Cooling the atmosphere

Abstract

This is a paper on experimental studies performed in the 1940s at the University of Notre Dame accelerator laboratory to investigate radiation effects on materials and also to probe the efficiency of atmospheric cooling of the fireball created by a nuclear fission device. This was a critical question to be addressed during the early phases in the development of the Manhattan project, which was again raised in the film Oppenheimer, posing the question whether “a bomb can set the atmosphere on fire.” This paper brings forth the formerly classified reaction studies performed at Notre Dame's Nuclear Science Laboratory to answer this question.