Word: thermonuclear
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Asked a reporter at President Eisenhower's press conference last week: Was the great thermonuclear explosion in mid-Pacific last year a "bargain basement U-bomb''-a sort of "super H-bomb with a jacket of natural-state uranium that gave it greater power at less cost?" The President replied that he did not think he should attempt to answer the question (and the White House clipped both question and reply out of the television coverage), passed the matter to AEC Chairman Strauss, who refused to comment. But the whole exchange whetted new curiosity about...
...Edward Teller's first deputy in work on the hydrogen bomb (TIME, March 7). As consultants, Convair added a blue-ribbon panel of 14 experts. Among them: Dr. Teller, now professor of physics at the University of California; Dr. Hans Bethe, first to calculate systematically all thermonuclear reactions; Dr. Theodore von Kármán, who developed Jato, later served as chief scientific adviser to the Air Force; Massachusetts Institute of Technology's electricity wizard...
...this point, Konopinski settled for the theorists a question that still bothers laymen who worry about chain reactions destroying the planet. "He proved that a thermonuclear reaction, even if initiated on the earth, could not spread under any circumstances. It was necessary to prove, and he did prove, that the 'super' bomb could not ignite the atmosphere or the ocean...
...early 1951 a crude thermonuclear experiment had been set up at Eniwetok in the Pacific-Operation Greenhouse. Says Teller: "What remains most clear in my mind is the contrast between the spectacular explosion, which in itself meant nothing, and the small piece of paper handed to me by my good friend Louis Rosen, which showed that the experiment was a success...
...with the H-bomb, Teller has words of firm faith: "We would be unfaithful to the tradition of Western civilization if we were to shy away from exploring the limits of human achievement. It is our specific duty as scientists to explore and to explain . . . The construction of the thermonuclear weapon was a great challenge to the technical people of this country. To be in possession of this instrument is an even greater challenge to the free community in which we live. I am confident that, whatever the scientists are able to discover or invent, the people will be good...