*I will try to make this as simple as possible, don’t worry.
DISCOVERY
Physics was an exploding branch of science nearing the end of the 19th century. Numerous discoveries would be made during the time, but nobody would realize its destructive capabilities in the future.
In 1896, French physicist Henri Becquerel discovered that uranium ore had the ability to darken the surrounding area as evidenced by a ‘shadow’ appearing on the photographic plate despite no source of light present. This ‘shadow’ was called by Becquerel as ‘uranique’, a ray emitting from uranium.
In the following years, several other scientists discover the interesting properties of uranium further.
In 1898, Pierre and Marie Curie discovered that uranium contained a material known as radium, that emitted large amounts of radiation. They named the phenomenon ‘radioactivity’.
Many theories were formed at the time as to why radioactivity occured, but Ernest Ruethenford and Frederick Soddy suggested that radioactivity was radiation accompanied by the breakdown and disintegration of atoms.
Previously, atoms were considered to be indestructable, but Ruthenford changed this perspective. Scientists and the likes were now hoping that they could harness energy from the matter around us, and continued to study atoms deeper. They discovered the basic structure of an atom: electrons revolving around a nucleus composed of protons and neutrons.
All this talk about atomic science and radioactivity inspired many authors to also imagine the implications of such findings. H.G. Wells, best known for being an author that made "War of the Worlds", "The Invisible Man", and other sci-fi literary works, made a novel titled "The World Set Free" in 1914, based on Ruthenford’s findings.
The novel revolved around the idea of an ‘atom bomb’. Ten years later in 1924, Winston Churchill analyzed the novel and became intrigued of the atom bomb, wondering its vast military capabilities. Research continued until January 1933 when the Nazi Party took over Germany and began to supress its many Jewish scientists. One of these scientists was Leo Szilard, who fled to Britain and founded the idea of a nuclear chain reaction using neutrons. The term ‘critical mass’ was first used here.
We’ll talk about this idea later, because it’ll probably overheat your brain. My brain was deepfried during research before this article, so we’re on the same boat here.
Szilard was way ahead of this time when he talked about critical mass and stuff like that. And it was revolutionary in some way. A year later, in 1934, Frédéric Joliot-Curie discovered how to create artificial radioactivity by bombarding a stable material with so-called alpha particles. Enrico Fermi, famed Italian physicist, received similar results when bombarding an atom of uranium with neutrons.
Later in December 1938, two German physcists by the name of Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassman discovered traces of the element barium after bombarding uranium with neutrons just like Fermi did. Accidentally, they caused the first example of nuclear fission.
Nuclear fission is caused when uranium is bombarded with neutrons, causing it to actually divide into two and releasing energy. In 1939, it was further discovered that when nuclear fission occured, three neutrons are propelled and ejected, which could cause further fission of atoms, starting a nuclear chain reaction. This chain reaction caused large amounts of energy to be produced. The United States conducted their own nuclear fission experiment on January 25th 1939 in Pupin Hall.
Let’s talk a bit about uranium first before we head to wartime research.
Uranium naturally appears in two types, or isotopes, if you want to get precise: uranium-238 and uranium-235. Uranium-235 is much rarer than the former, and is only composed of 0.72% of natural uranium.
Not only that, but uranium-235 is capable of nuclear fission. When an atom of uranium-235 absorbs a neutron, nuclear fission occurs and releases energy. It also ejects more neutrons than it initially absorbs, which could support a chain reaction.
Meanwhile, uranium-238 is composed of 99% uranium, meaning it is not fissile and can not naturally cause nuclear fission when it absorbs a neutron.
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LOS ALAMOS, MANHATTAN PROJECT, AND HIROSHIMA
Research in Europe was stunted as World War II breaks out. In August 1939, Albert Einstein feared that Germany might be developing weapons that utilized nuclear fission, considering that Germany already had a uranium research project of sorts.
Szilard and Einstein sent a letter to the United States, directed towards President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The letter talked about recent discoveries in the nuclear world and Einstein addressed the possibility that the United States could develop a powerful weapon, a bomb, made from uranium.
