How to build an atomic bomb at home

Almost half a century ago, when there was obviously no internet and geopolitics revolved around The cold wara fact occurred that made alarms jump to society. Actually, that was the preamble of what would later be enhanced with the networks: use the public material and information available to anyone to develop weapons. With an exception: I was in Liza Build An atomic bomb In the house storage.

How to become a legend. Year 1977. A little prominent student from Princeton University He surprised the world Entero (and to the FBI) ​​with an academic project that, under the revealing title of “How to build your own atomic bomb”, detailed to chilling precision the necessary steps to manufacture a functional nuclear weapon.

Its author, John Aristotle Phillipsa 21 -year -old born in Connecticut, was the son of Greek immigrants and was studying without standing at all: he had repeated courses, he touched the suspense and was better known by Your pet costume of football than for their academic achievements. His transformation into an international figure came from the hand of an unexpected combination of obsession, stubbornness, ability to seek information and the challenge of impressing a legendary teacher.

The academic challenge. Phillips faced a final task proposed by the famous physical Freeman Dysonwho taught in Princeton after having worked with figures such as Richard Feynman and Hans Bethe In some of the most complex projects of the twentieth century, including the development of the atomic bomb inside of the Manhattan project.

Dyson had asked his students to work on nuclear proliferation, and Phillips, aware of his lack of academic brightness, wanted to stand out with a provocative proposal: to recreate the design of a bomb similar to that of Nagasakiusing only public sources. Dyson, surprised by the audacity, humorously accepted the challenge, promising an outstanding qualification if he succeeded, but also that he would burn the work after reading it.

An obsession. For weeks, Phillips worked tirelessly between Princeton Library and his room, collecting Declassified Document Information of the National Technical Information Service, Physics textbooks, government communications and consultations with the Du Pont company about implosion principles.

Without using a single classified source, he managed to assemble a 40 -page document where I explained step by step how to make a nuclear bomb. He delivered the work, obtained the maximum note and, far from being destroyed as Dyson had suggested, his project began to circulate from mouth to mouth until he reached the ears of professional physicists and media.

A national celebrity. The dissemination of work attracted the attention of experts such as Frank Chilton, a physicist specialized in nuclear engineering, who said that Phillips design was Technically viablewith the exception of access to plutonium, the only obstacle to its materialization.

The news It exploded in the media: The boy without an academic future became forever In “The A-Bomb Kid”a media figure that symbolized both unexpected brilliance and the dangers of dissemination without control in the nuclear era. Fame reached a critical point when several pakistani scientific assumptions approached Phillips to offer money in exchange for the document. The FBI intervened immediately: confiscated the work and a model that the student had built, and classified the material as sensitive information.

The contradictory inheritance. Far from taking advantage of his sudden fame to continue in the academic or scientific world, Phillips published in 1979 with David Michaelis the book Mushroom: The True Story of the A-Bomb Kidwhere he narrated his experience and the journey of his unusual rise to fame. Over time, his awareness about the risks of nuclear proliferation led him to become an antinuclear activist, dedicating years to warn about the ease with which certain knowledge could fall into wrong hands.

In fact, and in a turn of the events that no one expected, its trajectory finally resulted In politics: He was running as a Democratic candidate for the United States House of Representatives in 1980 and 1982, although that, without electoral success. The truth is that never He shone again as he did in that university project.

A warning in full “era.” The history of Philips cannot be more relevant now that the world seems more convulsion that never. In fact, Aristotle’s case It marked a precedent disturbing: A student without access to classified materials managed to design, using only public sources, a functional nuclear artifact.

In a global context where technological proliferation has only increased, its history continues to be used as an example in debates about information security, scientific education and ethical limits of knowledge. Although he never physically built the bomb, his work showed that the danger does not always come from professional spies or enemy governments, but also from curious minds with a long time, access to libraries … and a typewriter.

Ironically, today there is no need for any of the three keys.

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