Atomic Bomb Physicists Explore Risks of Nuclear Testing on Earth’s Atmosphere
LOS ALAMOS, New Mexico – In the film Oppenheimer, General Leslie Groves asks J. Robert Oppenheimer about the possibility of destroying the world by detonating the atomic bomb. This theoretical conversation between two historical figures piqued the interest of two nuclear astrophysicists, Michael Wiescher of the University of Notre Dame and Karlheinz Langanke of GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung in Darmstadt, Germany. In a recent paper, they explored how Oppenheimer’s risk assessment methods during the early …