In Oppenheimer, General Groves (played by Matt Damon) asks the man who made the atom bomb if he was confident that the explosion wouldn’t destroy the entire world. Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) says that he was confident that the probability of that happening was ‘near zero’ to which Groves replies, “zero would be nice.”

The fear, as expressed by another Manhattan Project physicist, Edward Teller, who would later testify against Oppenheimer (destroying his reputation), was that the energy released by the bomb would be so huge as to cause hydrogen atoms in the atmosphere to fuse, releasing even more energy. The ensuing chain reaction would burn down the planet. It was to the probability of this happening that Oppenheimer’s confidence was “near zero”. Apparently, Ed Teller was less sure.

We are literally the living proof that Oppenheimer was right. However, why didn’t the fusion of hydrogen atoms happen as feared? Turns out that the energy released by the atom bomb tested on July 16, 1945 or the two that were dropped on Japan the next month was not enough to get the atmospheric hydrogen atoms to fuse.

Dr Steven Biegalski, Chair of Nuclear and Radiological Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology explains, “The density of fusible atoms and the energy balance prevented it from happening.” But, Biegalski was speaking of the bomb of those days. Today, the world is in possession of much more potent bombs. If one of them is detonated, this time, the destruction may not be local.

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