there was no stopping the eventual development of the hydrogen (thermonuclear) bomb. Edward Teller realized that the fission bomb could be used as a trigger for a hydrogen bomb long before Hiroshima was attacked. He actually advocated switching the Manhattan Project's scope to developing the hydrogen bomb instead of continuing development of the A-bomb.
The US detonated the first hydrogen bomb in 1952. The Soviets detonated their first H-bomb in 1953. They'd been working on the H-bomb for some time before we detonated our first one. Once one group of physicists prove something is possible, it usually doesn't take that long for another group of physicists to duplicate it.
http://www.encyclopedia.com/articles/06201.html
http://www.aip.org/history/sakharov/
http://www.fas.org/nuke/intro/nuke/design.htm
Off Topic » in reply to Re: To those whoWe only had one bomb left
It was too late. Once the nuclear genie was out of the bottle,
The whole thread (22 posts)
- A-bomb anniversary raises old questions
- No questions here
- The continued thrashing of a long dead........
- I still think New Mexico needs a mushroom cloud on their state quater. n/t (n/t)
- To those who think we should've dropped one bomb as a demonstration,