![]() ![]() Of the uranium (fission) bomb dropped on Hiroshima. This was approximately 700 times the power The result was an explosion that was equivalent to one produced by more than ten million tons of TNT. The United States tested the first full-scale thermonuclear device on November 1, 1952. That you could well argue did not make a great deal of sense," as Oppenheimer observed, became by mid-1951 "technically so sweet that you could not argue about that." The process, which allowed a faster and longer-sustained compression of the fusion fuel, became known as staged radiation implosion. They proposed using x-rays produced by the fission primary, rather than other attributesįrom the detonation of the fission primary, to compress the secondary. In early 1951, however, Ulam and Teller proposed a radically new and more promising approach for starting and sustaining a fusion reaction. Prospects dimmed considerably when calculationsĪnd computations, spearheaded by Los Alamos mathematician Stanislaw Ulam, indicated that a fusion reaction could not be sustained in the proposed design. In January 1950, President Harry Trumanĭecided the issue by approving accelerated development of the weapon, although no one was sure that it could be built due to the formidable technical difficulties that remained. Own fission device in August 1949, however, an intense, internal governmental debate emerged on the possibility, wisdom, and morality of rapidly developing a thermonuclear weapon. As tensions with the Soviet Union increased during the early years of the Cold War and the Soviets successfully exploded their ![]() Teller's work on the Super did not contribute to the main goal of building an atomic bomb, but it did break ground for the eventual successful work on the thermonuclear bomb.Īfter the war, Teller continued to pursue the idea of the Super, but it remained a low priority. Teller reported directly to Oppenheimer, with the In June 1944, he made Teller head of an independent group working on the Super and other assignments. Oppenheimer restricted the work, though he did not drop it completely. To find a way would take so much time that they no longer could consider the hydrogen weapon a possibility for the war. ![]() By February 1944, the theoreticiansĬoncluded that heating deuterium to its ignition temperature would be more difficult than anticipated. With the unknowns still so great, it was difficult to predict what might be useful, and it seemed worthwhile to explore. Oppenheimer as head of the lab nonetheless directedĪ small group of physicists to continue to investigate the Super. To the fission bomb, not the Super, as the hydrogen weapon came to be called, and, in any event, the Super weapon depended on perfecting a nuclear bomb to trigger it. Priority at the Los Alamos laboratory, however, went Of theoretical issues involving a thermonuclear bomb were discussed, and the possibility of thermonuclear ignition of the atmosphere with a fission device was raised. Robert Oppenheimer and Edward Teller, at Berkeley in July 1942, a broad range At a meeting of top physicists, including J. Scientists recognized early on that even more powerful bombs might be built using nuclear fusion. One neutron, and tritium, with one proton and two neutrons. Two isotopes of hydrogen were particularly promising: deuterium, consisting of one proton and While fission is most easily achieved with heavy elements, such as uranium or plutonium, fusion is easiest with light elements. While the atomic bombs built during the Manhattan Project used the principle of nuclear fission, the thermonuclear, or hydrogen, bomb was based upon HYDROGEN BOMB Science > Bomb Design and Components Manhattan Project: Science > Bomb Design and Components > Hydrogen Bomb ![]()
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