Monsters from the ID

I wouldn't know about the self sustaining density limits of materials, but I did read that for a brief instant in a nuclear fission weapons core, the metallic fuel sphere (usually plutonium or uranium) is compressed up to 2 or 3 times normal density by the chemical explosive implosion part of the bomb. I suppose then one could say that on earth for brief instants, we have had materials at 3 times their normal densities. Given that the densities of fissionable metals are fairly high (around 16 to 19 times that of water), it would be correct to say that the short duration density in an atomic bomb in the instants just after chemical implosion, and just before the main fission explosion would be around 35 to 60 times that of water! (I do not know what densities are achieved by the lighter materials in the center of a thermonuclear weapon.) Also, according to an article by Orson L. Anderson, the density of iron at the earths inner core is expected to be 13 times that of water, which matches seismic data. So we do have on earth, iron at the core, with the density of mercury! Whether there are large quantities of heavier elements which would be far denser than normal is an interesting possibility. J. Marvin Herndon suggests that there may even be a ball of liquid uranium (a few miles wide) at the core. Yikes! And that it may even form a natural fission reactor! At those pressures, the density of that material may also be quite high, perhaps as dense as such materials are for a short period in a chemical implosion as mentioned earlier. That may not be the case, but it's an interesting idea.

Hello. We are Monsters from the ID, and new to the science forums.