A closer look
The difference between a peaceful afternoon and a nuclear holocaust hinges on a glass tube no bigger than your thumb. The krytron is an absurdly fast, cold-cathode gas-filled tube designed to switch extreme voltages in fractions of a microsecond. Because they happen to be the exact, highly precise components needed to detonate the explosive lenses in a nuclear weapon simultaneously, attempting to export these obscure little lightbulbs will get you a very aggressive, heavily armed visit from federal agents.
