Required Readings

• Henry Sokolski, Nuclear Energy Basics, Part 1: Fission, Fusion, and the Bomb, Nonproliferation Policy Education Center. September 2020.

• Sutherland Productions and General Electric, A is for Atom, B is for Bomb Daily Motion video, 14:44, from a film produced in 1953, posted by “Propaganda Hound,” November 2, 2008.

 

Recommended Readings

Histories of the First Bombs

• Jim Baggott, The First War of Physics: The Secret History of the Atom Bomb, 1939-1949 (New York: Pegasus Books, 2010).

• Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, Vintage Books, May 1, 2006.

• Thomas B. Cochran, Robert S. Norris, and Oleg A. Bukharin, Making the Russian Bomb: From Stalin to Yeltsin (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1995).

• Albert Einstein, Albert Einstein to President Franklin D. Roosevelt (letter), August 2, 1939.

• Jon Else, David Webb Peoples, and Janet Peoples, The Day after Trinity: J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Atomic Bomb, directed by Jon H. Else (Pyramid Films, 1981), 1:28:57.

• Graham Farmelo, Churchill’s Bomb: How the United States Overtook Britain in the First Nuclear Arms Race (New York: Basic Books, 2013).

• Kenneth W. Ford, Building the H Bomb: A Personal History (Hackensack, NJ: World Scientific Publishing Co., 2015).

• O.R. Frisch and R. Peierls, Memorandum on the Construction of a ‘Super-bomb’ based on a Nuclear Chain Reaction in Uranium, March 1940.

• David Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, 1939-1956 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994).

• John McPhee, The Curve of Binding Energy (Westminster, MD: Ballantine Books, 1975).

• Richard Rhodes, Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995).

• Richard Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986).

• Robert Serber, The Los Alamos Primer: The First Lectures on How to Build An Atomic Bomb, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972), Sections 20-22.

Weapons Physics and Design

• Matthew Bunn, “How Nuclear Bombs Work: Part 1” (presentation by Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, September 10, 2013).

• Matthew Bunn, “How Nuclear Bombs Work: Part 2” (presentation by Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, September 10, 2013).

• Thomas B. Cochran, “Technological Issues Related to the Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons” (paper presented at the Strategic Weapons Proliferation Teaching Seminar sponsored by the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation and the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, University of California at San Diego, August 23, 1998).

• Samuel Glasstone and Philip J. Dolan, The Effects of Nuclear Weapons, United States Departments of Defense and Energy, 1977.

• Goodwin, Bruce. “Additive Manufacturing and Nuclear Security: Calibrating Rewards and Risks.” Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. November 2019.

• Goodwin, Bruce. “Nuclear Weapons Technology 101 For Policy Wonks,” Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. August 2021.

• “Nuclear Weapon Design,” Wikipedia, last updated April 30, 2021.

•  “Nuclear Weapons Design,” Federation of American Scientists, last modified October 28, 1998.

• “Pit (nuclear weapon),” Wikipedia, last updated January 30, 2015,

• Frank Settle, “Nuclear Chemistry and the Community,” accessed May 2, 2013,

• Carey Sublette, “Fission Weapon Designs,” Nuclear Weapons Frequently Asked Questions, February 20, 1999.

U.S. and Russian Nuclear Weapons: A Cold War Catalog

• Thomas B. Cochran, William M. Arkin, Robert S. Norris, and Jeffrey I. Sands, Nuclear Weapons Databook, Volume IV: Soviet Nuclear Weapons (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Ballinger Press, 1989).

• Thomas B. Cochran, William M. Arkin, Milton M. Hoenig, and Robert S. Norris, Nuclear Weapons Databook, Volume III: U.S. Nuclear Warhead Facility Profiles (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Ballinger Press, 1987).

• Robert S. Norris and Hans M. Kristensen, Nuclear Notebook, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, December 2016. Also see, Nuclear Notebook, interactive edition.

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