• skillissuer
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    3 days ago

    100x (1.5Mt range) was done and is still fielded (1.2Mt, B83), but teller wanted to make 1000000x bigger one (10 gigaton range). it was based on a flawed understanding of several things in thermonuclear weapons but teller never let it go. the bit that worked was done by somebody else (stanisław ulam)

    • breadsmasher@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Youre right of course, I was more getting at how teller wanted to skip the first entirely and go for the “super”

    • skillissuer
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      3 days ago

      teller also wanted to make it a salted bomb but this is nonsense and not how neutrons work at these energies