Inventor of the hydrogen bomb in the USSR. H-bomb

22.09.2019

His ambiguous fate reflected the complexity modern history: he developed the most terrible weapon and received the Nobel Peace Prize.

Between the world and science?

RDS-6s is the name of the first hydrogen bomb created in the Soviet Union. The development was led by Andrei Sakharov and Julius Khariton. "Fire mushroom" was first seen at the Semipalatinsk test site on August 12, 1953. For this work, Sakharov received the title of Academician and Hero of Socialist Labor.

The scientist himself said this: “We proceeded from the fact that this work is practically a war for peace. We worked with great effort, with great courage ... Over time, my position changed in many ways, I overestimated a lot, but still I do not regret this initial period of work, in which I took an active part with my comrades ... I think that, on the whole, progress is a movement necessary in the life of mankind. He creates new problems, but he also solves them... I hope that this critical period of human history will be overcome by humanity. This is a kind of test that humanity is holding. Survival test.

Is repentance necessary?

Victor Astafiev wrote about Sakharov: “Having created a weapon that would burn the planet, he did not repent. Such a small trick - to die a hero, having committed a crime.
Ales Adamovich believed that Andrei Sakharov's social activities were his kind of repentance before the world, but the scientist himself never admitted this: “Today, thermonuclear weapons have never been used against people in war. My most passionate dream (deeper than anything else) is that this will never happen, that thermonuclear weapons will deter war but never be used.”

Is it just a bomb?

In addition to work on the hydrogen bomb, Sakharov proved his scientific worth by the fact that he is the author of the theory of baryon asymmetry of the Universe, induced gravity. Andrei Dmitrievich was engaged in magnetic hydrodynamics, plasma physics, and elementary particles. He did not look like an evil genius, but rather like a person completely immersed in science, whom everyday, everyday life does not hurt much. One of his employees, Yu. N. Smirnov, writes in his memoirs: “He was seen in boots belonging to different pairs. Once at the training ground, he surprised many with a large round neckline on the top of one of his shoes. The explanation turned out to be unexpectedly simple: the sting was unbearable and Andrei Dmitrievich had to use scissors ... "

Can a signature help?

Andrei Dmitrievich was one of those who signed the letter on behalf of a group of Soviet scientists. It is now known as the Letter of the Three Hundred. This appeal was sent to the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU on October 11, 1955.

The scientists who signed were concerned about the state of biology in the country. The letter became Starting point to end the "Lysenkoism": D. Lysenko and his associates were dismissed from senior positions associated with the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. So scientists proved that they, and not just politicians, can be a force.

Reasons for the fall?

Sakharov, in addition to scientific work, was known for his human rights activities. In June 1968, his article "Reflections on Progress, Peaceful Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom" appeared abroad. In it, he expressed concerns about the dehumanization of humanity and crimes against freedom. He advocated the abolition of censorship and political courts, condemned the trials of dissidents.

As a result, Sakharov was removed from work and dismissed from all posts.

Why was the Nobel Peace Prize awarded?

On October 9, 1975, Sakharov was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The wording was: "For the fearless support of the fundamental principles of peace between people and the courageous struggle against the abuse of power and any form of suppression of human dignity." His Nobel Lecture was titled "Peace, Progress, Human Rights". In it, Sakharov said the following: “It is important that only in an atmosphere of intellectual freedom is it possible efficient system education and creative continuity of generations. On the contrary, intellectual lack of freedom, the power of a dull bureaucracy, conformism, first destroying the humanitarian fields of knowledge, literature and art, then inevitably lead to a general intellectual decline, bureaucratization and formalization of the entire education system, to the decline of scientific research, the disappearance of the atmosphere of creative search, to stagnation and decay. ".

Connection to the CIA?

For many years there has been a debate about whether Sakharov was an agent of influence of the CIA. Copies of declassified documents are provided. For example, the analytical note "Sakharov and Solzhenitsyn: the Soviet dilemma", dated September 26, 1973. It says that Sakharov was able to "turn his fate into an international problem" and, through his publications, helped provoke a reaction that called into question the "Soviet policy of détente."

