# The design of weapons

The engineering of most individual weapons is *absurdly* simple:

- Bladed weapons are simply skimming substance off an object until that object is sharp enough to pierce something, usually with a material that can hold that edge.
- Projectile weapons are using applied force to launch a comparatively smaller object as fast as possible into a significantly larger object. Catapults and trebuchets use leverage, while guns use controlled explosions.

Detonation-based weapons are also relatively straightforward, with the complexity in how to trigger the payload:

- If it's dropped from an aircraft, it'll probably detonate on its own simply from the volatility of gunpowder.
- Most charges have a fuse that either burns along a small rope or triggers from a computer-activated spark.
- A grenade's pin holds back the handle, with the payload on a short few-second fuse, which the handle activates.
- A shaped charge (typically for detonating buildings) involves a malleable ("plastic") explosive crammed into a constraining container, then a copper cone pushed into it. Once the explosive detonates, the cone inverts and the force turns it into a long rod, which penetrates the material like a bullet until the copper rod depletes.
- Nuclear weapons involve striking an unstable atomic mass (typically plutonium or uranium) with another atomic mass, causing the proton-neutron cluster to rapidly break apart.
- Any tectonic weapons involve a large detonation along a geological fault line.

The complexities in most weapons come from features designed to protect the user in the process.