Short account of Los Alamos theoretical work on thermonuclear weapons, 1946- -1950

Abstract

This report is an unclassified-and consequently, somewhat abridged-version of a document prepared during the summer of 1954. Except as required to remove classified references, and to restore continuity, it follows the original. The earlier document (issued on October 1,1954) was the first draft of a chapter for a proposed history of the technical work at Los Alamos from the end of the war up to 1954. This particular chapter was to cover the Los Alamos work on thermonuclear weapons from 1946 to January 1950-the time of President Truman's decision concerning U.S. work on the hydrogen bomb. Several other sections for such a hiitory were also drafted (by other authors); but the project as a whole began to appear to be too onerous to carry further-at least in the hands of a group of persons already fully occupied (and much more intensely interested) in the more immediate undertakings of the Laboratory. This unclassified version has been prepared in order to provide a factual account of the Los Alamos work on thermonuclear weapons during this particular period. Because of necessary classification restrictions it would not have been possible many years ago to release an account which was both factual and coherent. Many such restrictions are, of course, still in effect; but the steady progress of declassification has now reached the point (or may even have reached it several years ago) at which it is possible to make the present report available. Inasmuch as a distinctly erroneous impression of these matters is rather widely held, it will seem worthwhile if this report should ultimately help establish a better understanding of what actually took place.

Artificial viscosity: back to the basics

“…This document is clearly only of scientific interest and contains the documentation of the invention of the method in the language of mathematical physics. This account of the history is also recounted during an interview with Robert Richtmyer in 1997 conducted as applied research on the development of thermonuclear weapons at Los Alamos during and after the Second World War .…”

Architecting Enterprises for IT-enabled Value Creation Part 1

“…The history of computing bears evidence that the roots of computing were in the complexities of scale of science rather than of business. The first computers ENIAC and the STRELA were both used to solve equations of physics to design hydrogen bombs (Moye, 1996;Fitzpatrick, 1998;Mark, 1974;Brynjolfsson & Hitt, 2003;Drell & Kapitza, 1991;Gerovitch, 2001). The extreme levels of complexity of scale in science are termed NP-Hard or NP-Complete that are qualitatively less tractable than those encountered in IT applications addressing execution in even globalizing businesses.…”

Teller’s Technical Nemesis

“…Growing impatient for any electronic machine to be ready, Ulam and University of Wisconsin mathematician C. J. Everett attempted to solve the ignition part of the Super problem with slide rules and hand computers, doing simplified calculations; still, they were not certain if the device would ignite or not, even though their results looked negative. (See Mark, 1974, andUlam, 1976. ) This was a problem, then, that weapons scientists felt could not be solved with any certainty analytically-at least in a reasonable amount of time.…”