Academician Dmitry Likhachev said of Sakharov: “He was a real prophet. A prophet in the ancient, primordial sense of the word, that is, a person who calls his contemporaries to moral renewal for the sake of the future. And, like any prophet, he was not understood and was expelled from his people.

“The other day in the Soviet Union, for test purposes, an explosion of one of the types of a hydrogen bomb was carried out. The test showed that the power of the hydrogen bomb is many times greater than the power of atomic bombs, ”such a message appeared on August 20, 1953 in Pravda.

It was the end of summer, the Soviet people were busy with their everyday life- only a few months had passed since the death of Joseph Stalin, the country was entering a new post-Stalin era. However, the military confrontation between the former allies - the USSR and the USA - did not stop, but flared up with renewed vigor. The world expected a new war, perhaps more terrible than the previous ones, and a new formidable weapon was supposed - so, at least, its creators hoped - to keep the peace.

The new weapon is the hydrogen bomb, which was worked on by outstanding Soviet physicists. It was named RDS-6. The country has mastered military technologies that until recently seemed unthinkable.

Success in the creation of the hydrogen bomb followed the success in the creation of the atomic bomb, which was tested in the USSR in 1949. But it was impossible to stop - a year later, the US President signed a memorandum on the creation of more powerful and advanced weapons.

The fact that the former allies are working on a thermonuclear program was learned in the USSR from different sources: hints of this appeared both in the open press and were confirmed by intelligence data. True, when one of the Soviet physicists asked the Danish physicist Niels Bohr about the "superbomb", he seemed to not immediately understand what was at stake, and suggested that the creation of a bomb from the "new substance" seemed "unreal" to him.

At the same time, the USSR thought differently - at the end of 1945, after the war, a team of scientists led by the outstanding physicist Yakov Zeldovich wrote the first proposals on thermonuclear topics. This topic was also of interest to the young physicist Andrey, who in 1948 completed his first work on the study of thermonuclear fusion.

In the same year, in his research, Sakharov came up with the first revolutionary ideas, which would later become the basis for creating a hydrogen bomb.

It was about the famous Sakharov puff, where cheap uranium 238 was used as one of the main materials for the bomb. The main source of energy release in the puff was the process of fission of U-238 nuclei by thermonuclear neutrons, the scientists wrote.

Sakharov's proposals were reported to the chief political curator of the Soviet atomic project, Lavrenty Beria. He approved the idea, as the scientists very clearly explained to him the principle of the puff. In 1950, Sakharov began working in the team of physicist Igor Tamm on the creation of the first Soviet "superbomb".

Work proceeded at an accelerated pace, as evidenced by the constant reports of scientists to their formidable curator Beria. In November 1952, the United States tested its own hydrogen bomb - its power was 1,000 times greater than the power of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. However, despite this, the American bomb was useless as a military weapon - it was not suitable for transportation, as it had an enormous weight.

At the same time, the American tests worried Stalin, who showed an active interest in working on the RDS-6 - ironically, the first bomb tests were to take place in March 1953, this was the last month for the Soviet leader.

“For all people on earth, this was the year of the death of Stalin and the important events leading to great changes in our country and around the world. For us at the facility, this was also the year of completion of preparations for the first thermonuclear test and the test itself, ”Sakharov himself wrote in his memoirs.

In June 1953, Beria, whose power only grew stronger after Stalin's death, signed a decree on the RDS-6 test program.

And shortly before them, Pravda published a statement by the USSR government, which in modern language can be quite called “trolling”: “The government considers it necessary to report Supreme Council that the United States is not a monopoly in the production of the hydrogen bomb."

The bomb tests took place at the Semipalatinsk test site - it took place at 7 hours 30 minutes - a powerful explosion of deafening power was heard for many kilometers. “I tore off my glasses and, although I was blinded by the change of darkness into light, I managed to see an expanding huge cloud, under which crimson dust spread. Then the cloud, which turned gray, began to quickly separate from the ground and rise up, swirling and sparkling with orange glimpses. Gradually, it formed, as it were, a “mushroom hat”. It was connected to the ground by a “mushroom stem”, incredibly thick compared to what we are used to seeing in photographs of ordinary atomic explosions,” academician Sakharov describes this terrible and grandiose moment in his memoirs.

