb which had a much more powerful trigger”. This test Grapple X Round C was exploded on November 8 and yielded approximately 1.8 megatons. On April 28, 1958 a bomb was dropped that yielded 3 megatons —Britain’s most powerful test. Two final air burst tests on September 2 and September 11, 1958, dropped smaller bombs that yielded around 1 megaton each.

The first successful British H-bomb test (Operation Grapple X Round C1) which took place over Kiritimati on November 8, 1957.

American observers had been invited to these kinds of tests. After their successful detonation of a megaton-range device (and thus demonstrating their practical understanding of the Teller–Ulam design “secret”), the United States agreed to exchange some of their nuclear designs with Great Britain, leading to the 1958 US–UK Mutual Defence Agreement. Instead of continuing with their own design, the British were given access to the design of the smaller American Mk 28 warhead and were able to manufacture copies.

The Chinese

The People’s Republic of China detonated its first device using a Teller–Ulam design June 17, 1967 (“Test No. 6″), a mere 32 months after detonating its first fission weapon (the shortest fission-to-fusion development in history), with a yield of 3.31 Mt.

The French

Very little is known about the French development of the Teller–Ulam design beyond the fact that they detonated a 2.6 Mt device in the “Canopus” test in August 1968.

Isreal

Israel is alleged to possess thermonuclear weapons of the Teller–Ulam design, but is not known to have tested any, or any other nuclear device for that matter.

India

India’s first nuclear test occurred on May 18, 1974. On May 11, 1998, India detonated a hydrogen bomb in its Operation Shakti tests (“Shakti 1″, specifically). Director for the 1998 test siter preparations, Dr. K Santhanam, reported the yield of thermonuclear explosion was lower than expected, although his statement has been disputed by other Indian scientists involved in the test. Indian sources, using local data and citing a US Geologic Survey report compiling seismic data from 125 IRIS stations across the world, argue that the magnitudes suggested a combined yield of up to 60 kilotonnes, consistent with the Indian announced total yield of 56 kilotonnes. However, several independent and Western experts have reported lower yields for the nuclear test, and have posited that even the 50-odd kilotonne test claimed by India would still have been a very low yield for confirmation of a thermonuclear design.

Pakistan

According to the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, the Pakistan Army Corps of Engineers, and Kahuta Research Laboratories, in 1998, Pakistan carried out 6 underground nuclear tests in Chagai and Kharan region, and none was of a thermonuclear weapon design.

North Korea

North Korea’s two nuclear tests (2006 and 2009) were relatively low yield and do not appear to have been of a thermonuclear weapon design.

Particle physics - miniature black hole or anti-matter

A simulated event in the CMS detector, featuring the appearance of the Higgs boson

Unfortunately the H-bomb story certainly is not over yet. Maybe (likely) a more powerful bomb is in the makings or already made. What about an anti-matter bomb? What about a bomb based on a black hole? What about harnessing a supernova as a bomb? These and other questions are related to a future column in the appropriate scientific journal.

Some Unusual Gifts