Post archives
Filtering for posts tagged with ‘Bomb design’
2024
September 2024
2021
October 2021
29
Redactions
The untold story of the world's largest nuclear bomb, the Tsar Bomba, and the secret US efforts to match it.
May 2021
17
Redactions | Visions
How the wrong settings on a photocopier has let us have a glimpse at a forbidden image of a modern thermonuclear warhead.
April 2021
25
Meditations | News and Notes
Reflections on the life of John-Coster Mullen (1946-2021), the truck driver who sought nuclear history and secrets.
2020
July 2020
16
Meditations
If the first nuclear weapons test had been a flop, would the world be better or worse off?
2016
September 2016
23
Visions
With nuclear weapons, sometimes you have to agree to know less if you want to know anything.
April 2016
22
Visions
What do the shapes of nuclear weapons reveal, and what do they hide?
2015
May 2015
11
Redactions
Along with almost getting hit by a car, he made important contributions to the atomic bomb's design.
April 2015
10
Visions
The problem with thinking about the "critical mass" as a fixed quantity, and a new visualization to aid in thinking about it in a better way.
March 2015
6
Redactions
In 1945, some scientists thought we should "demonstrate" the bomb to Japan before dropping it on a city. Others disagreed. Who was right?
2014
December 2014
15
Visions
Is there a big red button that can launch nuclear war? No — but thinking about why there isn't is a nice way into the complexities of command and control issues.
November 2014
14
Visions
Experiments in representing the atomic bomb and the substances that fuel it.
10
Redactions
The Trinity and Fat Man atomic bombs were powered primarily by plutonium — but not exclusively.
October 2014
17
Meditations
Can one empathize with the spies who never confess?
January 2014
31
Visions
How the wonderful, terrible display of the first Soviet hydrogen bomb changed Andrei Sakharov's views on the responsibility of scientists.
2013
December 2013
23
Meditations
By looking at the trends of yield-to-weight ratios, we can peel back the veil just a tiny bit on nuclear weapons design trends.
September 2013
27
Redactions
New details about a nuclear weapons accident makes it clear how close we came to an accidental, full-yield, megaton-range detonation.
August 2013
23
Redactions
Did Klaus Fuchs tell the Soviet Union how to make a hydrogen bomb? Recently released documents from the Russian archives shed new light on the question.
16
Redactions
Japan managed to avoid getting the world's third plutonium core dropped on them, but it still managed to leave behind a deadly legacy.
June 2013
21
Redactions | Visions
Making sense of the worst radiological accident in US history.
January 2013
22
Visions
The U.K. Atomic Energy Authority's bizarre coat of arms, and more H-bomb drawings from George Gamow.
18
Redactions
The colorful physicist's postwar concerns about the teaching of nuclear physics, and an H-bomb doodle.
2012
December 2012
14
Visions
How does one recruit nuclear weapons designers? In the 1950s, you could just take out ads in popular magazines.
November 2012
30
Redactions | Visions
The US government doesn't like to draw atomic bombs, but the Russians don't mind drawing American nukes.
August 2012
29
Redactions
A document from 1947 points towards an interesting Los Alamos policy: banning all spheres, innocuous or not, from technical areas.
July 2012
20
Visions
A step-by-step guide to firing the Davy Crockett, the "atomic bazooka," and the smallest nuke in the Cold War US arsenal.
June 2012
27
Redactions
Hans Bethe on why it was safe to declassify Project SUNSHINE, a study of the global effects of nuclear fallout.
18
Meditations
What would have happened if the US hadn't decided to try and build an H-bomb in early 1950? Some alternative scenarios are considered.
May 2012
25
Visions
Did the President of Harvard draw an atomic bomb in 1943?
2
Redactions
In 1946, scientists at the U. of Penn. attempted to publish a book about atomic bomb design. 60+ years later, here is the censored chapter.
