Appreciation Post to Alex Wellerstein, a historian who specializes in the history of nuclear weapons and nuclear secrecy.

The sources/visualizations below are either derived from his blog or inspired by them.

Faces of Project Y – A secret laboratory created by the Manhattan Project and operated by the University of California during WW2.

How big was K-25? Since this link does not appear to work anymore, you can find more details here about K-25.

American Nuclear War Plan, 1956. This information is from a declassified 1956 US Strategic Air Command nuclear war plan. Target data obtained by the National Security Archive using the Freedom of Information Act. Digitized by the Future of Life Institute. Rendered with NUKEMAP by Alex Wellerstein.

Since Google discontinued support and operation of the Google Earth Browser Plugin in 2015-2016 for NUKEMAP3D, an alternative has been created which can be viewed here also known as Nukemap illustrating a mapping mash-up that calculates the effects of the detonation of a nuclear bomb created by Alex Wellerstein himself.

Missilemap by Alex Wellerstein – interactive data visualization.

Reinventing Civil Defense: A Project at the Stevens Institute of Technology

Here is a Document list derived from Allex Wellerstein’s nuclear secrecy blog related to nuclear weapons.

Unmaking the bomb (book written on fissile material approach to nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation) sample chapter found here

Oppenheimer: Vacated but not vindicated article based upon this article (around the end of December 2022) that discusses how the Department of Energy officially vacated the Atomic Energy Commission decision that stripped J. Robert Oppenheimer of his security clearance in 1954. More articles here: U.S. Reverses 1954 Removal of J. Robert Oppenheimer’s Security Clearance and US voids 1954 revoking of J Robert Oppenheimer’s security clearance (old articles)

Critical Assembly Simulator – interactive visualization of the concept of “critical mass”

World Stockpiles of Fissile Material – static rendering of the volume taken up by the amount of enriched uranium and separated plutonium in the world, broken into bomb-sized chunks.

Courtesy of Alex Wellerstein*