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Alex Wellerstein

@wellerstein.bsky.social

9.7K followers 540 following 2.5K posts

Nuclear historian. Professor at Stevens Institute of Technology. Visiting researcher at Nuclear Knowledges program, Sciences Po (Paris). Author of THE MOST AWFUL RESPONSIBILITY (2025). Creator of NUKEMAP. Blogging at https://doomsdaymachines.net.

doomsdaymachines.net.

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 3d

This took longer to put together than I thought it would, but I finally wrote up a long post on the inventories of highly-enriched uranium and separated plutonium produced during the Manhattan Project. I think I have the exact-ish numbers, finally... blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2025/10/10/m...

Manhattan Project fissile material inventories

Reconstructing the quantities of enriched uranium and plutonium produced during the Manhattan Project.

blog.nuclearsecrecy.com

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 22h

"Also, if you let ChatGPT write your drafts, you’re a hack, sorry." — this is the part that I don't get, really. I get why people who don't do writing for a living think that ChatGPT lets them skip a bunch of steps. But I don't get how a professional writer could use it with any self respect?

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 1d

(Time to invest in sticks and stones...)

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 1d

This is the one that will be fought with sticks and stones, I hear

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 1d

I believe an early, discarded version was "DROP IT LIKE IT'S HOT." There is a song about this, I think.

Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 2d

I like all of these but I think mine might be (and only 3 words): DROP & RUN

Marjorie James Keenan @unenthusiast.com · 2d

In honour of spooky month, share a 4 word horror story that only someone in your profession would understand.

rm -rf ~/

hammancheez @hammancheez.bsky.social · 2d

"The chancellor approved it"

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 2d

The only place I know about (legally) offhand is Kanopy, which has a lot of Wiseman films: www.kanopy.com/en/product/m...

Kanopy - Stream Classic Cinema, Indie Film and Top Documentaries

kui

www.kanopy.com

Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 2d

you have to admit that nugget tacos are something that could actually fly in the USA

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 2d

oh Luxembourg. what have you done?

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 2d

Depends on whether they did composites or not. There are a range of numbers, but several. And also what kinds of targets they'd use — Marshall was commissioning studies for using them in more "tactical" ways, not against cities, for the invasion.

Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 3d

I updated my post with one more graph — converting those fissile material numbers to "weapon equivalents," including different possibilities for composite core weapons.

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 3d

I think 1:80 is just about the fact that plutonium atoms are ~80X heavier than tritium atoms. So assuming one neutron per atom, you end up with 80X more plutonium by mass than tritium as the most efficient case. So maybe other ratios are just more precise about exact molar mass differences?

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 3d

Just Los Alamos I think — you can read it here: stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/131...

CDC Stacks

The Stephen B. Thacker CDC Library offers a diverse and extensive library collection that includes material in all areas of public health and disease and injury prevention, as well as other subjects i...

stacks.cdc.gov

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 3d

LAHDRA was about radiation and chemical exposures, so they were pulling together all of the documents that shed light on such exposures at Los Alamos and outside of it.

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 3d

It is good for the first 50 years... but not so much for the first 1-2 years 😂

(because it aggregates them into one data point, if I recall)

Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 3d

Manhattan Project fissile material inventories

Reconstructing the quantities of enriched uranium and plutonium produced during the Manhattan Project.

blog.nuclearsecrecy.com

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 4d

In Luxembourg for the Society for the History of Technology (SHOT) annual meeting at the University of Luxembourg at Belval. Which used to be a steel mill? Huh.

Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 6d

My goal is to live long enough for conservatives to start arguing that Trump was actually a liberal Communist...

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 8d

among other things

Reposted by Alex Wellerstein

Jeffrey Lewis @armscontrolwonk.bsky.social · 10d

🥖🍷🇫🇷

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Reposted by Alex Wellerstein

Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 12d

Some schools will be starved of resources. Other schools will be offered bribes. The end goal is the same. To make the universities an extension of the Trump administration. Shame on any of these institutions willing to take the bribes.

Letters on Wednesday were going out to solicit agreement and feedback from Vanderbilt University, Dartmouth College, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Southern California, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Texas, the University of Arizona, Brown University and the University of Virginia, according to an administration official.

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 12d

love his calm expression, and the slightly-interested woman behind him, while cities burn

Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 12d

It's so bad

Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 12d

Lots of slides... the Missile Command one is page 459.

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 12d

www.scribd.com/doc/61068592...

ICBM Training Material | PDF

Source: https://www.efoia.af.mil/palMain.aspx Published date: 7/20/2011 10:24:15 AM

www.scribd.com

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