__ WALTER J. MURPHY, EDITOR
The
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EamPs the jaded mind of mankind has cataloged, P pigeonholed, . and dismissed the implications of the uranium-plutonium bomb-nearly a senile years of age. If 5
80,
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Hydrogen Bomb
it now can face the hydrogen bomb. The view dispels
boredom. I n many respects we think the new subject appears at a most timely moment. Many have "solved" the problem of the uranium bomb by sticking their heads in the sand. The addition of three more degrees of magnitude to the destruetion potential of this possible new Frankenstein monster should jar even these people into reawakened recognition that we never really solved the first problem. It is true that several technical hurdles of some moment stand in the way of developing a hydrogen bomb to the point where i t is ready to he exploded. The only place where the marriage of two deuterium nuclei to form the nucleus of a helium atom has been observed in Nature is in some giant stars. I n Nature's gratuitous illustration the reaction takes place at a temperature of 15,000,000" C. and approximately one atmosphere pressure. However, at this dilution a time of 5,000,000 years is apparently required for half the hydrogen present to react. The energy yield of 2,000,000 kw.-hr. per gram of reactant is approximately 10 times that of the uranium fission process. These conditions afford scant comfort to the would-be exploiters of this force. But even this temperature is attained on earth, though very briefly, in the explosion of an ordinary uranium bomb, and reaction rates would increase correspondingly with high pressures and higher temperatures. As an added attraction, when an effective temperature is reached, the amount of reactant is no problem. One kilowatt hour or a quadrillion can he released depending on the amount of reactant the bomb's makers can incorporate in a technologically feasible design. Our soientific brethren might well find other factors besides brute temperature and pressure that will favor the fateful union. The wonders of science never cease. The Government's policy makers seem so confident that a hydrogen bomb is technically feasible, if the comments of newspaper columnists are to be believed, that most of their arguments are said to revolve not around speculation ahout the possibilities of creating one, hut with the question of how rapidly it should be developed. The alternatives are quick completion-in 2 or 3 years-through another 2 to 4 hilliondollar "Manhattan Project" effort, or "natural" development within the existing nuclear research program over a longer time-say 4 to 6 years. At last account, the sounds from behind the high board fence of atomic secrecy suggest the latter elective has been tentatively chosen. Physical scientists probably will be appalled at the apparent casual confidence that such a development can he predicted so surely. 701
About the ouly inqmrtunt quclitiun to be settled is ulmt we do with the hydrogen bomb if and when it materialim. This is a question worth scrutiny. Social application of physical discovery has been a major influence in our century. Peacetime industrial kclinolol5y has altered our social institutions to their very roots. At the same time, in each monstrous new instrument of war we approach ever more closely the critical condition where our power to destroy exceeds our power to protect. Our feeble attempts to contain the social problem by physi(91 controls arc demonatrably absurd. Piece hy piece the comforting thornhedge of rationalization hopefully erected ngainst it in the guise of the uranium boinli has heeii plucked away: "\Vi: aim: h:ivi: thr secret."-then the Russian announerment. "Sure, it'd destructive, but it's jiist another Iiumb"-then tlic Iiy(lri~geiiInmb, potentially a thousand or a million times more destructive. h g i c waertn that only througli tlie mind of n u n i.im this dangerous f l o w r of men's minds he handleil by m a n s i t l i c u t cntastniplir. As for thc ivolf-god Loki, in the Grerian fable, not irou cliaiiis but a silken curd is needc
