Notebook 5 · Los Alamos, briefly: the Teller–Ulam design
5.1 The 1951 idea
A short, factual lesson. It gives dates and names, no technical detail.
In early 1951 Ulam proposed that strong compression of the thermonuclear fuel, driven by a fission bomb, was the key. Edward Teller proposed that radiation from the fission stage should do the compressing [1, 2]. Their joint report, LAMS-1225, is dated 9 March 1951 [1].
The first test of the design, the "Mike" shot of Operation Ivy, took place on 1 November 1952 at Enewetak Atoll. The history of the Defense Nuclear Agency calls it the "first thermonuclear" detonation [3].
Who deserved credit was disputed between Teller and Ulam for decades [1].
Stanisław Ulam, about 1945. Photo: Los Alamos National Laboratory (the laboratory's notice is in the last lesson).
Sources
- K. W. Ford, "Building the H-Bomb: The Big Idea", APS News, The Back Page (June 2015), https://www.aps.org/apsnews/2015/06/the-back-page
- MacTutor, "Stanisław Marcin Ulam", https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Ulam/
- Defense Nuclear Agency, Operation IVY: 1952, DNA 6036F (1982), https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GOVPUB-D15-PURL-gpo222810/pdf/GOVPUB-D15-PURL-gpo222810.pdf