In this engaging scientific memoir, Kenneth Ford recounts the time when, in his mid-twenties, he was a member of the team that designed and built the first hydrogen bomb. He worked with — and relaxed with — scientific giants of that time such as Edward Teller, Enrico Fermi, Stan Ulam, John von Neumann, and John Wheeler, and here offers illuminating insights into the personalities, the strengths, and the quirks of these men. Well known for his ability to explain physics to nonspecialists, Ford also brings to life the physics of fission and fusion and provides a brief history of nuclear science from the discovery of radioactivity in 1896 to the ten-megaton explosion of “Mike” that obliterated a Pacific Island in 1952.Ford worked at both Los Alamos and Princeton's Project Matterhorn, and brings out Matterhorn's major, but previously unheralded contribution to the development of the H bomb. Outside the lab, he drove a battered Chevrolet around New Mexico, a bantam motorcycle across the country, and a British roadster around New Jersey. Part of the charm of Ford's book is the way in which he leavens his well-researched descriptions of the scientific work with brief tales of his life away from weapons.

Here, for the first time, in a brilliant, panoramic portrait by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb, is the definitive, often shocking story of the politics and the science behind the development of the hydrogen bomb and the birth of the Cold War. Based on secret files in the United States and the former Soviet Union, this monumental work of history discloses how and why the United States decided to create the bomb that would dominate world politics for more than forty years.

Before the Bomb, there were simply 'bombs', lower case. But it was the twentieth century, one hundred years of almost incredible scientific progress, that saw the birth of the Bomb, the human race's most powerful and most destructive discovery. In this magisterial and enthralling account, Gerard DeGroot gives us the life story of the Bomb, from its birth in the turn-of-the-century physics labs of Europe to a childhood in the New Mexico desert of the 1940s, from adolescence and early adulthood in Nagasaki and Bikini, Australia and Siberia to unsettling maturity in test sites and missile silos all over the globe. By turns horrific, awe-inspiring and blackly comic, The Bomb is never less than compelling.

One of the first applications of the atomic bomb after Nuclear War I was to serve as the trigger for much more powerful hydrogen bombs. The explosion of an atom bomb emits nuclear radiation, heat energy, and photons. These emissions compress fusion fuel to thermonuclear conditions. From 1945 to 1949, the United States had a monopoly on nuclear weapons until August 29, 1949, when the USSR exploded its first nuclear device. Edward Teller was already actively working on the design of hydrogen bombs, but J. Robert Oppenheimer opposed these efforts. It was President Harry S. Truman who approved the US program to design, build, and test hydrogen bombs. Meanwhile, the USSR had been secretly working on nuclear weapons since 1941, with extensive help from several spies, including Klaus Fuchs. Both the United States and the USSR achieved early success with hydrogen bombs, as was demonstrated by hundreds of test explosions that spread radioactive fallout around the entire Earth. It was the US BRAVO test of a huge hydrogen explosive device on March 1, 1954, that brought matters to a conclusion. The radioactive fallout proved to be lethal over thousands of square miles. The result was an international ban on testing nuclear weapons in the atmosphere (1963). However, the Wizards of Armageddon were busily preparing to fight, and maybe win, future wars fought with hydrogen bombs. These plans included risky maneuvers with live hydrogen bombs on planes, submarines, and other mobile devices. Accidents happened, and many hydrogen bombs were lost, blown apart, or simply abandoned. The absolute worst aspect of hydrogen bomb explosions is global ecocide. The explosions are so powerful they harm the ozone layer and ignite huge fires on Earth that darken the skies. The latter was termed nuclear winter by Carl Sagan. The conclusion of this book is very simple. All hydrogen bombs should be banned, forever

Super Bomb unveils the story of the events leading up to President Harry S. Truman's 1950 decision to develop a "super," or hydrogen, bomb. That fateful decision and its immediate consequences are detailed in a diverse and complete account built on newly released archives and previously hidden contemporaneous interviews with more than sixty political, military, and scientific figures who were involved in the decision. Ken Young and Warner R. Schilling present the expectations, hopes, and fears of the key individuals who lobbied for and against developing the H-bomb. They portray the conflicts that arose over the H-bomb as rooted in the distinct interests of the Atomic Energy Commission, the Los Alamos laboratory, the Pentagon and State Department, the Congress, and the White House. But as they clearly show, once Truman made his decision in 1950, resistance to the H-bomb opportunistically shifted to new debates about the development of tactical nuclear weapons, continental air defense, and other aspects of nuclear weapons policy. What Super Bomb reveals is that in many ways the H-bomb struggle was a proxy battle over the morality and effectiveness of strategic bombardment and the role and doctrine of the US Strategic Air Command.