A closer look
The 1954 Castle Bravo nuclear test was supposed to be a modest 6-megaton explosion. Instead, the scientists accidentally unleashed a 15-megaton apocalyptic fireball that vaporized three islands and poisoned fishermen 80 miles away. The culprit behind this massive screw-up? They fundamentally misunderstood lithium. They assumed the lithium-7 isotope in the bomb's fuel was completely inert and would just sit there. Unfortunately, high-energy neutrons caused the lithium-7 to aggressively undergo fission, producing a tidal wave of extra tritium and fueling a runaway fusion reaction.
