this post was submitted on 27 Mar 2026
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The point is that even bringing the parts together until a critical state was reached, the material did not explode. If the Demon Core were left in its critical state like that but otherwise undisturbed, it surely would have melted but would not have gone off like an atom bomb.
To my understanding, you can't really do more than bring the parts together in a compact arrangement and keep them like that, so if the demon core would stay together (and not, say, get blown apart by the release of energy), then the issue would be a lack of fissile material (or reflectors), no?
See also an image of a nuclear bomb design (I think Little Boy) from Wikipedia, which illustrates the idea of sliding a rod of fissile material into a hollow cylinder, though the bomb did it in reverse. I think the design might be obsolete due to inefficiency, and it might need the tough shell to hold it together (and act as a neutron reflector).