Building the H Bomb

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This book is three things. It is a history of the development of the world’s first hydrogen bomb. It is also a memoir of the author when he was twenty-four to twenty-six years old. And it is a mini-textbook on nuclear physics. Think of it as a three-stranded braid, not a three-ingredient blend. As you proceed, you will encounter bumps here and there as one strand yields to another. I have tried to lighten and brighten the trip with lots of illustrations. I hope that in the end you will conclude that it all hangs together and makes for an agreeable as well as informative ride.

According to the United States Department of Energy, this book contains some secrets. I disagree.

During the period that is the focus of this book, 1950-1952, I held what was (and still is) called Q clearance. That gave me access to secret and even some top secret weapons information, and it gave me the opportunity to create such information. In this book, in addition to personal recollections of people and events from that period, I discuss weapons information that may have once been secret but is now in the public domain. I have bent every effort to avoid revealing any information that is still secret.

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