Thermonuclear Milestones

NOV 01, 1996

With the opening and discussion of decades‐old archives in Russia, we can reexamine many questions about the history of Soviet thermonuclear weapons development.

DOI: 10.1063/1.881548

German A. Goncharov

The creation of atomic weapons, and later thermonuclear weapons, was an event of such epochal significance in the 20th century that its history has preoccupied scientists worldwide and the international community at large. Those who have participated directly in nuclear weapons programs do not, and cannot, remain aloof from revealing the facts of that history. Of special interest is the early history of thermonuclear weapons development in the US and the USSR, the first countries to detonate this most dreadful species of nuclear weapon. In these three articles I present a brief survey and analysis of the principal events that make up that early history.

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References

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More about the authors

German A. Goncharov, Russian Federal Nuclear Center—All‐Russian Scientific‐Research Institute of Experimental Physics (RFYaTs‐VNIIEF).