On August 29th, 1949, the Soviet Union successfully tested its first atomic bomb.

The announcement shocked the world, especially the United States, which predicted the Soviets

wouldn't have nuclear weapons until the mid-1950s. The big question was, how did the Soviets

make the bomb so fast? Well, the Americans inadvertently helped them, as did the resources

they captured during the war. Learn more about how the Soviets got the bomb on this episode

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One of the biggest advances in physics in the first half of the 20th century was the discovery

of the structure of the atom and its nucleus. The discoveries of the nucleus, radiation,

and the identification of radioactive elements were some of the greatest discoveries of the nucleus, radiation, and the identification of radioactive elements

were some of the greatest discoveries of this period. While the Russians were heavily

involved in the physics community at this time, they weren't among the most prominent names,

nor were they the ones making the most significant discoveries. And that's not to say that

Russian physicists weren't good,

just that Russia wasn't the epicenter of the physics world at this point.

The culmination of these discoveries, at least for the purpose of this episode, was the

discovery of nuclear fission in December of 1938 by a German team that included Otto Hahn,

Fritz Strassman, Lisa Meintner, and Otto Frisch.

The discovery was exciting for physicists, and many researchers around the world began their

own independent research into nuclear fission. Most focus on generating power via controlled

fission reactions, but several governments had a different

...