Miscalculated Fallout

On March 1, 1954, the United States detonated a thermonuclear weapon on the Bikini Atoll. The scientists predicted a yield of six megatons. Instead, due to a catastrophic misunderstanding of how the lithium-7 isotope reacted in a fusion environment, the bomb exploded with a force of fifteen megatons-over a thousand times more powerful than Hiroshima. Castle Bravo became the largest nuclear detonat...