Many years later, Sakharov would become one of the symbols of the dissident movement in the USSR and go into exile in Gorky for many years.

However, when criticizing the actions of the Politburo and discussing the problems of the Soviet system, he will always believe that he did the right thing when he became one of the main fathers of the hydrogen bomb:

“Today, thermonuclear weapons have never been used against people in war. My most passionate dream (deeper than anything else) is that this never happens, that thermonuclear weapons deter war but are never used.”

It is well known that Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov, an academician, dissident and human rights activist, is considered the creator of the hydrogen bomb. In 1947 he defended his PhD, and already in 1948 he was enrolled in a special group and until 1968 he worked in the development of thermonuclear weapons. At the same time, together with I. E. Tamm in 1950-51. made pioneering work on controlled thermonuclear reaction.

Sakharov was the real pride of the Soviet scientific school, because the Tsar Bomba, with its explosion, ensured for a long time the military parity of the Soviet Union in the arms race. However, in the late 60s, he already took the path of "freedom and democracy", and in 1972 he married a Jewish woman Bonner, who, due to natural talent in "these cases", contributed to the writing of the book "On the Country and the World", for which Andrei Dmitrievich received the Nobel Prize, I quote: "For the fearless support of the fundamental principles of peace among men and the courageous struggle against the abuse of power and any form of suppression of human dignity". That is, the world luminary became one of the founders of the human rights movement, which eventually played a role in the destruction of the Soviet Union, but without Sakharov himself - he died in the midst of perestroika, in 1989.

Let's think about what role Andrei Dmitrievich played in this story.
1. He was considered a major nuclear scientist, the father of the Tsar Bomba, the most important "argument" in the confrontation with the West;
2. The first paragraph gave him an implicit guarantee of immunity. He had the opportunity to openly criticize the actions of the Soviet leadership on the podium, "and he got nothing for it." This is not Okudzhava, who had to constantly "lick up", there was a whole gang of such bards, and academicians of nuclear physicists could be counted on the fingers.
3. Marrying a Jewish woman with potential CIA connections. It is known that Bonner had a huge influence on Sakharov: when the academician "free-thinkingly" tried to somehow note the positive role of the then government in helping scientists, Sakharov's son, Dmitry, wrote from his wife (I quote): "... for each such remark, he immediately received a slap in the face on his bald head ... At the same time, the world luminary resignedly endured cracks, and it was clear that he was used to them". Dmitry tried for a long time to understand why it so happened that a loving father suddenly moved away from him and his sisters, marrying Elena Bonner. Why did he succumb to Bonner's persuasion to go on a hunger strike so that her daughter Lisa could fly to America:

Later I tried to talk to my father about this subject. He answered in monosyllables: it was necessary. Only to whom? Of course, Elena Bonner, it was she who egged him on. He loved her recklessly, like a child, and was ready for anything for her, even death. Bonner understood how strong her influence was, and used it.
Elena Georgievna knew perfectly well how disastrous hunger strikes were for the pope, and she perfectly understood what was pushing him to the grave. The hunger strike really did not go in vain for Sakharov: immediately after this action, the academician suffered a spasm of cerebral vessels.
Employees of Andrei Sakharov on the "box" do not like to remember Elena Georgievna. They believe that if not for her, then, perhaps, Sakharov could return to science.

Speculation on the name of a great scientist is an obvious motive for this marriage. As grandfather Klimov said: "Sakharov was a Shabes goy." It is also important that now the widow Elena Bonner heads the human rights activist's fund, and this fund at one time received 3 million dollars from Berezovsky. This money, originally Russian, was transferred to the United States, and the fund is engaged in commercial activities. Sakharov's daughter from her second marriage, who lives in Boston, received another one and a half million from the American government. In general, as usual, yes.

Now, the most important question: was Sakharov really the father of the hydrogen bomb? After all, if then, in the 70s, this fact was called into question, then Sakhorov's authority would fall to zero, and no one would fuss with him.

