text: what’s the difference between a hydrogen bomb and a atomic bomb and how do they work?   an atomic bomb is usualy what we call a fission bomb where the extream ammounts of energy that is created is from the splitting of atoms (usualy uranium plutonium or thorium.  all very heavy atoms)  on the other hand a hydrogen bomb work on the principle of fussion.  it combines hydrogen atoms together to make helium atoms.  this two realeases enengy ( it is a bit counter intuitive, but it takes less energy to hold together an atom of helium than it does to hold towgether two atoms of hydrogen.)    this is done in two ways, either using liquid hydrogen(which means it has to be cooled to very low temps, and the cooling mechanism is about the size of a boxcar. those are the bombs that you see in dr. strangelove.) or by using deuterium and tritium. they are isotopes of hydrogen but with one and two neutrons respectivly.  this can be kept at much higher temperatures and thus the bomb can be about the size of a keg of beer.  these are used much more often and can be put on the end of cruise missle and icbms (intercontinetal balistic missles)  oh yea... and fussion bombs are about 100 to 1000 times as powerful as fission bombs.