In late 1945 Soviet physicist Yakov Il'ich Frenkel suggested that fission bombs might be used to fuse light nuclei and thus release even greater energies. In a memo addressed to Igor Vasilievich Kurchatov dated 22 September 1945, he pointed out that “it would be in our best interest to utilize the high, billion‐degree temperatures developed in the explosion of an atomic bomb in application to synthetic reactions (for example, to produce helium from hydrogen), which are the energy source of stars and which could even further increase the energy released in the explosion of the principal substance (uranium, bismuth, lead),” Despite the error in estimating the temperatures in an atomic explosion and the fallacy of suggesting that bismuth and lead nuclei are fissionable, the thought expressed by Frenkel is significant as the first documented Soviet communication on the topic.
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November 1996
November 01 1996
Thermonuclear Milestones: (2) Beginnings of the Soviet H‐Bomb Program Free
Early Soviet theoretical work on thermonuclear ignition was aided by espionage, but many important ideas were conceived and developed independently.
Physics Today 49 (11), 50–54 (1996);