Nuclear Weapons
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Computer Simulations and the Trading Zone
PETER &A Computer Simulations and the Trading Zone At the root of most accounts of the development of science is the covert premise that science is about ontology: What objects are there? How do they interact? And how do we discover them? It is a premise that underlies three distinct epochs of inquiry into the nature of science. Among the positivists, the later Carnap explicitly advocated a view that the objects of physics would be irretrievably bound up with what he called a "framework," a full set of linguistic relations such as is found in Newtonian or Eiustcini;~mechanics. That these frameworks held little in common did not trouble Car- nap; prediction mattered more than progress. Kuhn molded this notion and gave it a more historical focus. Unlike the positivists, Kuhn and other commentators of the 1960's wanted to track the process by which a community abandoned one framework and adopted another. To more recent scholars, the Kuhnian categoriza- tion of group affiliation and disaffiliation was by and large correct, but its underlying dynamics were deemed deficient because they paid insufficient attention to the sociological forces that bound groups to their paradigms. All three generations embody the root assumption that the analysis of science studies (or ought to study) a science classified and divided according to the objects of its inquiry. All three assume that as these objects change, particular branches of science split into myriad disconnected parts. It is a view of scientific disunity that I will refer to as "framework relativism. 55 In this essay, as before, I will oppose this view, but not by Computer Simulations I 19 invoking the old positivist pipe dreams: no universal protocol languages, no physicalism, no Corntian hierarchy of knowledge, and no radical reductionism. -
The Hansen Letter
The Hansen Letter Introduction by Howard Morland, November 2003: This seven-thousand-word letter by Chuck Hansen, dated August 27, 1979, delivered a coup de grace to the government=s case for censorship of my Progressive magazine article on the H- bomb. It is a bit odd that Senator Charles Percy of Illinois was the intended recipient of the letter. He was never involved in The Progressive case, nor was he Chuck Hansen=s senator. He did not, apparently, request such a communication, and after receiving it he did not subsequently play a role in The Progressive case. However, copies of the letter immediately began to circulate among all persons concerned with the case. Hansen=s reason for writing the letter is not entirely clear, except as a vehicle for outlining his theory about the H-bomb secret. As he states in the letter, AThese... are some of the ideas I believe are presented in the Morland article (I have not seen the article).@ The defense attorneys in The Progressive case regarded him as an ally, of sorts, but wanted no part of his call for the punishment of Edward Teller, Theodore Taylor, and George Rathjens for security violations. Nonetheless, the defense was preparing to argue in court that the widespread distribution of this Hansen letter should moot The Progressive case. The letter clearly outlines the three H-bomb principles at issue in the case: separation of stages, compression, and radiation coupling. However it introduces two obvious technical flaws. Hansen describes the use of two primaries, or fission triggers, one at either end of the fusion secondary, which would explode simultaneously to compress the fusion secondary between them. -
DOE-OC Green Book
SUBJECT AREA INDICATORS AND KEY WORD LIST FOR RESTRICTED DATA AND FORMERLY RESTRICTED DATA U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY AUGUST 2018 TABLE OF CONTENTS PURPOSE ....................................................................................................................................................... 1 BACKGROUND ............................................................................................................................................... 2 Where It All Began .................................................................................................................................... 2 DIFFERENCE BETWEEN RD/FRD and NATIONAL SECURITY INFORMATION (NSI) ......................................... 3 ACCESS TO RD AND FRD ................................................................................................................................ 4 Non-DoD Organizations: ........................................................................................................................... 4 DoD Organizations: ................................................................................................................................... 4 RECOGNIZING RD and FRD ............................................................................................................................ 5 Current Documents ................................................................................................................................... 5 Historical Documents ............................................................................................................................... -
