John Nuckolls is best known for the development of inertial confinement fusion, which is a major branch of fusion power research to this day.
12 Facts About John Nuckolls
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John Nuckolls was the lab's director from 1988 until 1994, when he resigned to become an associate director at large.
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John Nuckolls was awarded the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award in 1969, the James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics in 1981, the Edward Teller Award in 1991, the Department of Energy Distinguished Associate Award in 1995, the Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996 by Fusion Power Associates, the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service in 1996, and the Enrico Fermi Presidential Award in 2024.
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John Nuckolls received his BSc from Wheaton College in 1953, and his MSc from Columbia University in 1955.
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John Nuckolls initially worked in "A Division", responsible for nuclear weapon design.
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John Nuckolls joined the Project Plowshare efforts in 1957 after attending a meeting on the topic arranged by Edward Teller.
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John Nuckolls began work on weapon designs that minimized the amount of fission and maximized the fusion, in order to reduce the radioactive byproducts of peaceful explosions.
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John Nuckolls was struck by the huge size of the caverns needed to contain the explosions and the accumulation of fissile material from exploded primaries that would render them highly radioactive.
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John Nuckolls began to wonder if these problems could be solved by scaling down the explosions.
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John Nuckolls noticed that as the secondary became very small, on the order of milligrams, the energy needed to start the reaction began to fall into the kilojoule range.
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In 1975, John Nuckolls was promoted to become the Associate Leader of the Laser Fusion Program, as well as the Divisional Leader of the "X-group" that designed the fuel targets.
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Early in his tenure, John Nuckolls joined Lowell Wood and Edward Teller in a visit to the White House to brief President George Bush Sr.