WI: Nuclear weapon in WW1 era?

I don't think it's impossible, but the challenges are very high. One of the big ones will be enriching the fissile materials - IOTL, that required the development of teflon in order to stand up to the uranium hexafluoride that was being processed. A plutonium bomb won't be any easier, because a) you have to get the plutonium out of the fuel rods somehow and b) once you do it's still very toxic - so much so that during the Manhattan project, immediate high amputation was considered the only practical first aid!

I think late Victorian-era chemistry was up to the challenge, so the Edwardians should be too... but they would have to be very, very careful. Because there is only one way to get it right, and lots of insanely dangerous ways to get it wrong. Ways that can contaminate the area for miles around and kill off a whole slew of your best physicists and chemists.

Once you have your bomb, of course, you have to deliver it somehow. Remember that aircraft were in their infancy back then, and the first atom bombs weighed at least 5 tonnes. It might be possible to create a short-range unguided rocket to deploy it, with a pressure fuse to detonate it at the right altitude, but it would be a huge beast because rocket fuels were also not very good. And that's another massive research project with lots of entertaining possibilities for failure. I think you're more likely to see some sort of naval weapon, perhaps a huge torpedo or a mine deployed from a submarine full of very brave volunteers.
 
Not possible with a 1900 POD IMHO. Neutrons were only discovered in the early thirties after all. It is possible to accelerate it a bit, yes, but consider that physics in the 1900-1945 period went at breackneck speed of progress already. Radioactivity was discovered in 1896, and people would not have quantum mechanics, relativity or the Rutherfordian atomic model for a few years. I don't think it's possible to really anticipate the former two with a 1900 POD. You can have a better atomic model earlier by a few years, but how do you discover fission if you don't know about neutrons? This discovery can be anticipated a little as well, but probably not enough to get a viable nuclear WEAPON by before 1920. Manhattan Project was a massive investment that pushed the tech envelope of the forties. Even if they have a theory of fission by 1914 (that's just NINE years after e=mc^2, so very unlikely) I don't think they could leap from there to a working bomb in six years in the Tens.
 
I agree, while the industrial processes may be cutting edge possible without the theory and research a nuclear chain reaction can't happen.
 
Is it possible that nuclear weapons maybe developed just not the explosion kind were familiar with. Something along the lines of a dirty bomb or demon core or Lady Godiva device. Basically an area denial/anti troop weapon.
 
Not a chance, not without a pre-1900 POD. Einstein's theory of relativity was formulated in 1905 but even if your POD is to push it back five years it is not enough. You just don't have the theoretical basis to even know atom bombs are possible before Einstein and less than a generation to develop further theories that are needed plus the technological development is just not possible. There simply isn't enough time.
 
The Manhattan Project cost billions of dollars to push the limits of 1940s-era technological capability.

I suppose in theory a sufficiently farsighted government could spend exponentially more money to jump-start this process years earlier, but it would have to be a lot of money and a lot of resources poured into basic science, and then you'd have to persuade said government there was a reason to do it, which would be kind of like persuading the Trump administration to invest $10 trillion into fusion power, I would think.
 
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