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Overview

After the fall of Soviet Union in 1991, there was a feeling that nuclear destruction might not be an issue anymore. However, thousands of nuclear weapons still remained in their silos and could be launched at any moment.

Since then, the situation has worsened. North Korea is developing nuclear weapons and other countries may follow their example. But how did we get here? How could we avoid making the same mistakes as in the past? The following key points will help us understand what happened in history and they can help us make better decisions today.

During World War II, a team of scientists from the United States, Great Britain and Canada developed the first nuclear bomb. This was done in secret. In 1983, there was almost a full-scale nuclear war between the United States and Russia because of an accident at a Soviet military base. A TV movie called The Day After helped convince Ronald Reagan that there should never be another nuclear war

Big Idea #1: A nuclear bomb contains a mix of high explosives which trigger a devastating chain reaction.

On July 12, 1945, in a small New Mexico farmhouse, the first nuclear bomb was created. It took approximately three years of work by a team of physicists from Britain, the United States and Canada to create this weapon.

A bomb was about to be tested. It had a plutonium core surrounded by explosives that would implode the core and cause an explosion.

Scientists have been researching how to cause explosions with uranium-235 and plutonium-239 for years. They eventually discovered that both materials could be used to create this kind of explosion, which would release a massive amount of energy. The process involves splitting the atoms in the core of the bomb, which causes it to explode.

When fission is controlled, it can be used to power electrical generators.

The scientists were unsure of what would happen during the detonation. They knew they had to get all 32 explosives going at once for the reaction to be successful, so Donald Horning came up with an electronic device that would trigger them simultaneously. The explosives surrounded the core in a pattern of 12 pentagons and 20 hexagons; it looked like a big soccer ball.

Horning’s device worked fine. The first test produced a massive cloud that spread at least eight miles into the sky. It was very loud and couldn’t possibly be anything except what Armageddon should look like or sound like, according to one observer.

Big Idea #2: After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the control of nuclear weapons fell to an uneasy mix of civilians and military.

During World War II, the US was fighting in the Pacific. They were hoping to end the war with Japan by using nuclear weapons. However, they had two problems: (1) How would they get Japan to surrender when there might be a risk of failure? (2) Where could they safely detonate a bomb and not kill civilians? The solution was to deliver an unannounced bombing on Hiroshima that involved dropping “Little Boy,” which weighed 10 thousand pounds and contained 0.7 grams of uranium-235, which is less than a dollar bill but would unleash an explosion equivalent to 12-18 kilotons of TNT.

Despite the fact that the bomb caused massive death and destruction, Japan still refused to surrender.

So, a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki with the code name “Fat Man” only three days after Hiroshima.

A technician noticed the bomb was incorrectly wired. The quick and dangerous rewiring was done with a soldering iron next to five thousand pounds of high explosives. It is believed that only one-fifth of Fat Man’s plutonium actually fissioned, but it still had an explosion equivalent to 21 kilotons of TNT.