Roosevelt responded to the letter by creating the Uranium Comittee, but with a funding of only $6,000, no meaningful developments could be made yet. It was not until the US joined the war in December 1941, that the idea of the atom bomb was prioritized by the government.
Britain and Canada began to formulate a nuclear weapon in their own project, the Tube Alloys project. The Western Allies have benefitted greatly from the influx of European scientists, particularly German scientists, fleeing from the war. Meanwhile, at the University of California, Glenn Seaborg discovered another fissile material. He discovered that irradiated uranium produced a small amount of plutonium, and it was radioactive. In Chicago, Enrico Fermi managed to control the chain reaction of nuclear fission in uranium atoms, making him the first person to do so.
The United States then ramped up their nuclear research. When they joined the war, they formed what was known as the Manhattan Project, with a research team led by J. Robert Oppenheimer, while General Leslie Groves was appointed as the overall leader in the project. The Manhattan Project brought together the top scientific minds at the time, with the goal of producing a nuclear weapon before Germany does. The US now invested greatly in the project, with over 30 locations directed towards the Manhattan Project. Its main research site is in a secret laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico.
The US collaborated with the British, and both countries agreed to share resources and information. The Manhattan Project nor the American-British collaboration in nuclear research was revealed to the other major Allied country, the Soviet Union. Ultimately, the US and Britain were more concerned with the USSR gaining influence in Europe.
Now, to create a fissile-based explosive device, a.k.a. an atom bomb, one must have enough fissile material to reach a critical mass, causing a chain reaction to occur. Critical mass is essentially the smallest amount of fissile material needed to sustain a nuclear chain reaction.
Researchers of the Manhattan Project were after the irradiated uranium-235, and erected another research site in Oak Ridge, Tennessee aimed to produce and purify this special type of uranium. Uranium-238, which if you remembered was not fissile, was still sought after in the Manhattan Project.
Why? Because when uranium-238 absorbs a neutron, it deteriorates to neptunium-239, and finally plutonium-239. This material is fissile, just like uranium-235. The Manhattan Project’s ultimate goal after all was to develop two bombs: one made out of uranium, and another from plutonium.
The weapons planned during 1942, relatively early in the project, were three bombs: Little Boy, a uranium bomb; Thin Man, a plutonium bomb; and Fat Man, a plutonium-implosion bomb. The main challenge for the project was to seperate and obtaining the so-called enriched uranium, which was the primary component for the bombs.
Little Boy held a similar mechanism to something akin to a gun. (Manifesting destiny through what Americans love most?) A block of enriched uranium is propelled and ejected to another, stationary block, which would cause the uranium to turn supercritical, meaning it could not handle the chain reaction that follows. Within a split second, the chain reaction would release huge amounts of energy, causing a powerful explosion.
Thin Man was supposed to use this same gun mechanism, but poor Thin Man was abandoned after scientists discovered that the fission rate of irradiated plutonium was too high for usage in a gun-based mechanism.
Fat Man ended up becoming the sole plutonium bomb, using the implosion model. The way it worked was filling the interior of the bomb with piles of uranium for it to turn into plutonium. These piles would be concentrated to the centre with explosions all around, causing it to compress and reach supercritical mass and exploding.
The British nuclear research program, the Tube Alloys, was quickly outpaced by the United States. In the Quebec Agreement in 1943, the Tube Alloys project was officially merged with the Manhattan Project.
The year 1943 itself was much of a turning point for the war against Germany and Japan. Following the D-Day landings in 1944, General Groves launched the Alos Mission, which was a joint military-scientific operation in which a team of Western scientists would follow the Allied advance into France. Once the Allies reached Germany, they would try and find documents that would reveal the German nuclear program.
The Alos Project was meant to prevent the Soviets from gaining any information left regarding the development of nuclear bombs. Through the German documents, it was revealed that while Germany did have a nuclear program headed by Werner Heisenberg, the Nazi government was nowhere near success. Added with their deteriorating situation in the Eastern Front, the government never gave significant funding to the program.
