Is a radium bomb possible?

Question

Since uranium bombs have been used before and the element radium is over a million times more radioactive than Uranium, could radium be used for a bomb as well? And if so, just how devastating would that be?

Answer 1

Unlike uranium, radium does not undergo fission and so will not sustain the type of chain reaction used in nuclear bombs.

It is also far most expensive than uranium or plutonium. All radium occurring today is produced by the decay of heavier elements, being present in decay chains. Owing to such short half-lives of its isotopes, radium is not primordial but trace. It cannot occur in large quantities due both to the fact that isotopes of radium have short half-lives and that parent nuclides have very long ones. Radium is found in tiny quantities in the uranium ore uraninite and various other uranium minerals, and in even tinier quantities in thorium minerals.

Radium-226 is a decay product of uranium and is therefore found in all uranium-bearing ores. (One ton of pitchblende typically yields about one seventh of a gram of radium).

Answer 2

Uranium and plutonium isotopes have the "advantage" that they can undergo fission. Radium cannot. Radium emits alpha particles. This process is very energetic. Marie and Pierre Curie found that aqueous solutions of radium salts could boil. But that's about it.



About 1900-1940, people romanticized radium. For practical uses of radium, I recommend three books by Edgar Rice Burroughs, "Under the Moons of Mars," "The Gods of Mars," and "John Carter, Warlord of Mars."

Answer 3

It is possible, but would be MUCH more expensive than uranium, for a bomb with the same power.