Restricted Data
by Alex Wellerstein · first published 2021
42% recommend58% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Traces the history of nuclear secrecy in the United States and how classification policy shaped what the public could know about nuclear weapons. Recommended to readers interested in nuclear weapons history.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
The first full history of US nuclear secrecy, from its origins in the late 1930s to our post–Cold War present. The American atomic bomb was born in secrecy. From the moment scientists first conceived of its possibility to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and beyond, there were efforts to control the spread of nuclear information and the newly discovered scientific facts that made such powerful weapons possible. The totalizing scientific secrecy that the atomic bomb appeared to demand was new, unusual, and very nearly unprecedented. It was foreign to American science and American democ
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"Restricted Data: The History of Nuclear Secrecy in the United States", on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/022602038X
on “10 Years of Nukemap” ↗The article mentions Alex Wellerstein, who I cannot recommend highly enough for anyone interested in nuclear weapons. He runs the Restricted Data blog,[1] which is excellent and well worth the hours of reading you can spend there. He's probably most famous for NUKEMAP.[2] 1: http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/ 2: http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/…
on “1950s U.S. Nuclear Target List Offers Chilling Insight (2015)” ↗C&C is excellent. Restricted Data by Alex Wellerstein is a fascinating history of nuclear secrecy. Also known as the NUKEMAP guy. The Dead Hand by David Hoffman is also amazing and covers chemical and bio weapons as well. It has a good…
on “Ask HN: What happens if a nuclear missile is air-destroyed before detonation?” ↗See also "Restricted Data: The History of Nuclear Secrecy in the United States" by Alex Wellerstein.
on “Growing up in "404 Not Found": China's nuclear city in the Gobi Desert” ↗…Declassification was the only thing that allowed to develop industrial-scale nuclear power and do a huge number of other innovations. I advise taking a pause to cool down from all the AI hype and read Restricted Data: The History of Nuclear Secrecy in the United States by Alex Wellerstein, to understand the atmosphere in the US scientific community at the time (it was similar in the USSR, which industrial history…
on “OpenAI's accidental cyberattack against Hugging Face is science fiction” ↗For those interested, Restricted Data is a fascinating book in this vein.
on “Two students built an A-bomb (2003)” ↗> Well, no German or Japanese spies, which were presumably the primary worry at the time. Funnily it seems it was not! My source is a book titled "Restricted Data" by Alex Wellerstein which chronicles the history of nuclear secrecy in the USA. It really seems that at least initially the biggest worry for those tasked to maintain the security were leaks to Congress/Senate.…
on “The curious death of Oppenheimer’s mistress (2015)” ↗…and advances by John Nuckolls from early laser-based fusion research in the 1960s(!) were fed back into H-Bomb research. These fields are surprisingly related. For details, see Alex Wellerstein's book "Restricted Data", chapter 7.
on “Lawrence Livermore claims a milestone in laser fusion” ↗…have done with Japan? Invade? Blockade/starve? Not go for unconditional surrender? Other? What is (was) the alternative? And I'm aware of the author of the article, Wellerstein, having read his book Restricted Data: The History of Nuclear Secrecy in the United States. He's also the creator of the Nukemap website: * https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/
on “The Third Atomic Bomb” ↗Both are excellent books. Further Reading: “Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety” by Eric Schlosser “Nuclear War: A Scenario” by Annie Jacobsen “Restricted Data: A Nuclear History Blog” by Alex Wellerstein; https://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/ Technical reference. https://nuclearweaponarchive.org/
on “The Albuquerque "Broken Arrow" Nuclear Accident” ↗'Restricted Data: The History of Nuclear Secrecy in the United States', Alex Wellerstein. > "Over the course of this book, we have looked at some eighty years of this history. We have seen how the idea of nuclear secrecy…
on “Ask HN: What are you reading?” ↗I just learned from the blog that the author also published a book on the history of nuclear secrecy last year. I've read the introduction and am very excited to go through more (Books title is Restricted Data)
on “10 Years of Nukemap” ↗The author is a historian whose main published work is the book Restricted Data: The History of Nuclear Secrecy in the United States. He isn't very interested in the information itself; he's interested in where it comes from and in the process that led to its release. It's notable…
on “Did Sandia use a thermonuclear secondary in a product logo?” ↗