Japan’s nuclear programs also suffered in lack of resources, and the military lost interest in using it to win the war. In fact, the Japanese thought that it would be difficult for the United States to also use nuclear power in the war. So they gave up entirely, thinking the enemy wouldn’t use it. They would be proven wrong.
By the year 1945, Roosevelt died and was replaced with Harry S. Truman on April 12th. Roughly a month later, Germany surrendered to the Allies after being decimated by the Red Army in the Battle of Berlin. Meanwhile, the Manhattan Project was still months away from creating a bomb. However on July 16th 1945 in the deserts of New Mexico, the team of the Manhattan Project launched the Trinity Test to test out their nuclear bomb, nicknamed “The Gadget”, holding the power of 22 kilotons of TNT.
Oppenheimer, along with many other physicists, was worried that they would not be able to control the chain reaction, and it would spiral out of control and cause ‘atmospheric ignition’; the fancier way of saying ‘the world would end’. They even went so far as to make a bet on whether the atom bomb would cause the destruction of just New Mexico or the world. Fortunately, none of that ever happened and the world did not end.
The Trinity Test was successful, and the atom bomb was now finally a reality. News of the bomb’s success reached Truman in the Potsdam Conference. There, he briefed Churchill about the bomb and informed Stalin that now, the US had a powerful new weapon.
The bomb was now targetted to the only Axis power still in the war: the Empire of Japan. Japan was given an ultimatum or suffer destruction. Later, Truman called for the usage of the nuclear bombs on Japanese cities, which would definitely cause the capitulation of the Japanese government and force them to surrender without the Allies having to land on mainland Japan.
The Truman administration was also intent on ending the Pacific War before the Soviets could join it, because previously, Roosevelt had agreed to allow the Soviets to control Manchuria if they joined the war against Japan. On May 10th, Oppenheimer and the Target Committee of Los Alamos discussed about potential targets of the bomb. Ultimately, Kyoto, Hiroshima, Yokohama, and Kokura were chosen as likely targets.
Due to its cultural heritage though, Kyoto was replaced with Nagasaki. Bombing Kyoto would cause Japan to never forgive America’s actions, and the US wanted to turn Japan into an ally after the war anyways. Entering into early August, leaflets warning Japanese citizens of the coming bombing was spread across Japan, although there was no evidence to suggest this was true.
On August 6th, Little Boy was dropped on Hiroshima, while Fat Man was dropped on Nagasaki three days later on August 9th. On August 15th, Emperor Hirohito announced Japan’s surrender over the radio, effectively ending all major combat operations in World War II.
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DEVELOPMENTS AFTER THE WAR
The US Congress created the Atomic Energy Commission, or the AEC, following Truman’s signing of the Atomic Energy Act of 1946. The AEC was tasked with collecting and piling up uranium and the likes from various private companies.
Unfortunately, work conditions in the AEC were insufficient and workers were exposed to a dangerous amount of radiation, far above what was even allowed at the time.
Nonetheless, the AEC became the most powerful congressional comittee due to the US government’s new insistence on producing more nuclear bombs. The US began stockpiling nuclear materials, but funnily enough, nobody knew the precise size of the stockpile. Many just refused to know because they feared they might accidentally say the amount.
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THERMONUCLEAR BOMBS
Before we go further, it’s best that we discuss how a hydrogen bomb, or [for self-proclaimed “smart” people] a thermonuclear bomb would work. Because if I explained it midway through this section, it would just get needlessly confusing.
Obviously, a hydrogen bomb was different from the prior atom bombs. The hydrogen bomb is a fusion bomb, not a fissile bomb, or in simpler terms, it fuses atoms rather than splitting them. A hydrogen bomb would require the merging of two light atoms, deuterium and tritium, through high pressure and a temperature of at least several millions degrees Celcius.
