Thermonuclear Milestones: (1) The American Effort
DOI: 10.1063/1.2807828
The history of thermonuclear research traces its roots back to the year 1941. in a lecture delivered in May 1941, Tokutaro Hagiwara, a physicist at the University of Kyoto, postulated that a thermonuclear fusion reaction between hydrogen atoms could be triggered by the explosive fission chain reaction of uranium‐235. in September 1941, Enrico Fermi at Columbia University proposed a similar idea to Edward Teller. Discussions between Fermi and Teller ultimately suggested the feasibility of using an atomic explosion to initiate thermonuclear reactions in a deuterium medium. the conversations with Fermi sparked in Teller a decade‐long messianic obsession with the notion of building a thermonuclear superbomb.
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References
1. H. F. York, The Advisors: Oppenheimer, Teller, and the Superbomb, W. H. Freeman, San Francisco (1976), p. 77.
More about the Authors
German A. Goncharov. Russian Federal Nuclear Center—All‐Russian Scientific‐Research Institute of Experimental Physics (RFYaTs‐VNIIEF).