Start over. Oleg Lavrentiev was born in 1926 in Pskov and was a very smart Russian boy. After all, having read the book "Introduction to Nuclear Physics" in the 7th grade, he immediately caught fire with the "blue dream of working in the field of nuclear energy." After the war, he served his military service in South Sakhalin, where he subscribed to the journal Uspekhi Fizicheskikh Nauk. In 1948, he prepared a lecture for the personnel on the atomic problem:

Having a few free days to prepare, I rethought all the accumulated material and found a solution to the issues that I had been struggling with for more than one year, - says Oleg Alexandrovich. - In 1949, in one year, I completed the 8th, 9th and 10th grades of the evening school for working youth and received a matriculation certificate. In January 1950, the American president, speaking before Congress, called on US scientists to complete work on the hydrogen bomb as soon as possible. And I knew how to make a bomb.

Yes, he knew, and already in 1948 he wrote a letter to Stalin in one line: "I know the secret of the hydrogen bomb!" He was given all the conditions for work. Lavrentiev described the principle of operation of a hydrogen bomb, where solid lithium deuteride was used as a fuel. This choice made it possible to make a compact charge - quite "on the shoulder" of the aircraft. The sergeant proposed a revolutionary solution at that time - a force field could act as a shell for high-temperature plasma. The first option is electric. In the atmosphere of secrecy that surrounded everything connected with atomic weapons, Lavrentiev not only understood the device and principle of operation atomic bomb, which in his project served as a fuse that initiated a thermonuclear explosion, but also anticipated the idea of compactness by proposing to use solid lithium-6 deuteride as a fuel.
He did not know that his message was very promptly sent for review to the then Candidate of Sciences, and later Academician and three times Hero of Socialist Labor A. Sakharov, who already in August commented on the idea of controlled thermonuclear fusion: “... I believe that the author raises a very important and not hopeless problem ... I consider it necessary to discuss in detail the project of Comrade. Lavrentiev. Regardless of the results of the discussion, it is necessary to note the creative initiative of the author right now.”
Feedback from A.D. Sakharov for the work of Lavrentiev (From the Archive of the President of the Russian Federation)
But 1953 came. Stalin dies, Beria is shot, and on August 12, a thermonuclear charge using lithium deuteride is successfully tested in the USSR. Participants in the creation of new weapons receive state awards, titles and prizes, and Lavrentiev - nothing:

- At the university, they not only stopped giving me an increased scholarship, but also “turned out” the tuition fee for the past year, in fact, leaving me without a livelihood, - says Oleg Aleksandrovich. - I made my way to an appointment with the new dean and, in complete confusion, I heard: “Your benefactor is dead. What do you want?. At the same time, my admission to LIPAN was withdrawn, and I lost my permanent pass to the laboratory, where, according to an earlier agreement, I had to undergo undergraduate practice, and subsequently work. If the scholarship was later restored, then I never received admission to the institute.

In other words, Sakharov and Tamm had no need to share their discovery with anyone.
As Sakharov wrote:

This time I drove alone. In the waiting room of Beria, however, I saw Oleg Lavrentiev - he was recalled from the fleet. Both of us were invited to Beria.

Beria, even with some insinuatingness, asked me what I thought of Lavrentiev's proposal. I repeated my review. Beria asked several questions to Lavrentiev, then let him go. I didn't see him again.

In the 70s, I received a letter from him in which he said that he was working as a senior researcher at some applied research institute, and asked me to send documents confirming the fact of his proposal in 1950 and my review of that time. He wanted to issue a certificate of invention. I didn’t have anything on hand, I wrote from memory and sent it to him, having officially certified my letter in the office of the FIAN. For some reason my first letter didn't get through. At Lavrentiev's request, I sent him a second letter. I don't know anything more about him. Maybe then, in the mid-1950s, Lavrentiev should have been given a small laboratory and given him freedom of action. But all the LIPAN people were convinced that nothing but trouble, including for him, would come of it.

Well, in the 70s, Sakharov could not even take a step without Bonner, so there may not have been a response letter.