How would they achieve such unbelieveably high temperatures? It was decided by scientists and engineers to use the mechanism of the plutonium bomb (i.e. pile of plutonium and big explosions all around to create chain reaction) on the H-bomb. The resulting explosion from the plutonium bomb mechanism would create the perfect conditions for the two light atoms to merge, which would then cause an explosion far more powerful than a regular nuclear bomb.
This design for the H-bomb was created by Stanislaw Ulam, a mathematician in the Manhattan Project. Got that? Good.
The first ideas for the hydrogen bomb came from Enrico Fermi himself, who then introduced the idea to Edward Teller. He was immediately interested of the prospect of this “Super Bomb”. Keep this guy in mind, because he’s important. The idea of the H-bomb was actuallu carried well into the Manhattan Project. They thought a fission bomb would be simple to develop, and so believed that they may he able to develop a hydrogem bomb as well. But the researchers underestimated the difficulty of creating an atom bomb, and eventually they were so preoccupied with creating fission bombs that they set aside the hydrogen bomb. Only Teller cared about the H-bomb amongst the team.
After the surrender of Japan, the US focused on producing more and more atom bombs. And the idea of the H-bomb resurfaced, but in a bad way. Many scientists were against the idea of developing a much more powerful bomb than the atomic bombs, for two reasons: one, they weren’t sure of how to build it; and two, they considered the hydrogen bomb to be a weapon capable of genocide far more deadly than the atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That changed in August 1949, when something changed the nuclear age: the Soviets tested their first atom bomb, nicknamed in the US as the Joe-1 test. The US thought they were miled ahead of the Soviets, and so this development caught everybody by surprise.
Now, the supporters of the bomb, including Teller, declared that the development of the H-bomb/hydrogen bomb/Super Bomb was inevitable, and that refusal to develop the hydrogen bomb was in itself an act of immorality. They argued that because the Soviets have a nuclear weapon, a much more powerful bomb like the H-bomb was required to protect the people of America.
Oppenheimer, who is still high in his fame of being credited as the father of the atom bomb, was not a supporter of the hyrdogen bomb. His reasons were technical limitations and lack of effective targets, but his actual reasons were definitely one of morality.
Ultimately though, it was Truman who held the final decision. He had been concerned of the Soviet atomic bomb test, and wondered how deep had the Soviets breached into American affairs. If the Soviets know information about the atom bomb, what else do they know? Truman felt that it was necessary to develop the hydrogen bomb to deter the Soviets.
On January 31st 1950, Truman announced the US intention to develop the hydrogen bomb. The first H-bomb test, codenamed Operation Ivy, was conducted on November 1st 1952 in Elugelab Island in Eniwetok Atoll of the Marshall Islands. The bomb was called Mike.
The resulting explosion was similar to the power of 10.4 megatons of TNT. To put you into perspective, that is 450 times more powerful than the bomb on Nagasaki and completely obliterated Elugelab Island. Poof, the island is now a 1.9 km wide and 50 meter deep crater in the ocean. Outstanding work, Mike. Truman then officially declared that the H-bomb was being developed to the world on January 7th 1953.
Good job, America! You now have a new very powerful weapon that could definitely scare the Russian commies from- oh wait the Soviets have a hydrogen bomb?
Yeah, the Soviets developed their own hydrogen bomb on August 12th of that year, codenamed Joe-4 by the West. And worse of all, while the US tested the simple mechanism of the H-bomb with the whole Mike test, the Soviets have a functionable weapon. That was very alarming, and the technological differences could not be ignored anymore.
The Joe-4 test was a vindication for the supporters of the H-bomb, who now criticized those that were against the bomb for not having acted earlier on. During the height of McCarthyism in 1954, the US decided to revoke Oppenheimer’s security clearance in grounds of him not supporting the H-bomb, was unreliable, and had left-wing ties in the past. Good ol Teller testified against Oppenheimer.
What did that achieve? Teller being excluded from the physics community. Oppenheimer and Teller, the forefathers of the nuclear bomb and the hydrogen bomb respectively, unfortunately did not last long in their career.
