Word: hydrogenized
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...ingredient will be tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen which was discussed guardedly in the latest report of the Atomic Energy Commission. The nucleus of tritium has one proton and two neutrons. When it is struck by a highspeed proton (a nucleus of ordinary hydrogen), the two combine into helium and yield a great jolt of energy (see chart...
Deuterium (heavy hydrogen) may be used as a convenient source of reactive neutrons and protons. Another ingredient will probably be lithium, which has three protons and four neutrons in its nucleus. When joined by a proton, lithium turns into two helium nuclei. Lithium 6 (an isotope of lithium with three protons and three neutrons) may be used too. It combines with tritium to give two helium nuclei plus a free neutron...
...these ingredients, and probably others, will be arranged advantageously around the uranium, which will act as a detonator. The hydrogen isotopes are thin gases and hard to package, so they will probably be used in the form of chemical compounds. Lithium hydride, which may combine two desirable ingredients (lithium and tritium) in a single compound, would be handy for this purpose. Other tricks will be used to pack more hydrogen isotopes closely around the uranium...
...powerful will such bombs be? It has often been stated that they will have 1,000 times the power of uranium bombs. This figure may be too large; it may be too small. Theoretically, a pound of hydrogen turned into helium yields about seven times as much energy as a pound of fissioning uranium, and very large quantities can be used. Uranium bombs must not be too big or they will explode spontaneously. Hydrogen bombs would suffer from no such limit. Theoretically, a single bomb filling a whole ship could be exploded in an unsuspecting enemy's harbor. Such...
Spreading the Uranium. There may be much military importance in two side effects of the new fusion techniques. In fission bombs, a great deal of the uranium is scattered before it can react. But in a hydrogen bomb, even a small one, the ingredients packed around the uranium core could be induced to generate a large number of free neutrons. These would make more of the uranium react, thus stepping up the efficiency of the core's explosion...