The unbilled star of the film Oppenheimer is a metal monster named Gadget. Hoisted to the top of a spindly tower in a New Mexico desert, Gadget resembles a heavy-plated diving bell bristling with cords and wires. Its creation required three years, $2.2 billion, and the labor of 130,000 workers. Gadget’s hulking ugliness belies its extraordinary power. If Gadget works as designed, conventional explosives packed within it will detonate, compress plutonium in the center, and produce a fission chain reaction.
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