Plausibility Check: Earliest Nuclear Weaponry

Freizeit

Banned
I'm brainstorming ideas for my first TL, and I've begun to wonder about the plausibility of having nukes earlier that OTL with a POD of around the fifteenth century, involving a much more enthusiastic colonisation if the New World. I know next to nothing about the actual materials, calculations and funding needed to create a nuclear device, so please bear with me. The aim of this thread is to get a nuclear device regardless of cost or investment. It's a discussion of feasibility.

My guesstimation is about 1850, but I'd much prefer to hear your much more enlightened opinions on the subject.
 
I freely admit that I could be wrong, I suspect that if you want a functional A-bomb by the 1850s, you probably need to butterfly the Middle Ages, which means you need to butterfly the fall of Rome.
 

Freizeit

Banned
I freely admit that I could be wrong, I suspect that if you want a functional A-bomb by the 1850s, you probably need to butterfly the Middle Ages, which means you need to butterfly the fall of Rome.

Thanks for helping me out :)

Going all the way back to Rome... I don't think I'd be able to pull that of in terms of length and plausibility.
 
Well, you could start by looking at a map of uranium deposits around the world. Your hypothetical bomb builders would need access to those sites. For example, I think the most productive uranium sites are in the continental US and South Africa.
 
Well, you could start by looking at a map of uranium deposits around the world. Your hypothetical bomb builders would need access to those sites. For example, I think the most productive uranium sites are in the continental US and South Africa.

The highest quality uranium is actually in Canada, but otherwise, yes you need reliable access to North America.
 
I freely admit that I could be wrong, I suspect that if you want a functional A-bomb by the 1850s, you probably need to butterfly the Middle Ages, which means you need to butterfly the fall of Rome.

Or you could just kill Genghis Kahn and make the Song dynasty industrialize
 
Or you could just kill Genghis Kahn and make the Song dynasty industrialize

The thing with Song dynasty industrialization is that it might not necessarily lead to advanced science. It might just make Chinese living standards ridiculously high and the state rich and powerful enough to dominate the world. I can see the Song getting advanced enough to stick Maxim guns along the length of the Great Wall, and then staying at that level for centuries as no one would be able to oppose them, but the industrial package would be too difficult to replicate elsewhere.
 

Stephen

Banned
A more enthusiastic colonisation of America and adoption of patato would lead to a higher population and posibly earlier idustrialisation so atom bomb in 1850 is not too implausable.
 
IMHO, the simplest nuclear weapon requires weapons-grade enriched Uranium, very high explosives (TNT or better) and precise control of their detonation. Plain Uranium and black powder won't work.

The first nuclear weapons took the wartime industrial strength of the United States in the 1940s and a significant fraction of the world's atomic physicists to develop. I really don't see them being developed any earlier.
 
The Atomic Bomb draws from so many areas of science and technology that the only realistic way of having the atomic bomb in 1850 is to have an OTL-1940s level of development, economy and science in TTL's 1850.
 
The Atomic Bomb draws from so many areas of science and technology that the only realistic way of having the atomic bomb in 1850 is to have an OTL-1940s level of development, economy and science in TTL's 1850.

Ok, but how do you speed up the pace of development to that point? This is why I said that you probably need to butterfly the fall of Rome. The Romans knew about coal, they knew about water power and they knew from the Greeks about the potential of steam. Under the right circumstances it probably wouldn't be that hard to have the Roman Empire undergo an industrial revolution. The major issue that would have to be dealt with next would be the succession to the Imperial institution. If the Romans can figure how to ensure a transfer of power without triggering a civil war every ten or twenty years, then they could eventually put themselves, or their successor state, on the path to an atomic bomb, probably several centuries down the road.
 
The Atomic Bomb draws from so many areas of science and technology that the only realistic way of having the atomic bomb in 1850 is to have an OTL-1940s level of development, economy and science in TTL's 1850.

I agree the number of scientific advances that would have to have been made prior is huge.

Does the bomb need to be nucleur? It is much easier to see high yeald conventional explosives being developed sooner. After all the largest explosion that has occured in the UK was custard exploding! (well custard powder anyway).
 
Well, you could start by looking at a map of uranium deposits around the world. Your hypothetical bomb builders would need access to those sites. For example, I think the most productive uranium sites are in the continental US and South Africa.

Getting the uranium's the easy bit. The hard part is refining it and putting it in centrifuges to get the U-238. If you can do that then actually getting the uranium's probably not that hard.
 
Ok, but how do you speed up the pace of development to that point? This is why I said that you probably need to butterfly the fall of Rome. The Romans knew about coal, they knew about water power and they knew from the Greeks about the potential of steam. Under the right circumstances it probably wouldn't be that hard to have the Roman Empire undergo an industrial revolution. The major issue that would have to be dealt with next would be the succession to the Imperial institution. If the Romans can figure how to ensure a transfer of power without triggering a civil war every ten or twenty years, then they could eventually put themselves, or their successor state, on the path to an atomic bomb, probably several centuries down the road.
Well, a century is a rather long time to speed up, but I would suggest that you wouldn't have to go all the way back to the fall of Rome. An earlier Rennaisance, a lack of a Mongol destruction od the Arab centers of learning or any number of other, later PODs could be used.
 
Getting the uranium's the easy bit. The hard part is refining it and putting it in centrifuges to get the U-238. If you can do that then actually getting the uranium's probably not that hard.

You need U-235 for a bomb, and for that you first need the idea of elements and atoms and a bunch of chemistry, then the discovery of isotopes, then a lot of electricity to power the centrifuges or gaseous diffusion plants. It can be done, but not with technology much earlier than about 1940 and not without a massive industrial effort.

On the other hand, Canada's CANDU reactor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANDU_reactor) originally used natural unrefined uranium and a pebble-bed reactor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_bed_reactor) seems to be less of an engineering challenge.
 
You could just throw in a super-genius or two who revolutionizes chemistry or physics at an earlier age than OTL, leading to an increased interest in those sciences. Of course, this would have major repercussions on all of world history, with deadlier weapons in earlier wars due to the advance in chemistry.
 
Top