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This story always reminds me of the Nth Country Experiment, from 1964, where the United States wondered how long it would take a country to design a nuclear wea
by lifefeed 4y ago
This story always reminds me of the Nth Country Experiment, from 1964, where the United States wondered how long it would take a country to design a nuclear weapon, starting from no particular expertise or classified access. One answer, they learned, was three new physics PhDs and two and half years. I don't know if that's when the US started focusing on enriched uranium, but that is really the only limiting factor in the whole deal.
- kergonath 4y agoThere are a lot of difficulties in creating modern, highly effective thermonuclear weapons. But building a primitive fission bomb like Little Boy is not very difficult. As you say, enrichment is the limiting step. All the science is in university textbooks.