

Truck driver conducted a decade of research to build accurate replica of Hiroshima bomb - mhb
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/12/15/081215fa_fact_samuels

======
kqr2
On a side note, in 1964 the US government sponsored an interesting project
called the Nth Country Experiment to see if three graduate students in physics
with no prior weapons experience could design an atomic bomb using information
in the public domain. The government's goal was to try and gauge how easy it
was for other countries to design a nuclear bomb. 2 1/2 years later, they were
judged to have come up with a credible design.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nth_Country_Experiment>

------
blackswan
This NYT article about a book on the spread of nuclear technology is also
interesting.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/09/science/09bomb.html?_r=1&#...</a><p>“Since
the birth of the nuclear age,” they write, “no nation has developed a nuclear
weapon on its own, although many claim otherwise.” Secret cooperation extended
to the secluded sites where nations tested their handiwork in thundering
blasts. The book says, for instance, that China opened its sprawling desert
test site to Pakistan, letting its client test a first bomb there on May 26,
1990.<p>That alone rewrites atomic history. It casts new light on the reign of
Benazir Bhutto as prime minister of Pakistan and helps explain how the country
was able to respond so quickly in May 1998 when India conducted five nuclear
tests. “It took only two weeks and three days for the Pakistanis to field and
fire a nuclear device of their own,” the book notes.

------
modoc
Great article and well worth the read.

It's amazing what someone with enough dedication can accomplish, in spite of a
lack of formal education. I found all the ways he reverse engineered the
design out of old photos of a closed box, and other seemingly useless
artifacts, fascinating.

------
josefresco
uhg, awesome but 11 pages.

/saves for later

~~~
mhb
I agree. But unlike most New Yorker articles, I thought the last half was as
interesting as the first.

~~~
psnajder
I'll just assume he built it out of mashed potatoes.

