I was not quite 19 when Ronald Reagan made his "Star Wars" speech on 23 March 1983, perfectly prepared by far too much libertarian science fiction to be convinced by his case that it was about time that scientists stopped working on MAD and started working on ABM, on defending civilisation against the atomic horror instead of exacerbating it. In its immediate wake, the argument against "Star Wars" that got the most attention, seemed ludicrously pessimistic. Computer scientists emerged to argue that it was just too hard to programme ABM guidance software.
It turns out, as we saw in February, that ABM wasn't something that people just thought of in 1983 after seeing Star Wars IV. The first ABM proposal was put on the table before WWII even ended, and involved shooting down V2s with antiaircraft guns. This week, it turns out that ABM efforts are intimately tied to the H-bomb debate. If the Communists are going to shoot down a large proportion of the atomic bombs aimed at them, the ones that get through should be corkers, and also much cheaper.
This is why, as January comes to an end, President Truman is hearing conflicting advice from his experts. Some believe, correctly as it turns out, that the H-bomb will be significantly cheaper, in bangs for the buck, than atom bombs. This argument does not, however, get anywhere near as public play as the "corker" argument. It is, admittedly, in part because the arguments are related. if only one in ten weapons get through, better that Moscow be targeted with 10 H-bombs, so that one can level it, than with 100 atom bombs, etc.
For the scientists that object to this second argument, it was mostly to the grotesque barbarism of aiming to hit "Moscow" with a 10 megaton bomb, in order to destroy all Moscow-related strategic targets, but also, of course, well, Moscow. The fact that, in the background, there are some goulish rumblings about bombs of unlimited yield --the gigaton bomb-- underlines this. But there's a reason that Edward Teller is talking about a gigaton bomb that, it seems to me, gets obscured in the rearview mirror. Nuclear physicists had a lot to learn about atomic physics in 1950.
The January 1950 argument flows from the fact that Teller is still arguing for his "classical super" H-bomb. Others believe that the classical super is highly problematic. We have two accounts. One is that the difficulty is economic and industrial. There is not enough tritium for the classical super. The other is that the classical super is seen as physically impossible. It is here that we have to ask ourselves how so many physicists are ranging themselves against one of the greatest theoretical physicists of the day. The usual explanation is that Teller was a colossal, raging asshole. And this is true! Moreover, he is quite likely being driven by all kinds of motivated reasoning. But that doesn't mean that he can't defend the classical super, however weak his argument actually is! So what is going on, in January of 1950, months before the Teller-Ulam design surfaces? This is a very interesting question, because it invites us to peer through telescopes and into cloud chambers with Bit Science, and investigate the way that "pure science" is wrapped up with big booms.
The January 1950 argument flows from the fact that Teller is still arguing for his "classical super" H-bomb. Others believe that the classical super is highly problematic. We have two accounts. One is that the difficulty is economic and industrial. There is not enough tritium for the classical super. The other is that the classical super is seen as physically impossible. It is here that we have to ask ourselves how so many physicists are ranging themselves against one of the greatest theoretical physicists of the day. The usual explanation is that Teller was a colossal, raging asshole. And this is true! Moreover, he is quite likely being driven by all kinds of motivated reasoning. But that doesn't mean that he can't defend the classical super, however weak his argument actually is! So what is going on, in January of 1950, months before the Teller-Ulam design surfaces? This is a very interesting question, because it invites us to peer through telescopes and into cloud chambers with Bit Science, and investigate the way that "pure science" is wrapped up with big booms.