Nuclear Weapons: History and Future Prospects
MIT OpenCourseWare offers this interdisciplinary course, coordinated by Professor Emeritus Robert P. Redwine, on how nuclear weapons were developed and what they mean for the future. Lectures cover the physics behind fission and fusion weapons, how warheads are engineered, and how arsenals evolved through the Cold War and after. The course also traces arms control efforts, from early test-ban treaties to modern non-proliferation regimes, and weighs the current risks of accidental or deliberate use. Materials include lecture notes, readings, and assignments drawn from a team of MIT physicists and policy specialists, free to access online with no certificate offered. It treats the technical and political sides together, aiming to explain why public awareness of the threat matters as much as the science itself.