The Nth Country Experiment
Stories from Physics
for 11-14
14-16
16-19
In the 1960s, during the Cold War, the United States government wanted to find out how easy it would be for other countries to develop nuclear weapons and started the secret Nth Country Experiment. Two recent physics PhD graduates were recruited, supplied with a laboratory and tasked with developing plans for a nuclear weapon. The two physicists produced plans for a bomb that, if it had been built, would have had as much explosive energy as the weapon dropped on Hiroshima.
References
The Nth country project
R. Diab, The Harbinger Theory: How the Post-9/11 Emergency Became Permanent and the Case for Reform, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2015, p. 196