Only on March 1st 1954 did the US test their first proper hydrogen bomb in the Castle Bravo test. The bomb was named Shrimp. The test was conducted in Bikini Atoll, again in the Marshall Islands. But that was not what history remembered this event to be.
Good news was, no islands were obliterated. Bad news was, the aftermath of the Castle Bravo test caused the worst radiological disaster in US history. Weather conditions and the large blast radius, which planners have not calculated correctly, caused the resulting nuclear fallout to cover more than 18,000 km².
Natives of the Marshall Islands were impacted by the fallout. Meanwhile, a nearby Japanese shipping boat was affected as well, its crew members exposrd to high levels of radiation and suffering skin burns and radiation sickness. What was worse was that some of the tuna caught by the sailors were also contaminated and made its way into the markets.
The Castle Bravo incident now raised awarness regarding the actually destructive potential of nuclear weapons. Before the H-bomb was a thing, people were sure that nuclear bombs were limited in their effectivity.
But now, the US and the USSR were calculating the possibilities that if a war with nuclear weapons wete to break out, it may just destroy the world. And no victory can be achieved if the world is an irradiated wasteland, so that’s another reason.
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PERIOD OF THE COLD WAR
Now that the destruction-of-the-world-through-a-nuclear-war scenario was fleshed out, nuclear weapons were developed less for actual weaponry and more of a political tool.
“You can’t attack me if I have more nuclear weapons at my disposal” or “my bombs are more powerful than yours” was essentially what the doctrine of deterrence was: both the US and the USSR know better to not attack one another with nuclear bombs, because then that would cause the end of the world.
The US even developed a plan to nuke the Moon just to show the world how powerful the US was.
Since 1951, the US created the Nevada Test Site to, well, test their nuclear weapons. The Soviet Union had their nuclrar test site in Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan. Most nuclear weapons tests were conducted in the atmosphere or underwater, like the tests in the Marshall Islands. Testing was shown as a sign of technological strength, but, as the Castle Bravo incident showed, having too many of these tests could cause environmental problems.
Around that time, many scientists and politicians were already advocating for a ban on nuclear testing. After all these demands, in 1958, the US, the Soviet Union, and Britain (which was a nuclear power ever since 1952, forgot to brush up on that), the world’s nuclear powers at the time, declared a halt on nuclear testing. That was broken by the USSR in 1961 when they tested the absolutely powerful Tsar Bomba, holding the power of 50 to 100 megatons of TNT. Very impractical in usage, but could induce burns at a distance of around 100 km.
The following year in 1962, the US tests a hydrogen bomb in an altitude of 400 km, called the Starfish Prime test. That explosiom caused an artificial aurora seen all the way to New Zealand, and the radiation damaged at least eight satellites.
It was now time for the nuclear powers to develop rocket-based nuclear missiles. How fun. For this aim, the US already had the upper hand. In the end of World War II, the US initiated Project Paperclip; a military operation to save German scientists and employ them to work for the US. One of these scientists was Wernher von Braun, who had developed the notorious V-2 rockets launched to Britain during the war.
What happened then? In 1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis occured, with the US placing nuclear weapons in Italy and Turkey while the USSR placed nuclear weapons in Cuba. Just as the world braced for a nuclear war, both sides negotiated and dismantled their nuclear missiles in these locations. Following the crisis in 1963, the nuclear powers signed the Partial Test Ban Treaty, prohibiting nuclear testing in the atmosphere, underwater, or in outer space, but not underground.
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MILITARY DOCTRINE
President Eisenhower’s policies in the early stages of the Cold War were far more straightforward in terms of nuclear weapons usage: if the Soviets attack Western Europe, we will attack the Soviets with nuclear weapons.
Douglas MacArthur demandrd the usage of nuclear weapons against North Korea during the Korean War, and that ended up with him getting fired from his job. Splendid work there. As rockets and nuclear missiles were being developed, this policy changed.
