USS Nautilus
JAN 21, 2015
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.030879
On this day in 1954, the world’s first operational nuclear submarine, USS Nautilus, was launched into the Thames River at Groton, Connecticut. Four years later, the ship undertook its most famous voyage: a circumnavigation of the North Pole under the Arctic ice cap. The feat was made possible by three physics-based technologies: nuclear power, inertial navigation and the gyrocompass.
Date in History: 21 January 1954
© 2015 American Institute of Physics
