January 1946 issue: The uranium reaction is reasonably potent, but another one, discovered in 1930 by Lord Rutherford, is nearly twice as powerful, pound for pound, and uses cheap lithium and ordinary hydrogen. It won’t start until a temperature of several million degrees is reached, but the Hiroshima U-235 bomb would make an excellent primer to start the more violent explosion. Campbell anticipated not only the hydrogen bomb, but the lithium hydride method that would be utilized by the Russians seven years later. In many ways, it was the shrewdest guess that he would ever make.
