Word: thermonuclear
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...last month, carried an international thunderclap. To the high-patrolling U.S. bombers, which scooped up samples of its fine dust, the radioactivity was obvious evidence of some kind of Russian atomic blast. To the scientists who analyzed the samplings, it was clear proof that the Russians had exploded a thermonuclear superbomb, a remarkably exact duplicate of the U.S.'s own. To the political leaders of the U.S., the air mass was one more ominous sign that the time was close when the Russians might have enough atomic strength to destroy the U.S. power of resistance or retaliation...
...cryptic, 20-word sentence, the Atomic Energy Commission and the Defense Department last week gave a progress report on the H-bomb. Said a joint press release: recent "successful" atomic tests at Eniwetok "included experiments contributing to thermonuclear weapons research...
...Defense Department would not elaborate, but the reference to "thermonuclear weapons" provided grounds for some informed guesses. Scientists have long known that the only way in sight to start the fusion of hydrogen atoms is by extreme heat-and the only known way to generate such heat is by an atomic explosion. Thus, an atom bomb would have to act as the "trigger" for any H-bomb...
...other possibility. To give the temperature of a substance is merely a handy way of reporting the average velocity of its molecules or atoms. At temperatures up in the millions of degrees, atoms speed fast enough to smash other atoms, sometimes making them take part in energy-yielding "thermonuclear reactions." This is what happens...
...also happens when atoms are given electrical charges and pushed to enormous velocity by cyclotrons or other "particle accelerators." So Richter may have gotten his "high temperatures" and "thermonuclear reactions" merely by the old trick of accelerating charged particles. Just after Perón's first announcement, Richter hinted that an article by British Physicist Sir John Cockcroft told what line he was following. Cockcroft described how, in 1932, he shot protons against a lithium target and turned the lithium into helium plus energy...