One minute of the lecture has been removed by UA-cam: a video clip from the movie 'Oppenheimer' showing a group of Los Alamos scientists laughing at Edward Teller for proposing the idea of a thermonuclear weapon. Like many things in the movie, the actual history is quite different!
The hydrogen bomb is one of the most innovative, terrifying, and politically consequential inventions in history. Most accounts of the H-bomb's story revolve around the first full-scale test, conducted in fall 1952. But the H-bomb's biography can be traced back to 1920, when the concept of nuclear fusion was first imagined as a process for powering the stars. The Elegance of Fusion follows the key discoveries and the brilliant scientists who made them during the formative years of thermonuclear research. The lecture also reassesses the the nature and value of H-bomb work at wartime Los Alamos. Though often perceived as a small-scale technical distraction, dozens of exceptional scientists performed theoretical and experimental research of critical importance during the war. This effort, which was continually nurtured by J. Robert Oppenheimer, provided a firm technical foundation for the H-bomb's successful development in subsequent years.
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