The History of the Hydrogen Bomb
The hydrogen bomb has its origins in the realization, during the 1930s, that artificial fusion was possible. However, scientists realized that a large amount of energy would be needed to build a fusion bomb, and concentrated on building a bomb based on fission instead. The subsequent development of the hydrogen bomb in the United States and the Soviet Union made nuclear war more threatening than ever before.
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Background
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In 1934, British physicist Ernest Rutherford, along with two other scientists, described the first successful fusion reaction (the release of energy from the combination of the nuclei of two atoms to create a new atom). In their artificial fusion reaction, two deuterium nuclei combined to create helium and tritium. Despite their success in inducing fusion, scientists did not pursue this line of inquiry, believing that a bomb based on fusion would be impossible without the energy from fission (when the nucleus of an atom is split into smaller parts).
American Development
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Enrico Fermi, who was working for the Manhattan Project to develop the first atomic bomb, had the idea in 1941 that the fission of uranium might create the amount of energy necessary for fusion. He passed the theory on to Edward Teller, who pursued the development of the H-bomb for the next decade. Teller worked on a design for a thermonuclear bomb during the Manhattan Project with the permission of the director, J. Robert Oppenheimer. The design and calculations were difficult, eventually requiring assistance from ENIAC, the first computer, to complete. After President Harry Truman approved the H-Bomb in 1950 (after the Soviets had tested their first nuclear bomb in 1949), Teller was placed in charge of the program. Teller came up with a workable design of an H-bomb with the help of Stanislaw Ulam. This design was used in the test of the first hydrogen bomb in 1952, code-named "Mike." Mike weighed 80 tons and measured 21 feet in height, and was not deliverable as a payload. In 1953, the first hydrogen bomb, small enough to be delivered by airplane, was tested at Bikini Atoll, code-named "Bravo." The explosion was much larger than scientists had predicted.
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Effects
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The Bravo test helped increase awareness of fall-out. The Lucky Dragon, a Japanese fishing boat, was believed to be at a safe distance from the test, but all of its crew fell ill from radiation sickness, with one man eventually dying. The world became focused on the Lucky Dragon incident, which publicized the test and made it clear that the hydrogen bomb was much more powerful than its fission-based predecessors.
Soviet Hydrogen Bomb
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The Soviets tested their first fusion device in 1953. Although it was small enough to be delivered from an airplane, its design was different from "Mike" and "Bravo" in that high explosives were used to initiate the thermonuclear reaction. This design was limited in how much energy it could generate, and the Soviets built a bomb along the same lines of the Teller and Ulam bomb, using fission to spark a fusion reaction, in 1955.
Significance
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The fall-out and blast of a hydrogen bomb led to the idea that victory in a nuclear war was not possible and that a nuclear war might even lead to the end of the world. Many Americans concluded that preparing to survive a nuclear war by building shelters was pointless. After both the United States and the Soviet Union had built the H-bomb, they concentrated on building up their arsenals and increasing the power and effectiveness of their bombs. By the end of the 1950s, the development of the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) made all-out nuclear war a possibility.
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