The Los Alamos Thermonuclear Weapon Project, 1942-1952
Igniting The Light Elements: The Los Alamos Thermonuclear Weapon Project, 1942-1952 by Anne Fitzpatrick Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY STUDIES Approved: Joseph C. Pitt, Chair Richard M. Burian Burton I. Kaufman Albert E. Moyer Richard Hirsh June 23, 1998 Blacksburg, Virginia Keywords: Nuclear Weapons, Computing, Physics, Los Alamos National Laboratory Igniting the Light Elements: The Los Alamos Thermonuclear Weapon Project, 1942-1952 by Anne Fitzpatrick Committee Chairman: Joseph C. Pitt Science and Technology Studies (ABSTRACT) The American system of nuclear weapons research and development was conceived and developed not as a result of technological determinism, but by a number of individual architects who promoted the growth of this large technologically-based complex. While some of the technological artifacts of this system, such as the fission weapons used in World War II, have been the subject of many historical studies, their technical successors -- fusion (or hydrogen) devices -- are representative of the largely unstudied highly secret realms of nuclear weapons science and engineering. In the postwar period a small number of Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory’s staff and affiliates were responsible for theoretical work on fusion weapons, yet the program was subject to both the provisions and constraints of the U. S. Atomic Energy Commission, of which Los Alamos was a part. The Commission leadership’s struggle to establish a mission for its network of laboratories, least of all to keep them operating, affected Los Alamos’s leaders’ decisions as to the course of weapons design and development projects. -
The New Nuclear Forensics: Analysis of Nuclear Material for Security
THE NEW NUCLEAR FORENSICS Analysis of Nuclear Materials for Security Purposes edited by vitaly fedchenko The New Nuclear Forensics Analysis of Nuclear Materials for Security Purposes STOCKHOLM INTERNATIONAL PEACE RESEARCH INSTITUTE SIPRI is an independent international institute dedicated to research into conflict, armaments, arms control and disarmament. Established in 1966, SIPRI provides data, analysis and recommendations, based on open sources, to policymakers, researchers, media and the interested public. The Governing Board is not responsible for the views expressed in the publications of the Institute. GOVERNING BOARD Sven-Olof Petersson, Chairman (Sweden) Dr Dewi Fortuna Anwar (Indonesia) Dr Vladimir Baranovsky (Russia) Ambassador Lakhdar Brahimi (Algeria) Jayantha Dhanapala (Sri Lanka) Ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger (Germany) Professor Mary Kaldor (United Kingdom) The Director DIRECTOR Dr Ian Anthony (United Kingdom) Signalistgatan 9 SE-169 70 Solna, Sweden Telephone: +46 8 655 97 00 Fax: +46 8 655 97 33 Email: [email protected] Internet: www.sipri.org The New Nuclear Forensics Analysis of Nuclear Materials for Security Purposes EDITED BY VITALY FEDCHENKO OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 2015 1 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © SIPRI 2015 The moral rights of the authors have been asserted All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of SIPRI, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organizations. -
Teller's Technical Nemeses: the American Hydrogen Bomb and Its Development Within a Technological Infrastructure
PHIL & TECH 3:3 Spring 1998 Fitzpatrick, Teller's Technical Nemeses/10 TELLER'S TECHNICAL NEMESES: THE AMERICAN HYDROGEN BOMB AND ITS DEVELOPMENT WITHIN A TECHNOLOGICAL INFRASTRUCTURE Anne Fitzpatrick, George Washington University In World War II the U.S. Army contracted the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School of Engineering to develop a new, large electronic computer—among the first of its kind—in hopes that the machine would be able to perform ballistics calculations for the war effort. The machine was not completed before the end of the war, however, and the Army was not even the first group to utilize the machine. The first calculation ever run on the Electronic Numeric Integrator and Calculator (or ENIAC, as it was known), was for the Los Alamos nuclear weapons laboratory. The "Super problem" was the first attempt to calculate the feasibility of a thermonuclear bomb. The problem, however, was too complicated for the ENIAC with its 1000 bits of memory and 18,000 vacuum tubes, and only a very simplified version of the calculation was run, revealing very little about how such a weapon might work. Although Los Alamos was exploring hydrogen weapons during and right after the Second World War, why did the U.S. not successfully test a thermonuclear bomb until 1952? I will argue that the American thermonuclear weapons program was, early on, entrenched in a technological infrastructure which affected the pace and initial results of the project, demonstrating how one particular aspect of this infrastructure—computing—influenced the practice of nuclear weapons research, design, and development. -
