UN3001: Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear Testing | E. Hughes

Physics
Undergraduate Semiar
Tu Th 2:40-3:55PM
Summer 2021 A Term

The story of the US nuclear weapons testing program in the Marshall Islands can be viewed as the collision of a powerful nuclear weapons state, eager to aggressively pursue a thermonuclear weapons development program, and an indigenous population in a remote location. After World War II, the Marshall Islands became a US territory, as specified by a UN treaty, and the US immediately initiated a testing program to be conducted in the northern expanse of the islands. The testing was done in an overtly public manner and driven at the time by a Cold War mentality. As a result of the testing, the Marshallese people were both driven away from their homes and lands and exposed to radioactive fallout. A classified human subject health monitoring program was implemented under the name Project 4.1. From these tests, the US government was able to study the effects of nuclear fallout and the correlation to cancer rates in the Marshallese population, exposed at different distances from the test sites and over a time period of decades. This course is about the violent intersection of science and culture. Students will investigate the Marshallese culture prior to the nuclear weapons testing program and then study the ways in which the culture and people were affected by the program. They will also consider the challenges the Marshallese face today. 

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