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Physics Colloquium - "New START Quo Vadis? A Plea for Nuclear Arms Control in Uncertain Times."

Event Type
Lecture
Sponsor
UIUC Department Of Physics
Location
Via ZOOM - see description for link
Date
Sep 9, 2020   4:00 pm  
Speaker
Matthias Grosse Perdekamp, Dept. of Physics and ACDIS, UIUC
Contact
Suzanne Hallihan
E-Mail
shalliha@illinois.edu
Phone
217-333-3760
Views
32
Originating Calendar
Physics - Colloquium

The first nuclear weapon was tested in Alamogordo, NM, in July 1945. In the following month, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed through the explosion of two nuclear warheads. These horrifying strikes directly led to the surrender of Japan almost 4 years after its attack on Pearl Harbor. An industrial scale effort with more than 130,000 employees produced the first nuclear fission weapons during World War II. With the United States and its allies facing totalitarian aggressors in the European and Pacific theaters, many elite scientists, engineers, and technicians supported the Manhattan Project through their scientific and technological innovations. 75 years later, despite the enormous international efforts to create an effective sytem of nuclear arms control agreements that seek to limit nuclear weapons technology to the initial  nuclear powers, knowledge and technology have further proliferated. Today nine countries possess nuclear weapons. 

Increasingly important arms control treaties have been challenged also by leading nuclear weapon states: The United States and Russia have ended the Intermediate Nuclear Force Treaty. The United States withdrew from the JCPOA (the "Iran Nuclear Deal") and the negotations for an extension of the New START treaty with Russia appear difficult. In May President Trump announced that he plans to withdraw the United States from the Open Skies Arms Control Treaty. 

The colloquium will review possible consequences of nuclear war and nuclear terrorism and explain the system of arms control treaties that have been put into place to contain this threat over the past 70 years. We will then review challenges different arms control agreements have been facing in the recent past. Some focus will be placed on the New START treaty that limits the number of strategic nuclear warheads in Russia and the United States.

Do not attend if you expect solutions to be offered!

The ZOOM link will be sent on Wednesday morning to the Physics Faculty, Graduate student, PDRA, and AP mailing lists. If you are not on one of those lists and are interested in attending, please email Suzanne Hallihan at shalliha@illinois.edu for the link.

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