Truck driver conducted a decade of research to build accurate replica of Hiroshima bomb

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

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&#...

“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.

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.

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.

uhg, awesome but 11 pages.

/saves for later