Military strategists thought that any surviving member of the Soviet government after the initial US nuclear strike would definitely retaliate with their own nuclear missiles, thus leading to the birth of the full-fledged deterrence policy and also the doctrine of MAD; Mutually Assured Destruction.
MAD was divided into two phases: first strike and second strike. You can tell by the name that they’re pretty selt-explanatory: first strike targets enemy’s nuclear arsenal, if it fails then a second strike would be delivered. The outcome of such a war would lead to social collapse for the US and the USSR, and the obliteration of the two world powers in a single press of a button. And thus both sides developed an early warning system in the casr of nuclear war.
You see, conventional war would drag on for months and years, but nuclear war would only last for a few hours, based on the MAD doctrine. So scientists were now trying to develop a computer system, to analyze potential enemy attacks and targets and develop rapid responses to sair attacks.
The US managed to create SAGE, Semi-Autonomic Ground Environment, which was the first computing machine and the first computer system to process real-time information.
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NUCLEAR ENERGY
Early on, people discovered that nuclear power could not only develop weapons of mass destruction, but could also be used as an alternative source of energy. Nuclear energy. In parallel to the shenanigans of the nuclear armsrace, scientists conduct research on the capabilities of using nuclear energy as an efficient energy source.
Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace” speech in the UN emphasized this growing need for using nuclear energy. This was followed by the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, which encouraged private companies to invest in things like nuclear reactors.
The US Navy was the first to use nuclear energy. They created a naval nuclear reactor, called the S1W reactor, to power submarines, aircraft carriers, and other battleships. The USS Nautilus became the first functioning nuclear-powered submarine, deployed to the sea in January 1954.
The Soviets caught up, creating the Obninsk Nuclear Power Plant, becoming the first nuclear-based power plant to generate electricity. Britain also invested in nuclear energy, establishing Calder Hall, the first commercial nuclear power station, connected to the nationwide power grid in 1956.
To encourage worldwide research into nuclear power, the UN establish the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The IAEA is responsible for monitoring the use of nuclear energy. In addition to being used to produce electricity and power military vessels, nuclear energy would be used in the medical world for medicine and cancer treatment.
Most nuclear reactors used pressurized water to work, namely because it was simpler, more compact, and easier to operate.
Now, how does a nuclear reactor work?
So first, low-enriched uranium is placed in the centre of the reactor, emitting a constant yet controlled chain reaction. The temperature of the water in the “primary circuit” increases based on the heat produced by the chain reaction, and the circuit is connected to a secondary circuit to turn the hot water into vapor.
By doing this, it rotates a turbine connected to a generator, resulting in electricity. To cool the vapor in the secondary circuit, reactors often have a cooling circuit installed. Some other reactors just straight up build a cooling tower.
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ERA OF NON-PROLIFERATION
So far we’ve only been discussing about the United States and the Soviet Union, but what about other nuclear powers?
Britain became a nuclear power in 1952, around the same time the US was researching the H-bomb. But one we haven’t talked about at all is France. France had researched nuclear power before World War II. In fact, France was basically where all this started. Remember Frédéric and Irene Joliot-Curie, who found radioactivity? Unfortunately for the country of baguettes, they were badly damaged after the war, with an unstable government and lack of finance.
In 1956, France established the secretive Committee for the Military Applications of Atomic Energy. The final decisions were made to build a nuclear bomb, following famed war hero Charles de Gaulle’s presidency in 1958. This led to a successful nuclear test in 1960, and France became entirely independent from NATO, acting as its own participant in this nuclear armsrace.
Meanwhile, in the communist bloc, the Soviet Union and China had signed an agreement in 1951 which stipulated that China supply Russia with shipments of uranium in exchange for assistance in developing a nuclear weapon. In 1953, China began nuclear research. But as relations between the USSR and the PRC worsened, the Soviets flat-out refused to give China a copy of their bomb in 1959.
Nevertheless, China made rapid progress in their efforts. They tested their first atomic bomb in 1964, tested their first nuclear missile in 1966, and tested their first hydrogen bomb in 1967.