Despite several publications made by specialists on the basis of a publication in the journal "Uspekhi fizicheskikh nauk" and personal memoirs of Oleg Lavrentiev published in Novosibirsk, a scientist from Akademgorodok V. Sekerin published articles (in "Duel" and in "Miracles and Adventures"), where professionally proved the existence of a direct withdrawal by "luminaries from physics" of the solution on the hydrogen bomb, obtained by a simple radio operator. The articles also provide references to the secret order of L. Beria to include Oleg Lavrentiev among the developers of nuclear weapons as the initiator of the main concept of the solution. Alas, the recognition of such a seemingly obvious fact is still very far away.

The bottom line is that Sakharov is an unscrupulous scientist and a victim of political manipulation. And the Russian scientist Oleg Lavrentiev never achieved official recognition. Neither Wikipedia nor any other popular encyclopedia lists his name. However, this is the usual fate of many Russian geniuses.

One day - one truth" url="https://diletant.media/one-day/26522782/">

7 countries with nuclear weapons form a nuclear club. Each of these states spent millions to create their own atomic bomb. Development has been going on for years. But without the gifted physicists who were assigned to conduct research in this area, nothing would have happened. About these people in today's Diletant selection. media.

Robert Oppenheimer

The parents of the man under whose leadership the world's first atomic bomb was created had nothing to do with science. Oppenheimer's father was a textile trader, and his mother was an artist. Robert graduated early from Harvard, took a course in thermodynamics and became interested in experimental physics.

After several years of work in Europe, Oppenheimer moved to California, where he lectured for two decades. When the Germans discovered the fission of uranium in the late 1930s, the scientist thought about the problem of nuclear weapons. Since 1939, he was actively involved in the creation of the atomic bomb as part of the Manhattan Project and directed the laboratory at Los Alamos.

In the same place, on July 16, 1945, Oppenheimer's "brainchild" was first tested. "I have become death, the destroyer of worlds," said the physicist after the test.

A few months later, atomic bombs were dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Oppenheimer has since insisted on the use of atomic energy exclusively for peaceful purposes. Having become a defendant in a criminal case because of his unreliability, the scientist was removed from secret developments. He died in 1967 from cancer of the larynx.

Igor Kurchatov

The USSR acquired its own atomic bomb four years later than the Americans. It was not without the help of scouts, but the merits of the scientists working in Moscow should not be underestimated. Atomic research was led by Igor Kurchatov. His childhood and youth were spent in the Crimea, where he first trained as a locksmith. Then he graduated from the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of the Tauride University, continued to study in Petrograd. There he entered the laboratory of the famous Abram Ioffe.

Kurchatov took over the Soviet nuclear project when he was only 40 years old. Years of painstaking work involving leading experts have brought long-awaited results. The first nuclear weapon in our country called RDS-1 was tested at the test site in Semipalatinsk on August 29, 1949.

The experience accumulated by Kurchatov and his team allowed the Soviet Union to subsequently launch the world's first industrial nuclear power plant, as well as a nuclear reactor for a submarine and an icebreaker, which no one had been able to do before.

Andrey Sakharov

The hydrogen bomb appeared first in the United States. But the American sample was the size of a three-story house and weighed more than 50 tons. Meanwhile, the RDS-6s product, created by Andrei Sakharov, weighed only 7 tons and could fit on a bomber.

During the war, Sakharov, while in evacuation, graduated with honors from Moscow State University. He worked as an engineer-inventor at a military plant, then entered the FIAN graduate school. Under the leadership of Igor Tamm, he worked in a research group for the development of thermonuclear weapons. Sakharov came up with the basic principle of the Soviet hydrogen bomb - puff.

Tests of the first Soviet hydrogen bomb took place in 1953

The first Soviet hydrogen bomb was tested near Semipalatinsk in 1953. To assess the destructive capabilities, a city was built on the site from industrial and administrative buildings.

Since the late 1950s, Sakharov devoted much time to human rights activities. He condemned the arms race, criticized the communist government, spoke in favor of the abolition of death penalty and against forced psychiatric treatment for dissidents. Opposed to enter Soviet troops to Afghanistan. Andrei Sakharov was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and in 1980 he was exiled to Gorky for his beliefs, where he repeatedly went on hunger strikes and from where he was able to return to Moscow only in 1986.

