[octoberfranklin]

> produce at least a small nuclear explosion

The Manhattan Project scientists actually did this before anybody broke ground at Los Alamos. It was called the Chicago Pile. And if the control rods were removed and the SCRAM disabled, it absolutely would have created a "small nuclear explosion" in the middle of a major university campus.

Given the level of hype and how long it's been going on, I think it's totally reasonable for the wider world to ask the quantum crypto-breaking people to build a Chicago Pile first.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Pile-1

[FiloSottile]

TIL about the Chicago Pile! (I don't know enough about the physics to tell if it could have indeed exploded.)

> On 2 December 1942

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Pile-1

> on July 16, 1945

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_(nuclear_test)

Two years and a half. This is still a good metaphor for "once you can make a small one, the large one is not far at all."

[rcxdude]

A meltdown is not a nuclear explosion. It's not even what happens if you fail to make a nuke go off properly.

[defrost]

In truth the Chicago Pile crowd were all about power generation and didn't think it was feasible to make a nuclear bomb ..

( Not impossible, more strictly "beyond reach" economically and processing wise, operating on over estimates of the effort and approach )

They ignored letters from Albet Einstein on the topic, they ignored or otherwise disregarded several letters from the Canadian / British MAUD Committee / Tube Alloys group and it took a personal visit from an Australian for them to sit up and take note that such a thing was actually within reach .. although it'd take some man power and a few challenges along the way.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAUD_Committee is one place to start on all that.

[tptacek]

What? No. No matter what anybody did with the Chicago Pile, it would never have produced a small version of a nuclear detonation.