And so he predicted the greatest cataclysm in the history of man was coming, this population collapse that would be caused by food shortages, disease outbreaks, maybe thermonuclear war. And he described that the population had grown to the extent-- he said we've had most of what he called the outbreak of population and now all that we're waiting for is what's going to come in the crash.
- The simplicity of some of these, that's so gangster, just revolutionize all of physics with, you know, and Einstein did that multiple times in a simple year. "When all thermonuclear sources of energy are exhausted, a sufficiently heavy star will collapse." That's an opener. "Unless fission due to rotation, the radiation of mass, or the blowing off of mass by radiation, reduce the star's mass to orders of that of the sun,
About 50 years back, we thought in another 20 years, we will have just thermonuclear fusion reactions, and an everlasting, clean source of energy. But the date has been shifting.
and some dumb thing about I think sports players getting scared by their own mascot. Steve wanted to go thermonuclear on Android.
Here's the new image. And the thermonuclear runaway occurs in about the same way each time.
windshield up there at 990,000 FT but later figured out they were dead bugs from the uh thermonuclear bomb tests that were going on in the Pacific um and when I found out that area 51's nearest neighbor is an atomic bombing range
So, it's fusing, it's a fusion bomb. It's a constantly going thermonuclear bomb. And eventually it's gonna run out of fuel, it's gonna run out of hydrogen, helium, stuff to fuse.
Incredibly, what they do effectively is they add a third stage to this rocket and then, effectively, on the top, they put a capsule. And this capsule essentially replaces the thermonuclear warhead that was previously there. One of the conditions of these cosmonauts, as they were called, that were picked out of this very rigorous selection process for training
They were quite primitive. The Americans had much more advanced thermonuclear weapons, which are much lighter. So they had much lighter rockets, which meant great for nuclear weapons, not great for getting humans into orbit.
All he was getting was a series of rejections, one after the other. A hurricane contains more energy than a thermonuclear bomb.
All he was getting was a series of rejections, one after the other. He was already thinking about the thermonuclear bomb, which he and Edward Teller were convinced should be built before anyone else was.
That's not going to cost you a nickel. And I developed a case of global thermonuclear diarrhea.
He's thinking specifically of drones in warfare. And it begins to run through scenarios of global thermonuclear war and says, oh, that's a game that cannot be won.
Here's the new image. and approach a mass which becomes unstable and it undergoes a thermonuclear runaway.
in place we had a program the Strategic Air Command had a program where we were flying bombers around the globe 24/7 with uh thermonuclear weapons in them so that in case the Soviet launch launched we would already be up in the air and closer to be able to drop them on them
But actually what happens, these very massive stars, they're burning thermonuclear fuel. You know, Earth-fulls of thermonuclear fuel they're burning. And emitting energy, and E=mc² energy.
And then there were two others after me, before Obama. So the Joint Chiefs were not including the main casualty-producing effect of thermonuclear weapons when they said 600 million.
I was able to interview one of the men who was in this bunker. There were 10 scientists and engineers 19 miles from ground zero where that thermonuclear weapon went off. And the idea was the Defense Department wanted to see, well, since we can't defend against it, maybe we can create these bunkers
But suppose it had turned out to be differently. Suppose it had turned out instead that it had been possible to make a thermonuclear warhead by some simple procedure, like baking sand in your microwave oven, OK? So now we know physics doesn't allow for that.
you get that measurement of the wobbling star, and you pair it with the light curve, the light curve is giving you the estimated of a detonating hydrogen bomb, a thermonuclear reactor like stars are, right?
And we have come a long way. We have understood many complex phenomena or challenges that are there in this area in trying to achieve thermonuclear reactions, but we still don't know when we will be able to achieve it.
We're really good at getting used to things, which is probably useful. If we woke up every morning and freaked out at this bright, burning ball of thermonuclear fury rising over the east, that would be an untenable way to live. We should just call it the sun and get on with our day.
He's thinking specifically of drones in warfare. And a lot of them are harmless games, but one of them is global thermonuclear war.
Project. But he is the first Pentagon's brain that I write about. So why did I begin the book here where I did, which this is the thermonuclear bomb going off in the Marshall Islands. It's a 15 megaton bomb, and what I found astounding was for a while when I first used to look at this photograph, I
That's often how it's described. But actually what happens, these very massive stars, they're burning thermonuclear fuel. You know, Earth-fulls of thermonuclear fuel they're burning.
And that's what I mean by science is agnostic, right? It's the same technology, overcoming a critical mass, igniting thermonuclear fusion. Eventually there was a fission, the original bomb was a fission bomb.
And back in 1953, that was when the Soviet Union became the second country to explode a thermonuclear bomb.
And then there were two others after me, before Obama. Nagasaki-type bombs-- that's all they have, like North Korea, not thermonuclear bombs, not H-bombs-- using a hundred, of which they have many more than that,
I think trust, the contract that you and I had if we trust each other, it's kind of a thermonuclear contract.
All he was getting was a series of rejections, one after the other. He wanted to build a super-fast computer, because he wanted it to do the calculations for the thermonuclear bomb.
But he was a major player in the biological weapons program, and was very controversial, because some say that he created the problem that then needed to be solved. So again, you see that conundrum, which is a bit like the nuclear weapon issue, the thermonuclear weapon issue, that you create a weapon that then you must defend against. But Alibek worked for us for a long time before he left the country.
And then directly after that, it was like when Android came out and he was saying something about, I will go thermonuclear war on this.
So we discovered, just over half a century ago, nuclear weapons. And it turned out, fortunately, that in order to make a thermonuclear device, you need some difficult-to-obtain raw materials. You need highly enriched uranium or plutonium.
Daniel: Sure. Male #8: How would you contrast that to the thrillers of the '60s and the '70s, where the President has immediate launch decision for thermonuclear warheads and there's nobody
event? What is the right thing to do?" Daniel: Have you not seen "Forbes?" The--. You're talking about thermonuclear war, or