”could a couple of non-experts, with brains but no access to classified research, crack the ’nuclear secret’? /…/ As Stober’s study noted, the two amateurs were ironically aided by information published as part of President Dwight Eisenhower’s ’Atoms for Peace’ program, which spread word of the benefits of non-military nuclear power around the world. And Atoms for Peace was only the most prominent example of a fad for everything nuclear that propelled a huge amount of technical detail into the public domain.” How two students built an A-bomb (Guardian unlimited).
[Via kottke.org.]