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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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Fusion Science and Technology
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The Frisch-Peierls memorandum: A seminal document of nuclear history
The Manhattan Project is usually considered to have been initiated with Albert Einstein’s letter to President Franklin Roosevelt in October 1939. However, a lesser-known document that was just as impactful on wartime nuclear history was the so-called Frisch-Peierls memorandum. Prepared by two refugee physicists at the University of Birmingham in Britain in early 1940, this manuscript was the first technical description of nuclear weapons and their military, strategic, and ethical implications to reach high-level government officials on either side of the Atlantic. The memorandum triggered the initiation of the British wartime nuclear program, which later merged with the Manhattan Engineer District.
S W Haan, T Dittrich, G. Strobel, S Hatchett, D Hinkel, M Marinak, D Munro, O Jones, S Pollaine, L Suter
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 41 | Number 3 | May 2002 | Pages 164-173
Technical Paper | Fourteenth Target Fabrication Specialists' Meeting | doi.org/10.13182/FST41-164
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper is a general update on the target fab specs for ignition targets for the National Ignition Facility. A general overview of the status of all the requirements is presented, with a historical summary plus recent results. Historical work will be related to recent systematization of the characterization as coordinated by Rich Stephens. New results to be presented include analysis of a polystrene-ablator target, analysis of Rayleigh-Taylor growth on beryllium targets driven at 250eV at various scales, simulations of the effect of fill tubes on the implosion, considerations of hohlraum and capsule size variations, and variations in DT gas density (i.e. capsule temperature).
