physics

On Thermonuclear War

On Thermonuclear War is a physics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand On Thermonuclear War rather than just read about it. In short: On Thermonuclear War is a 1960 book by Herman Kahn, a military strategist at the RAND Corporation. It was written one year before he left RAND to form the Hudson Institute.

Key takeaways

On Thermonuclear War belongs to physics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect On Thermonuclear War to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of On Thermonuclear War from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

On Thermonuclear War is a 1960 book by Herman Kahn, a military strategist at the RAND Corporation. It was written one year before he left RAND to form the Hudson Institute. It is a controversial treatise on the nature and theory of war in the thermonuclear weapon age. In it, Kahn addresses the strategic doctrines of nuclear war and its effect on the international balance of power. Kahn's stated purpose in writing the book was "avoiding disaster and buying time, without specifying the use of this time." The title of the book was inspired by the classic volume On War, by Carl von Clausewitz. Widely read on both sides of the Iron Curtain—the book sold 30,000 copies in hardcover—it is noteworthy for its views on the lack of credibility of a purely thermonuclear deterrent and how a country could "win" a nuclear war. Kahn used the term Doomsday Machine in the book as a rhetorical device to show the limits of John von Neumann's strategy of mutual assured destruction or MAD.

Reception Of the book, Hubert H. Humphrey said: "New thoughts, particularly those which contradict current assumptions, are always painful for the human mind to contemplate. On Thermonuclear War is filled with such thoughts."

In popular culture Kahn is sometimes credited with having coined the term megadeath in this book as shorthand for one million deaths. However, though the book does describe deaths in terms of millions, it does not contain the term megadeath, and Kahn was quoted as having said in a 1982 interview, "I know of no analyst who uses the term megadeath. The peace people use it and they think we use it." The book The Worlds of Herman Kahn contains a footnote describing the use of the term in the headline of a 1963 article by Marcus Raskin. Lines from the character General Buck Turgidson in Stanley Kubrick's 1964 film Dr. Strangelove directly mimic passages from this book, such as Turgidson's phrase "two admittedly regrettable, but nevertheless, distinguishable post-war environments" which reflects a chart from this book labeled "Tragic but Distinguishable Postwar States". Indeed, the folder that General Turgidson holds while reading a report on projected nuclear war casualties is titled "Global Targets in Megadeaths". Tom Clancy's 1991 political thriller The Sum of All Fears quotes a passage from this book in the introduction.

Publication First published in 1960 by the Princeton University Press (ISBN 0-313-20060-2), it was republished as a paperback by Transaction Publishers in 2007 (ISBN 978-1412806640).

References

Sources Kahn, H. (2011). On Thermonuclear War. War and Peace Research. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 978-1-4128-1559-8. Retrieved April 23, 2022.

External links Essays about and by Herman Kahn RAND Corporation unclassified papers by Herman Kahn, 1948–59 "Fat Man: Herman Kahn and the nuclear age", Louis Menand, The New Yorker, June 19, 2005

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with On Thermonuclear War

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what On Thermonuclear War claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In physics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to On Thermonuclear War before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about On Thermonuclear War ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of On Thermonuclear War

In research: On Thermonuclear War appears in physics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses On Thermonuclear War in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: On Thermonuclear War is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1960 non-fiction books, Books about nuclear issues, Military strategy books, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for On Thermonuclear War outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study On Thermonuclear War in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what On Thermonuclear War means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain On Thermonuclear War out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is On Thermonuclear War in simple terms?

On Thermonuclear War is a 1960 book by Herman Kahn, a military strategist at the RAND Corporation. It was written one year before he left RAND to form the Hudson Institute.

Why does On Thermonuclear War matter?

Because it connects several physics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study On Thermonuclear War?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on On Thermonuclear War.