A Nineteenth-Century Hydrogen Bomb? August 13, 2016
Author: Beach Combing | in : Contemporary, Modern , trackback
The first hydrogen bomb was exploded by the United States in 1952, but is it possible that there was an earlier prototype, not in the Second World War, but in the late nineteenth-century? The story in question dates to 11 Aug 1894 and the Blackburn Standard: be warned, though, parliament was closed and this is the period known by journalists as the ‘silly season’. The bitchy comment about ‘scientist’ needs, also, to be put in context: ‘scientist’ was a recent and, for some, unbearably modish word.
A Frenchman describing himself as a scientist, declares that he has invented a projectile charged with hydrogen, which will destroy every living thing that comes in its path throughout a large extent of the country.
The hydrogen bomb in 1952 caused a lot of damage by nuclear fusion of hydrogen isotypes [honestly got this last clause from an encyclopedia and have no idea what it means]. It seems that this late Victorian French model has a different basis. The idea of the ‘path’ of the weapon suggests that it is a kind of rocket and that the damage is caused by ‘burning’ or ‘diffusing’ hydrogen as it races along killing folk in the way? Can anyone make better sense of this? drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com If you want more science the details of this ghastly experiment continue below.
Since hydrogen exist only as a gas, except under immense pressure and at a temperature which comes near the absolute zero, and diffuses itself in the atmosphere with amazing velocity, the Frenchman’s invention may be described as wonderful if true.
‘Wonderful if true’ is perhaps not the best way to describe exploded pacific atolls and the banshee wail of alarms outside Cold War shelters, but the nineteenth century always had a fascination with new things.
Beach has to come clean, meanwhile, and admit that the hydrogen bomb created the prettiest mushroom clouds.
Stephen D, 31 Aug 2016: Sorry, but the alleged French scientist in 1894 could not possibly have been imagining anything like a modern hydrogen bomb. That uses nuclear fission (not thought even remotely possible in 1894) of plutonium (nonexistent, and not thought of as even hypothetically possible) or uranium-238 (not known to exist) to bring about the nuclear fusion (not yet imagined) of deuterium and tritium (not known to exist, or to be capable of being produced). Forget it. Assuming that a provincial journalist in the silly season was not just making it all up – that is, as you say, a considerable assumption – it is just possible that the Frenchman was envisaging some form of fuel/air explosive, or thermobaric weapon. These are indeed highly destructive. They depend on some form of fuel being dispersed into the atmosphere to form a cloud around and into the target, and then ignited: they produce very considerable blast effects, especially in confined spaces, and a subsequent lethal vacuum. Problem is, hydrogen is about the most ineffective fuel for such a weapon that there is. Being so much lighter than air, the hydrogen cloud will rapidly disperse and rise well above the target and when detonated will produce spectacular effects quite high up.
Moonman writes, 31 Aug 2016, Well, it sounds less like a “nuclear” bomb than a pressure vessel “charged” or pressurized with hydrogen. Rupturing a tank could damage “a large extent of country” (note in the text I found the article says “extent of country” not “extent of THE country” which means a rather different thing). But, it likely would not operate very long since a ruptured tank expends its contents rapidly (any number of failed hydrogen/oxygen rocket launches show this). I like the original hydrogen gun (invented by Volta).
Cheese, 31 Aug 2016, The first thing that springs to mind is fuel cells. I cribbed this from Wikipedia: “The first references to hydrogen fuel cells appeared in 1838. In a letter dated October 1838 but published in the December 1838 edition of The London and Edinburgh Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science, Welsh physicist and barrister William Grove wrote about the development of his first crude fuel cells. He used a combination of sheet iron, copper and porcelain plates, and a solution of sulphate of copper and dilute acid. In a letter to the same publication written in December 1838 but published in June 1839, German physicist Christian Friedrich Schönbein discussed the first crude fuel cell that he had invented. His letter discussed current generated from hydrogen and oxygen dissolved in water. Grove later sketched his design, in 1842, in the same journal. The fuel cell he made used similar materials to today’s phosphoric-acid fuel cell. 9. ” And again, stolen from Wikipedia: “There are many types of fuel cells, but they all consist of an anode, a cathode, and an electrolyte that allows positively charged hydrogen ions (or protons) to move between the two sides of the fuel cell. The anode and cathode contain catalysts that cause the fuel to undergo oxidation reactions that generate positively charged hydrogen ions and electrons. The hydrogen ions are drawn through the electrolyte after the reaction. At the same time, electrons are drawn from the anode to the cathode through an external circuit, producing direct current electricity. At the cathode, hydrogen ions, electrons, and oxygen react to form water.”
KMH writes, 31 Aug 2016: This idea of a hydrogen “projectile” has nothing to do with atomic fusion or fission (the idea would be completely contrary to the physics of the 19th century). What is implied here is a device that controls the chemical process of hydrogen combining with oxygen to produce abundant flame, as witnessed by the disaster of the Hindenburg in 1937 in New Jersey. I suspect what he had in mind was something like a flamethrower with hydrogen as fuel. Flamethrowers were actually used in WW I and WW II to considerable effect and first employed by the Germans.
