Soviet atomic bomb project

The Soviet atomic bomb project was the classified research and development program that was authorized by Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union to develop nuclear weapons during and after World War II. Although the Soviet scientific community discussed the possibility of an atomic bomb throughout the 1930s, going as far as making a concrete proposal to develop such a weapon in 1940, the full-scale program was not initiated and prioritized until Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union. Because of the conspicuous silence of the scientific publications on the subject of nuclear fission by German, American, and British scientists, Russian physicist Georgy Flyorov suspected that the Allied powers had secretly been developing a "superweapon" since 1939. Flyorov wrote a letter to Stalin urging him to start this program in 1942. Initial efforts were slowed due to the German invasion of the Soviet Union and remained largely composed of the intelligence gathering from the Soviet spy rings working in the U.S. Manhattan Project. After Stalin learned of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the program was pursued aggressively and accelerated through effective intelligence gathering about the German nuclear weapon project and the American Manhattan Project. The Soviet efforts also rounded up captured German scientists to join their program, and relied on knowledge passed by spies to Soviet intelligence agencies. On 29 August 1949, the Soviet Union secretly conducted its first successful weapon test (First Lightning, based on the American "Fat Man" design) at the Semipalatinsk-21 in Kazakhstan. Stalin alongside Soviet political officials and scientists were elated at the successful test. A nuclear armed Soviet Union sent its rival Western neighbors, and particularly the United States into a state of unprecedented trepidation. From 1949 onwards the Soviet Union manufactured and tested nuclear weapons on a large scale. The nuclear capabilities these tests helped develop were crucial to projecting and maintaining its global status.

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Experimental demonstration of attosecond pump-probe spectroscopy with an X-ray free-electron laser

Christoph Bostedt, Jun Wang, Zhaoheng Guo, Xiang Li, Siqi Li, Zhen Zhang

Pump-probe experiments with subfemtosecond resolution are the key to understanding electronic dynamics in quantum systems. Here we demonstrate the generation and control of subfemtosecond pulse pairs from a two-colour X-ray free-electron laser. By measurin ...

Nature Portfolio2024

Million-scale data integrated deep neural network for phonon properties of heuslers spanning the periodic table

Changpeng Lin, Hong Zhang, Chen Shen, Yong Zhao

Existing machine learning potentials for predicting phonon properties of crystals are typically limited on a material-to-material basis, primarily due to the exponential scaling of model complexity with the number of atomic species. We address this bottlen ...

NATURE PORTFOLIO2023

Multiple Surface Site Three-Dimensional Structure Determination of a Supported Molecular Catalyst

Moreno Lelli, Pierrick Berruyer, David Benjamin Roger Antoine Gajan, Zhuoran Wang

The structural characterization of supported molecular catalysts is challenging due to the low density of active sites and the presence of several organic/organometallic surface groups resulting from the often complex surface chemistry associated with supp ...

AMER CHEMICAL SOC2022

Atomic spies

Atomic spies or atom spies were people in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada who are known to have illicitly given information about nuclear weapons production or design to the Soviet Union during World War II and the early Cold War. Exactly what was given, and whether everyone on the list gave it, are still matters of some scholarly dispute. In some cases, some of the arrested suspects or government witnesses had given strong testimonies or confessions which they recanted later or said were fabricated.

Nuclear espionage

Nuclear espionage is the purposeful giving of state secrets regarding nuclear weapons to other states without authorization (espionage). There have been many cases of known nuclear espionage throughout the history of nuclear weapons and many cases of suspected or alleged espionage. Because nuclear weapons are generally considered one of the most important of state secrets, all nations with nuclear weapons have strict restrictions against the giving of information relating to nuclear weapon design, stockpiles, delivery systems, and deployment.

Nuclear arms race

The nuclear arms race was an arms race competition for supremacy in nuclear warfare between the United States, the Soviet Union, and their respective allies during the Cold War. During this same period, in addition to the American and Soviet nuclear stockpiles, other countries developed nuclear weapons, though none engaged in warhead production on nearly the same scale as the two superpowers. The first nuclear weapon was created by the United States of America during the Second World War and was developed to be used against the Axis powers.

The Manhattan Project: From Atom to Atomic Bomb HUM-385: History of science and technology

Delves into the journey from atomic energy discovery to the atomic bomb development during the Manhattan Project.

Advanced Physics I: Orders of Magnitude PHYS-100: Advanced physics I (mechanics)

Explores the triumph of determinism in modern mechanics and the methodology of scientific development, with practical exercises on estimating surgical mask usage and analyzing atomic bomb energy.

Astrophysical Fluids Dynamics PHYS-753: Dynamics of astrophysical fluids and plasmas

Explores astrophysical fluid dynamics, covering compressible flows, basic thermodynamics, shock waves, and perturbation theory.