The Neutron Bomb
المركز الوطني للمتميزين The National Centre for the Distinguished The Neutron Bomb Presented by: Sara Nasser Supervisor: Naseen Taiba 2015-2016 Abstract: A Neutron Bomb is a new type of neuclear weapons which is totally different from other types, and has irrational properties. 1 . Introduction Scientists have noticed the great use of radiation. So recently, it has been deployed in technology. As a result, it is wildly used in our life. Ordinary people worldwide understand the great perils of nuclear weapons, and lots of these weapons are classified in certain types. The newest and the most mysterious type is the Neutron Bomb. However, we still do not know how dangerous it is so far, but we can predict. This issue is going to be discussed deliberately in this seminar to clarify some features. The Neutron Bomb! Is it easy to be deployed in wars? How dangerous is it? If it is tremendously dangerous, how could it be in that level of danger? First of all, you have to know the Types of Radioactive Decay. Types of Radioactive Decay 1[1]There are six common types of radioactive decay: ퟒ 1: Alpha emission: (abbreviated α) emission of ퟐ푯풆 nucleus, or alpha particle, from an unstable nucleus. Control, L.o.C., et al., General Chemistry ninth edition ed. D.E.K. Heinle and A.E.A. Galvin. .1 1 2009, U.S.A.: Houghton Mifflin Company Boston New York Executive Publisher: George Hoffman 2 .Publisher: Charles Hartford 2: Beta emission: (abbreviated β-) emission of a high-speed electron from an unstable nucleus. -
The Hydrogen Bomb
1 APRIL 2002 DRAFT: PLEASE DO NOT QUOTE OR CITE CHAPTER FOUR: THE HYDROGEN BOMB By David Holloway Origins It was the prospect of the uranium bomb that gave rise to the idea of the hydrogen bomb. In the years before World War II physicists had identified the nuclear fusion of light elements as the source of energy in the sun and the stars. Since fusion takes place only at temperatures of tens of millions of degrees, this research did not appear to have practical application.1 Early in 1942 Enrico Fermi speculated, in a conversation with Edward Teller, that a fission explosion could be used to initiate a thermonuclear reaction in a mass of deuterium, one of the isotopes of hydrogen. Fermi and Teller understood from the outset that the explosive yield of a fusion bomb could be made indefinitely large, depending only on the amount of thermonuclear fuel it contained. Teller went on to examine the idea of a thermonuclear bomb and in the summer of 1942 presented his preliminary ideas to the Berkeley conference on the physics of nuclear weapons. When Los Alamos was established in the spring of 1943, 2 work on the superbomb or Super (as the hydrogen bomb was known) was one of its main tasks.2 It soon became apparent, however, that the Super would be difficult to develop. Significant amounts of tritium – another, heavier, isotope of hydrogen – would be needed, but tritium occurs rarely in nature and is difficult and costly to produce. This lessened the promise of the hydrogen bomb as a wartime project. -
Lasers and Inertial Confinement Fusion in the United States
Lasers and Inertial Confinement Fusion in the United States From To Mike TN event (1952) The National Ignition Facility (2009) R. L. McCrory Director and Vice Provost NIF Technical Symposium University of Rochester Livermore, CA Laboratory for Laser Energetics 28 May 2009 Summary The understanding of inertial confinement fusion( ICF) has grown as successively larger lasers have been built • The ICF era began with a successful thermonuclear test in 1952. • The demonstration of the laser in 1960 began the quest to develop ICF and, eventually, create thermonuclear fusion ignition in the laboratory. • ICF lasers have continued to become larger and more technically sophisticated. • The NIF represents the next great leap in laser development – Congratulations to Ed Moses and the entire team! • The improved understanding of ICF physics provides confidence for achieving ignition on the NIF – Nova technical contract – OMEGA cryogenic target implosions • New laser and target physics concepts continue to advance the ICF program in the United States The LLNL/LLE collaboration in the development of ICF lasers and target physics has brought the U.S. to the next step—poised for ignition on the NIF. I1859 The successful test of the 10-MT Mike thermonuclear device began the Inertial Confinement Fusion Era • Stanislaw Ulam and Edward Teller developed the principle of a radiation implosion in January 1951. • On 31 October 1952, Mike exploded with a yield of 10.4 megatons on the Enewetak Atoll. • The island of Elugelap disappeared. • This successful test ushered in the era of multimegaton nuclear weapons. • It was the first step in developing ICF. I1860 From http://www.lanl.gov/history/postwar/ The demonstration of the laser spurred the development of ICF in the laboratory • T. -
