Nth Country Experiment
Could any country with the right knowledge and technology build a nuclear bomb? From May 1964 to April 1967, the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory (the predecessor to the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) set out to answer this question. The Laboratory hired three physicists who only recently received their Ph.Ds in physics to design a nuclear bomb. D.A. Dobson, D.N. Pipkorn, and R.W. Selden had little to no experience with nuclear physics. The Lab wanted to know “if a few capable physicists, unfamiliar with nuclear weapons and with access only to the unclassified technology, could produce a credible weapon design” with “a militarily significant yield.”
If the scientists succeeded in des… Continue Reading (9 minute read)