This post is from June 2009. Facts and links may have changed since. See more from that month

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Nuclear Sesame Street

I’ve been reading “Caging the Dragon” on the flight to London and it reminded me of a little song from Sesame Street that goes:

One of these things is not like the others

One of these things is just not the same.

What reminded me of that? These three yields:

– Fission yield

– Fusion yield

– Hydrodynamic yield

Can you spot the one that’s not like the others? (Hint: Perhaps it’s easier to try to figure out why two of these are the same.) No fair googling the answer! I didn’t have access to google on the airplane and you shouldn’t use it either.

Spoiler Alert: as I might have expected, keen wonk-readers got the answer right away, so only read the comments if you want to see what others have said.

Geoff Forden

Writing on ACW 2008–2010

Dr. Forden has been at MIT since 2000 where his research includes the analysis of Russian and Chinese space systems as well as trying to understand how proliferators acquire the know-how and industrial infrastructure to produce weapons of mass destruction.

All posts by Geoff Forden