Enlarge / In 1953, the eminent physicist and H-bomb advocate took an ill-fated overnight train from Philadelphia to Washington, DC, that would indirectly lead to the Robert Oppenheimer security hearing. (credit: Michail_Petrov-96/iStock/Getty Images)
In the popular science world, physicist John Wheeler is probably best known for popularizing the term “black hole,” although his research spanned a broad range of fields, including relativity, quantum theory, and nuclear fission. He also worked on Project Matterhorn B in the early 1950s, the controversial US effort to develop a hydrogen bomb. In January 1953, Wheeler accidentally left a highly classified document concerning that program on a train as he traveled from his Princeton, New Jersey home to Washington, DC. It was a stereotypical “absent-minded professor” moment, and one with significant national security implications.
Alex Wellerstein told the story in detail late last year in an article in Physics Today. Wellerstein is a historian of science at the Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey, where his research centers on the history of nuclear weapons and nuclear history. (Fun fact: he served as a historical consultant on the short-lived TV series, Manhattan.) His forthcoming book, Restricted Data: The History of Nuclear Secrecy in the United States, is slated for publication in April 2021 by the University of Chicago Press.
A self-described “dedicated archive rat,” Wellerstein maintains several homemade databases to keep track of all the digitized files he’s accumulated over the years from official, private, and personal archives. The bits that don’t find their way into academic papers typically end up as items on his blog, Restricted Data, where he also maintains the NUKEMAP, an interactive tool that enables users to model the impact of numerous types of nuclear weapons on the geographical location of their choice.
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