R. Scott Kemp opens MIT's course 22.04, Social Problems of Nuclear Energy, with a history of nuclear power from the stellar origins of heavy elements through the postwar development of reactor technology. He traces how wartime secrecy and Cold War politics shaped early choices, including the military and political pressures that locked in light-water reactors as the dominant civilian design despite other technical options. The lecture frames nuclear energy as inherently dual-use, meaning the same science and infrastructure that produce electricity can also produce weapons material, and argues that this duality explains much of the field's politics and regulation. Kemp sets up the course's central concerns: how engineering decisions get entangled with national security, secrecy, and international diplomacy. Seventy-three minutes of lecture covering the scientific and political groundwork for the rest of the course.