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100 - The Bomb

The Nonsense Bazaar

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The Teller Ulam Design

Stanislav Ulam came to Edward Teller with the idea that instead of using only the heat to trigger the second stage fusion reaction, the heat and pressure are the same thing. In May of 1951, they tested the first tritium boosted atomic bomb in Operation Greenhouse. This was just a little bit of tritium added to see if they could get the fusion reaction to occur at all. So it was technically the first fusion, but it doesn't really count as the first bomb. The hydrogen bomb would be referred to as the Teller Ulam design.

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