• Nuclear technology is technology that involves the nuclear reactions of atomic nuclei. Among the notable nuclear technologies are nuclear reactors, nuclear medicine and nuclear weapons. It is also used, among other things, in smoke detectors and gun sights. (Full article...)
  
• Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions to produce electricity. Nuclear power can be obtained from nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently, the vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced by nuclear fission of uranium and plutonium in nuclear power plants. Nuclear decay processes are used in niche applications such as radioisotope thermoelectric generators in some space probes such as Voyager 2. Reactors producing controlled fusion power have been operated since 1958 but have yet to generate net power and are not expected to be commercially available in the near future. (Full article...)
  
• A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either nuclear fission (fission or atomic bomb) or a combination of fission and nuclear fusion reactions (thermonuclear weapon), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb types release large quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. Nine sovereign states are believed to possess nuclear weapons as of 2026^[update]: the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel. (Full article...)

ZETA went into operation in August 1957 and by the end of the month it was giving off bursts of about a million neutrons per pulse. Measurements suggested the fuel was reaching between 1 and 5 million kelvins, a temperature that would produce nuclear fusion reactions, explaining the quantities of neutrons being seen. Early results were leaked to the press in September 1957, and the following January an extensive review was released. Front-page articles in newspapers around the world announced it as a breakthrough towards unlimited energy, a scientific advance for Britain greater than the recently launched Sputnik had been for the Soviet Union.

U.S. and Soviet experiments had also given off similar neutron bursts at temperatures that were not high enough for fusion. This led Lyman Spitzer to express his scepticism of the results, but his comments were dismissed by UK observers as jingoism. Further experiments on ZETA showed that the original temperature measurements were misleading; the bulk temperature was too low for fusion reactions to create the number of neutrons being seen. The claim that ZETA had produced fusion had to be publicly withdrawn, an embarrassing event that cast a chill over the entire fusion establishment. The neutrons were later explained as being the product of instabilities in the fuel. These instabilities appeared inherent to any similar design, and work on the basic pinch concept as a road to fusion power ended by 1961.

Despite ZETA's failure to achieve fusion, the device went on to have a long experimental lifetime and produced numerous important advances in the field. In one line of development, the use of lasers to more accurately measure the temperature was tested on ZETA, and was later used to confirm the results of the Soviet tokamak approach. In another, while examining ZETA test runs it was noticed that the plasma self-stabilised after the power was turned off. This has led to the modern reversed field pinch concept. More generally, studies of the instabilities in ZETA have led to several important theoretical advances that form the basis of modern plasma theory. (Full article...)

• ... that the area of Cultybraggan Camp has been a royal hunting ground, a prison for fervent Nazis and the site of an underground bunker intended for use in a nuclear war?
• ... that John D. Hoffman of the Special Engineer Detachment was awarded the Soldier's Medal, the US Army's highest non-combat decoration and the only one given to a member of the Manhattan District?
• ... that Trump wrote a letter to Ali Khamenei in an effort to initiate new nuclear negotiations with Iran?
• ... that according to witnesses, the plutonium charge in the bomb used in the nuclear weapons test Gerboise Verte was transported in an economy car?
• ... that poet Peggy Pond Church became a strong pacifist and a member of the Society of Friends after the Manhattan Project used her home as a place to build nuclear weapons?
• ... that the role of the British Mobile Defence Corps was to carry out rescue work in the aftermath of a nuclear attack?

• WikiProject Energy
• WikiProject Technology
• WikiProject Military history

A graduate of the University of South Dakota and University of Minnesota, Lawrence obtained a PhD in physics at Yale in 1925. In 1928, he was hired as an associate professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, becoming the youngest full professor there two years later. In its library one evening, Lawrence was intrigued by a diagram of an accelerator that produced high-energy particles. He contemplated how it could be made compact, and came up with an idea for a circular accelerating chamber between the poles of an electromagnet. The result was the first cyclotron.

Lawrence went on to build a series of ever larger and more expensive cyclotrons. His Radiation Laboratory became an official department of the University of California in 1936, with Lawrence as its director. In addition to the use of the cyclotron for physics, Lawrence also supported its use in research into medical uses of radioisotopes. During World War II, Lawrence developed electromagnetic isotope separation at the Radiation Laboratory. It used devices known as calutrons, a hybrid of the standard laboratory mass spectrometer and cyclotron. A huge electromagnetic separation plant was built at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, which came to be called Y-12. The process was inefficient, but it worked.

After the war, Lawrence campaigned extensively for government sponsorship of large scientific programs, and was a forceful advocate of "Big Science", with its requirements for big machines and big money. Lawrence strongly backed Edward Teller's campaign for a second nuclear weapons laboratory, which Lawrence located in Livermore, California. After his death, the Regents of the University of California renamed the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory after him. Chemical element number 103 was named lawrencium in his honor after its discovery at Berkeley in 1961. (Full article...)

15 May 2026 – Middle Eastern crisis

U.S. president Donald Trump says that he is open to accepting Iran's 20-year suspension on their nuclear program if Iran gives a real guarantee. (The Times of Israel)

12 May 2026 – Russo-Ukrainian war

Russian president Vladimir Putin says Russia will deploy new Sarmat nuclear missiles this year. (Reuters)

6 May 2026 – Middle Eastern crisis

Axios reports that Iran and the U.S. are closing in on a one-page memorandum to end the war and set a framework for negotiations regarding Iran's nuclear program. (Axios) (Reuters)

29 April 2026 – Middle Eastern crisis

Anadolu Agency reports that Pakistan is working silently to break the ongoing deadlock between the Iran and the United States in ceasefire talks, including finding a new "formula" for an agreement on the Strait of Hormuz and Tehran's nuclear program. (Pakistan Today)