Enrico Fermi and Edward Teller were not, however, the first to conceive of using a nuclear chain reaction to initiate a thermonuclear reaction in hydrogen. That distinction apparently belongs to Japanese physicist Tokutaro Hagiwara of the faculty of science of the University of Kyoto. Hagiwara had followed world fission research and had conducted studies of his own. In May 1941 he lectured on “Super-explosive U235,” reviewing existing knowledge.1468, 1469 He was aware that an explosive chain reaction depended on U235 and understood the necessity of isotope separation: “Because of the potential
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