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Richard Garwin’s role in designing the hydrogen bomb was obscured

nytimes.com

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Re: Richard Garwin’s role in designing the hydrogen bomb was obscured

#31

Post by wat10000 »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #12
Supermancho wrote: post #4

> One proposed version[^1] had the force of more than 600,000 Hiroshimas. Even so, Cold War analysts coolly judged that it could reduce a region the size of France to ashes. His weapon was a planet shaker. It could end civilization. Except... [^1] https://archive.ph/Md1YG [^1] https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/ Were they just wrong by an order of magnitude or 2 because of previously unforseen limits, like air pressu…

Teller really, really wanted to build a gigaton bomb. That may have been what the author was thinking of.

He also proposed a 10 gigaton bomb. It was referred to as a “backyard bomb.” Meaning that you didn’t have to figure out how to put it on a missile or bomber. You could just detonate it in your backyard and it would do the job of destroying the enemy (and everyone else).

Re: Richard Garwin’s role in designing the hydrogen bomb was obscured

#32

Post by opello »

pfdietz wrote: post #29
opello wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expect at the time the distinction was irrelevant. I also don't think it's necessary to be critical about the wording above. Perhaps "was related to nuclear weapons" reads better? But it's not exactly ambiguous, especially after reading the quoted passage.

> I expect at the time the distinction was irrelevant. Detection of nuclear bomb explosions is central to arms control treaties. Those are pretty much the opposite of nuclear weapon creation.

I understand. However, in the climate of the nuclear arms race, I think that all projects having anything to do with nuclear physics were likely to be kept under tight wraps.

The comment I replied to seems to be taking a snarky tone toward a comment that was interesting and furthering the actual topic of the post. By highlighting that it didn't take a stance:

> one of the creators wasn't aware the immediate application of the algorithms they were optimizing was nuclear weapons

Even your reply to me seems to only allow interpreting "application ... was nuclear weapons" to mean "building" or "developing" instead of "detecting" when to me it simply means "in the domain of." And certainly you agree that detection is in the space of nuclear weapons?

The obvious reason detection technology falls under the same secrecy umbrella as weapons design is because one leads quite quickly to the other if you start to think about why it might be developed.

Re: Richard Garwin’s role in designing the hydrogen bomb was obscured

#33

Post by yig »

Hilift wrote: post #22

> He graduated at 19 and Standard Oil offered him a full ride for graduate study at the University of Chicago, which had one of the nation’s top physics departments. I think it's fascinating that Garwin was at University of Chicago at the same time as Theodore Hall studied for his masters/Phd in Physics after he left the Manhattan Project. Hall left the university in 1952 for Memorial Sloan-Kettering in New York City…

The quote is confusing, because it's not always clear which Hall brother "Hall" refers to. Edward Hall, who developed the Minuteman missiles, was the brother of Theodore Hall, the spy. After reading the source article: https://www.thenation.com/article/world/ted-hall-espionage-f...>, I can annotate the quote with first names:

"journalist Dave Lindorff, writing in The Nation on January 4, 2022, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, Hall's FBI file in 2021. This 130-page file included communications between FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to the head of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, Gen. Joseph F. Carroll, showing that Carroll had effectively blocked Hoover's intended pursuit of [Theodore] Hall and Sax, probably fearing that [Theodore] Hall's arrest would have, in the political climate of the McCarthy Era, forced the Air Force to furlough and lose their top missile expert, Edward Hall. Carroll, a former top aide to Hoover before he became the first head of the USAF OSI, ultimately allowed Hoover's agents to question Ed Hall on June 12, 1951 (with an OSI officer monitoring the interview). Within several weeks of that session, the Air Force, which had conducted and completed its own investigation into Edward Hall's loyalty (having their own investigators question him four times), promoted him to Lt. Colonel, and later Colonel, and elevated him from assistant director to director of its missile development program. The promotions were a clear slap in the face to Hoover. Ed Hall went on to complete the development of the Minuteman missile program, and then retired."

Re: Richard Garwin’s role in designing the hydrogen bomb was obscured

#34

Post by adastra22 »

opello wrote: post #32
pfdietz wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I expect at the time the distinction was irrelevant. Detection of nuclear bomb explosions is central to arms control treaties. Those are pretty much the opposite of nuclear weapon creation.

I understand. However, in the climate of the nuclear arms race, I think that all projects having anything to do with nuclear physics were likely to be kept under tight wraps. The comment I replied to seems to be taking a snarky tone toward a comment that was interesting and furthering the actual topic of the post. By highlighting that it didn't take a stance: > one of the creators wasn't aware the immediate applicati…

To me at least it would very clearly mean building or developing. “In the domain of” would require explicit clarification.

Re: Richard Garwin’s role in designing the hydrogen bomb was obscured

#35

Post by QuantumGood »

perihelions wrote: post #7
jasonhong wrote: post #6

Incidentally, IEEE Spectrum published a fascinating interview with Dr. Garwin just a few months ago. https://spectrum.ieee.org/richard-garwin > At IBM, where he worked from 1952 to 1993, Garwin was a key contributor or a facilitator on some of the most important products and breakthroughs of his era, including magnetic resonance imaging, touchscreen monitors, laser printers, and the Cooley-Tukey fast Fourier transfor…

> "and the Cooley-Tukey fast Fourier transform algorithm" Supposedly, at Garwin's scheming, one of the creators wasn't aware the immediate application of the algorithms they were optimizing was nuclear weapons, > "Tukey reportedly came up with the idea during a meeting of President Kennedy's Science Advisory Committee discussing ways to detect nuclear-weapon tests in the Soviet Union by employing seismometers located…

"Is that fusion in your pocket or are you just trying to determine periodicities of the spin orientations in a 3-D crystal of helium-3?"

Re: Richard Garwin’s role in designing the hydrogen bomb was obscured

#36

Post by opello »

adastra22 wrote: post #34
opello wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand. However, in the climate of the nuclear arms race, I think that all projects having anything to do with nuclear physics were likely to be kept under tight wraps. The comment I replied to seems to be taking a snarky tone toward a comment that was interesting and furthering the actual topic of the post. By highlighting that it didn't take a stance: > one of the creators wasn't aware the immediate applicati…

To me at least it would very clearly mean building or developing. “In the domain of” would require explicit clarification.

Right. And I think that's an unnecessarily narrow perspective to take.

Re: Richard Garwin’s role in designing the hydrogen bomb was obscured

#37

Post by adastra22 »

opello wrote: post #36
adastra22 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me at least it would very clearly mean building or developing. “In the domain of” would require explicit clarification.

Right. And I think that's an unnecessarily narrow perspective to take.

Just letting you know as a native speaker, that’s what the words mean to your audience.

Re: Richard Garwin’s role in designing the hydrogen bomb was obscured

#38

Post by opello »

adastra22 wrote: post #37
opello wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. And I think that's an unnecessarily narrow perspective to take.

Just letting you know as a native speaker, that’s what the words mean to your audience.

As a native speaker I disagree with the unnecessarily narrow interpretation. It may be the simpler conclusion to reach but with the accompanying material it is obviously not the intent.
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