Post archives
Filtering for posts tagged with ‘H-bomb’
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.
June 2021
14
Redactions
A bizarre leak from a powerful Senator made the Top Secret debate over building the hydrogen bomb part of national discourse — and doomed its direction.
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.
2019
December 2019
3
Redactions
In 1953, an eminent US scientist lost the "secret of the H-bomb" under bizarre circumstances. Read the documents behind the tale.
2018
June 2018
29
Redactions
What would it take to turn the world into one big fusion reaction, wiping it clean of life and turning it into a barren rock? Asking for a friend.
May 2018
10
News and Notes | Visions
A new exhibit on the first nuclear-armed submarines is opening this week at the Intrepid Museum in New York.
2016
July 2016
15
Meditations
How the US came to have three major strategic nuclear platforms, and why it started calling them a "triad."
April 2016
22
Visions
What do the shapes of nuclear weapons reveal, and what do they hide?
2015
September 2015
4
Redactions
Did "Big Science" pioneer Ernest Lawrence believe that Japan should have been warned before Hiroshima?
January 2015
16
Redactions
What do the newly released Oppenheimer transcripts tell us about the security hearing, and its original redaction?
2014
October 2014
16
News and Notes
A public lecture on how laser fusion came to be, and the unique classification problems it posed for the Atomic Energy Commission in the 1960s and 1970s.
July 2014
14
News and Notes
There's never a right time to lose a secret H-bomb document. But for John Archibald, there might not have been a worse time than early January 1953.
February 2014
28
Meditations
What is the legacy of the Castle Bravo nuclear test? How do we assess the human costs of the arms race?
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.
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
September 2012
12
Redactions
What drove Edward Teller to push for a 10,000 megaton hydrogen bomb?
August 2012
3
Visions
Nearly seven decades into the nuclear age, there's a little bit of fallout in everyone.
July 2012
9
Meditations
"Be sure that no open flame, lighted cigarette, or other spark potential is present when the bomb is uncovered and opened..."
June 2012
27
Redactions
Hans Bethe on why it was safe to declassify Project SUNSHINE, a study of the global effects of nuclear fallout.
20
Redactions
Why Hans Bethe wanted to postpone the test of the first hydrogen bomb in 1952.
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.
13
Redactions
Hours after the first H-bomb was detonated, the press knew about it. But why did the government try to keep it secret for years after that?
April 2012
6
Visions
A selection of Time magazine covers featuring nuclear weapons topics over the decades.
February 2012
22
Redactions
The famous collaboration that led to the creation of the hydrogen bomb.
17
Visions
An obscure Soviet publication on nuclear weapons reveals differences in how different countries draw their atomic bombs.
