The first nuclear explosion on earth occured on July 16, 1945, in Alamagordo, New Mexico, as part of a test for the Manhattan project initiated by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The first nuclear weapon used in war was deployed less than a month...
There are two types of nuclear weapons, each of which utilizes a different nuclear reaction: nuclear fission and nuclear fusion. The bomb developed by the Manhattan Project and dropped on Japan during World War II were fission weapons, also known as...
Even as work on the first atomic bomb was going ahead, some scientists were thinking about an even more powerful weapon, the hydrogen, or fusion bomb. As far back as the 1920s, scientists had been exploring the possibility that small nuclei might join...
The invention of the atomic bomb was an historical inevitability. The scientific discovery necessary for construction of such a bomb occurred just as World War II was about to begin. It seems impossible that an enormous new source of energy (nuclear...
The question of what to do about nuclear weapons is increasingly on the international agenda. In this report, an updated version of Project Ploughshares' February 1998 submission to the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Bill Robinson summarizes the current state of...
SINCE THE beginning of nuclear energy, this country has kept the civilian power system scrupulously separate from military weapons production. Now, with all of the weapons reactors shut down indefinitely for safety reasons, an old idea is beginning to recirculate: How about making weapons...
Iran is far from acquiring a nuclear weapon, and despite U.S. fears about its atomic intentions, an American military strike against the Islamic Republic is unlikely, former Secretary of State Colin Powell said Sunday.Tehran rejects claims by the United States and some European Union countries...
Russia's military chief of staff said Saturday that Moscow could use nuclear weapons in preventive strikes to protect itself and its allies, the latest aggressive remarks from increasingly assertive Russian authorities.Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky's comment did not mark a policy shift, military analysts said. Amid disputes...
The achievements during World War 2 made in the field of nuclear weapons were great,but terrible. Did God play dice with human beings? No, certainly not. It was humans themselves who, by choosing to use the work of a genius for destructive purposes, were responsible for the number of deaths caused at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was humans who played dice with themselves.