Bertrand Goldschmidt

The ideologist of the French nuclear program was Charles de Gaulle, and the creator of the first bomb was Bertrand Goldschmidt. Before the start of the war, the future specialist studied chemistry and physics, joined Marie Curie. The German occupation and the attitude of the Vichy government towards the Jews forced Goldschmidt to stop his studies and emigrate to the United States, where he collaborated first with American and then with Canadian colleagues.

In 1945, Goldschmidt became one of the founders of the French Atomic Energy Commission. The first test of the bomb created under his leadership took place only 15 years later - in the south-west of Algeria.

Qian Sanqiang

The PRC joined the club of nuclear powers only in October 1964. Then the Chinese tested their own atomic bomb with a capacity of more than 20 kilotons. Mao Zedong decided to develop this industry after his first trip to Soviet Union. In 1949, Stalin showed the possibilities of nuclear weapons to the great helmsman.

Qian Sanqiang was in charge of the Chinese nuclear project. A graduate of the Physics Department of Tsinghua University, he went to study in France at public expense. He worked at the Radium Institute of the University of Paris. Qian talked a lot with foreign scientists and carried out quite serious research, but he missed his homeland and returned to China, taking several grams of radium as a gift from Irene Curie.

His ambiguous fate reflected the complexity of modern history: he developed the most terrible weapon and received the Nobel Peace Prize.

Between the world and science?

The scientist himself said this: “We proceeded from the fact that this work is practically a war for peace. We worked with great effort, with great courage ... Over time, my position changed in many ways, I overestimated a lot, but still I do not regret this initial period of work, in which I took an active part with my comrades ... I think that on the whole progress is a movement necessary in the life of mankind. He creates new problems, but he also solves them ... I hope that this critical period of human history will be overcome by humanity. This is a kind of test that humanity is holding. Survival test.

Is repentance necessary?

Victor Astafiev wrote about Sakharov: “Having created a weapon that would burn the planet, he did not repent. Such a little trick is to die a hero by committing a crime.” Ales Adamovich believed that Andrei Sakharov's social activities were his kind of repentance before the world, but the scientist himself never admitted this: “Today, thermonuclear weapons have never been used against people in war. My most passionate dream (deeper than anything else) is that this will never happen, that thermonuclear weapons will deter war but never be used.”

Is it just a bomb?

In addition to work on the hydrogen bomb, Sakharov proved his scientific worth by the fact that he is the author of the theory of baryon asymmetry of the Universe, induced gravity. Andrei Dmitrievich was engaged in magnetic hydrodynamics, plasma physics, and elementary particles. He did not look like an evil genius, but rather like a person completely immersed in science, whom everyday, everyday life does not hurt much. One of his employees, Yu. N. Smirnov, writes in his memoirs: “He was seen in boots belonging to different pairs. Once at the training ground, he surprised many with a large round neckline on the top of one of his shoes. The explanation turned out to be unexpectedly simple: the leg was unbearably stinging and Andrei Dmitrievich had to use scissors ... "

Can a signature help?

The scientists who signed were concerned about the state of biology in the country. The letter became the starting point for the end of the "Lysenkoism": D. Lysenko and his associates were fired from senior positions associated with the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. So scientists proved that they, and not just politicians, can be a force.

Reasons for the fall?

As a result, Sakharov was removed from work and dismissed from all posts.

Why was the Nobel Peace Prize awarded?

On October 9, 1975, Sakharov was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The wording was: "For the fearless support of the fundamental principles of peace between people and the courageous struggle against the abuse of power and any form of suppression of human dignity." His Nobel Lecture was titled "Peace, Progress, Human Rights". In it, Sakharov said the following: “It is important that only in an atmosphere of intellectual freedom is an effective system of education and creative continuity of generations possible. On the contrary, intellectual lack of freedom, the power of a dull bureaucracy, conformism, first destroying the humanitarian fields of knowledge, literature and art, then inevitably lead to a general intellectual decline, bureaucratization and formalization of the entire education system, to the decline of scientific research, the disappearance of the atmosphere of creative search, to stagnation and decay. ".