Control of Nuclear Weapons

The enormously destructive power of nuclear weapons has prompted many nations to make attempts to control both their spread and their use. In 1996, the United Nations approved the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty that bans all testing of nuclear weapons. It will not take effect, however, until all countries with nuclear reactors or power generators ratify it. As of 2007 roughly three-fourths of countries with reactors have done so. Do you feel nuclear weapons should be banned?

Effect on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Fission bombs were first developed by the United States during World War II. America dropped two such bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, completely destroying those cities and bringing about Japan’s surrender and the end of that war. President Harry S. Truman’s decision to use the weapons remains debated to this day. Effects include immediate blast effects, thermal energy and radiation, initial nuclear radiation, and residual nuclear radiation. The immediate blast effect of the Hiroshima bomb was equivalent to about twelve thousand tons of the explosive TNT. infrared radiation that caused eye injuries and skin burns and ignited flammable materials. An estimated eighty thousand Japanese people immediately perished from the blast effects or initial heat radiation from the Hiroshima bomb. Do you feel the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki should have been used? Do you feel these nuclear bombs should be used during current wars and in the future?

Types of Nuclear Weapons

Fission weapons:

Also called Atomic weapons or atomic bombs
Work by splitting the nucleus of a certain isotope of an element. Uranium and Plutonium are the main elements used.
When the neutron hits the nucleus, the nucleus splits and releases a large amount of energy.
The neutrons then hit other atoms and cause a chain reaction




Fusion weapons:

Also known as thermonuclear or hydrogen bomb
Use Fusion to convert matter into energy
Same process of the sun
Create with high temperatures

More powerful than Fission