The hydrogen bomb, unlike the atomic bomb used on Hiroshima, generates energy through fusion by fusing isotopes of hydrogen, deuterium and tritium. This fusion process requires extremely high ...

Ann Finkbeiner is a science writer who often writes about the intersection of science and national security. In 1951, Richard Garwin was 23, a junior physicist working summers at Los Alamos National ...

The night that dumb luck may have saved America.

Richard L. Garwin, an architect of America’s hydrogen bomb, who shaped defense policies for postwar governments and laid the groundwork for insights into the structure of the universe as well as for ...

In 1958, a midair collision forced a B-47 pilot to drop a hydrogen bomb into shallow ocean waters near Tybee Island, Georgia. Despite extensive military searches and later investigations, the Mark 15 ...

By the mid-1950s, the nuclear competition between the Soviet Union and the United States had entered a far more dangerous ...

A hydrogen bomb rests aboard the USS Petrel after it is recovered from the Mediterranean Sea in April 1966. The bomb was lost after a midair collision involving a B-52 bomber and a KC-135 Stratotanker ...

Chinese researchers have successfully tested a non-nuclear hydrogen-based bomb, producing a fireball that burned over two seconds – 15 times longer than a comparable TNT blast. Developed by the China ...

Richard “Dick” Garwin, the designer of the hydrogen bomb and an advisor to a dozen US presidents, passed away on May 13, 2025, at age 97. At 21, Garwin obtained his doctorate from the University of ...

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