Word: thermonuclear
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...past, the peace movement has climbed out on some rotten limbs. Last spring, for example, the Committees of Correspondence, including professors David Riesman and H. Stuart Hughes, proposed "destruction of thermonuclear weapons" as an "independent American initiative." Admitting that unilateral disarmament would invite Soviet invasion and conquest, the Committee stated reassuringly that such tyranny would fall "within the limits of human experience." And bravely, the group accepted "responsibility for developing effective ways of keeping alive our basic values"--some sort of "non-military methods of resistance...
...present risk is terrifying. In his recent book on national defense, Oscar Morgenstern, an expert on game theory, concludes that "as it is, the probability of a large thermonuclear war occuring appears to be significantly greater than the probability of its not occuring." Similarly, the Committees list some of the dangers: limited war growing, crucial failures of men or equipment, local feuds that drag in the major powers, the spread of nuclear weapons to other countries, new missile technology...
Scientists who strive toward achieving thermonuclear power-the controlled fusion of hydrogen-have fooled themselves so many times that they are reluctant to claim success. But last week in Washington, Dr. James L. Tuck of Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory told the Joint Congressional Committee on Atomic Energy: "We are now prepared to stake our reputations that we have a thermonuclear reaction...
...Tuck is sure that the Scylla neutrons came from genuine fusion of deuterium, but he points out that Scylla was never intended to be a practical source of thermonuclear energy. More promising for this purpose is Picket Fence, an apparatus that forms a cavity between strong magnetic fields. When deuterium nuclei are shot into the cavity, they sometimes stay there for 30 millionths of a second, a very long time in thermonuclear physics. Said Dr. Tuck: "For the first time I see in this device faint glimmerings of a possibility of making a thermonuclear reactor...
Zeus's thunderbolts are designed to help the U.S. effort (Project Sherwood) to harness the vast thermonuclear energy of the hydrogen bomb in a manageable form. Most promising way to achieve fusion of hydrogen atoms is to squeeze them between enormously powerful magnetic fields, and such fields can only be created by equally powerful currents. When Zeus has passed its last tests, probably some time in June, Project Sherwood's apparatus will be waiting for its thunderbolts. The hope is that they can squeeze hydrogen hard enough to produce a flash of fusion energy...