Chapter Six Conclusion: the Super, the System, and Its Critical Problems
Chapter Six Conclusion: The Super, The System, and Its Critical Problems A decade passed between the time Fermi first proposed the idea of a fusion bomb until the Mike test. Compared to the wartime fission weapon project, Los Alamos appeared to take a considerably longer time to complete research and development of an H-bomb. It is difficult to compare the two projects, however, because the weapons technologies differed from one another excessively, and so did the systems they were developed in. In addition, the Laboratory focused on the Classical Super configuration for the majority of the time, with greater seriousness directed at it than towards any other theory. Up until 1951, the Super represented almost the entire Los Alamos thermonuclear program, with the Alarm Clock and Booster as the only theoretical alternatives. The length of time the U.S. took to develop and test a viable hydrogen bomb, too, is problematic in that it has taken on the form of historical myth. I will elaborate on this later. The period of time that Los Alamos needed to develop and test a fusion device is relative historically. When comparing the time it took Los Alamos to develop a fission bomb as opposed to a fusion bomb it is necessary to consider the characteristics of each project, and the conditions surrounding their development: Compared with the gun and implosion bombs, a fusion weapon involved a much more complicated set of physical problems to solve, 287 fewer people participated in this work, no deadline had been set, and no military directive for this project existed. -
John Ward: Memoir of a Theoretical Physicist
Submitted to Biographical Memoirs of the Royal Society John Ward: Memoir of a Theoretical Physicist Norman Dombey De partment of Physics and Astronomy University of Sussex Brighton UK BN1 9QH August 4 2020 To the Memory of Kate Pyne and Freeman Dyson who encouraged me to write this memoir of John Ward but were not able to see it. Abstract A scientific biography of John Ward, who was responsible for the Ward Identity in quantum electrodynamics; the first detailed calculation of the quantum entanglement of two photons in electron-positron annihilation with Maurice Pryce; the prediction of neutral weak currents in electroweak theory with Sheldon Glashow and Abdus Salam, and many other major calculations in theoretical physics. 1 2 SECTION HEADINGS Page 1. Introduction 3 2. Early Years 4 3. Oxford and Quantum Entanglement 5 4. Quantum Electrodynamics and the Ward Identity 9 5. Salam and Gauge Theories 14 6. An Itinerant Physicist and Statistical Physics 19 7. Macquarie 20 8. Fermi, Ulam and Teller 22 9. Epilogue 37 10. Acknowledgements 41 3 1) Introduction John Clive Ward was a theoretical physicist who made important contributions to two of the principal subjects in twentieth century elementary particle physics, namely QED (quantum electrodynamics) and electroweak theory. He was an early proponent of the importance of gauge theories in quantum field theory and their use in showing the renormalisation of those theories: that is to remove apparent infinities in calculations. He showed that gauge invariance implies the equality of two seemingly different renormalised quantities in QED, a relationship now called the Ward Identity. -
Subject Area Indicators and Key Word List for Restricted Data and Formerly Restricted Data
SUBJECT AREA INDICATORS AND KEY WORD LIST FOR RESTRICTED DATA AND FORMERLY RESTRICTED DATA U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY AUGUST 2018 TABLE OF CONTENTS PURPOSE ....................................................................................................................................................... 1 BACKGROUND ............................................................................................................................................... 2 Where It All Began .................................................................................................................................... 2 DIFFERENCE BETWEEN RD/FRD and NATIONAL SECURITY INFORMATION (NSI) ......................................... 3 ACCESS TO RD AND FRD ................................................................................................................................ 4 Non-DoD Organizations: ........................................................................................................................... 4 DoD Organizations: ................................................................................................................................... 4 RECOGNIZING RD and FRD ............................................................................................................................ 5 Current Documents ................................................................................................................................... 5 Historical Documents ...............................................................................................................................