As nuclear power continued to rise, the US and the USSR, through the UN, propose for the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. The treaty differentiated the five nuclear powers (the US, USSR, UK, France, China) from the rest of the world. These countries cannot share information regarding nuclear weapons nor supply them directly to other countries.
The treaty would later be signed by virtually all countries of the world, except India, Pakistan, and Israel, which denied having any nuclear weapons despite the international community holding suspicions that they’re hiding something. Then the US and the Soviets attended the SALT I agreements, limiting production of strategic nuclear weapons.
In 1973, the world is shook by the first global oil crisis. This was bad news obviously, since world powers depended on oil for money. Alternative energies were thought and envisioned to replace oil temporarily; one of them being nuclear energy. France and Japan had already become dependent on nuclear energy.
The development of nuclear power plants now become a common thing that all countries were working on. In India, which accelerated its nuclear research after China attacked them. In 1974, they launched a “peaceful” nuclear test. This worried Pakistan, India’s rival, and a sort of mini armsrace occured between these two countries.
Fast forward to 1979, an incident occured in the US. A nuclear reactor in Three Mile Island was damaged as its primary circuit leaked. This caused the core to overheat and melted its exterior. Fortunately the structure of the power plant was resistant, and no radioactive leaks were detected.
The same cannot be said for Chernobyl in 1986. A series of human errors resulted in the reactor going out of control and exploded its roof. The radiation then spreads throughout Europe, and ravaged Pripyat, which is now a ghost town. People are pissed after these incidents, and anti-nuclear power movements continue to grow.
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POST-COLD WAR
In 1991, the USSR collapsed into several independent countries, the largest and moat powerful of which being the Russian Federation.
After decades of hostilities ever since American and Soviet soldiers met each other in the rotting heart of the Third Reich, the Cold War had ended. The US and Russia then continue to decrease their nuclear arsenal, now that hostilites have ceased for now. The final phase of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaties — the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty – was created.
But two years later, India and Pakistan continue their nuclear tests. And, no big surprise really, Abdul Qadeer Khan, father of the Pakistani atomic bomb, confessed that he was part of a secret network supplying plans and materials to develop a nuclear bomb to North Korea, Libya, and Iran; all countries not friendly to the West.
North Korea announced they tested their first nuclear bomb in 2006, while Iran announced that they have successfully gained their hands on enriched uranium. Israel’s exact nuclear arsenal is unknown.
Estimates say that they may have dozens of nuclear weapons, but it’s the Middle East, so who knows.
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THE MODERN AGE
Let’s start off this closing chapter with a bang, literally.
In March 11th 2011, Japan suffered a triple disaster. A 9.1 magnitude earthquake was followed by a 10 meter tsunami. And these natural disasters impacted the Fukushima nuclear power plant. The cooling system malfunctioned as a result of the damaged structure, and four reactors exploded.
A radioactive cloud is blown throughout the Pacific Ocean, even reaching North America. In the aftermath, Japan shuts down 39 nuclear power plants and Germany announced that they would drop out of nuclear research, choosing to not be tangled in the explosive world of the Nuclear Age.
And now we have reached the closing of this article.
What is the current state of nuclear weapons? Despite there still being tens of thousands of nuclear weapons in the world, 122 countries have agreed on the creation of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, choosing to try and eliminate nuclear weapons in use as a whole.
The nuclear countries and NATO do not sign the treaty for, obvious reasons. Only 34 countries have ratified the treaty, while a minimum of 50 countries are required to put the treaty to force. In terms of nuclear energy, many countries are attempting to develop nuclear fusion plants to keep up with the world’s ever growing demand for new energy sources.
Going back to Oppenheimer’s fear that his creation would end the world; in a way, he wasn’t wrong. The world did change, with the Cold War and the Nuclear Age. Is this change of an era for the better or for the worse? Ultimately, it’s up to humanity to decide. After all, it only takes a few steps and one button to ignite the end of the world.