Hello, my friend. I enjoyed 1491, and I've been working my way through The Secret Life of Real Estate and Banking which is an economic analysis of the boom/bust cycle as it exists in modern fiat/debt based economies. Both are very different, but also very engaging and interesting.
John Aristotle Phillips, founder of political data-analytics firm Aristotle, graduated from Princeton University with a degree in aerospace engineering in the class of 1978. Known as the “A-bomb kid,” Phillips is known for a project he did in a physics seminar in 1976: designing a cost-effective and relatively small A-bomb. While the cost of creating an atomic bomb can vary greatly, most estimates place the cost at well over $1 million; Phillip’s project posited that it was possible to do so for roughly $2,000 and the actual bomb would fit in the size of a U-haul trailer.
A project with frightening connotations, Phillip’s work was confiscated by the FBI, despite the fact that Phillips was able to design his bomb using only his nuclear engineering textbook and two unclassified government documents.
Phillip’s professor has said that the design would likely work, but his design was not actually built. Moreover, in comparison to the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, this bomb design has been said to be more sophisticated and complex, implying how easy it would be for political terrorists to make such a devastating weapon. Nevertheless, though Phillips has said, “any other physics major could do this better,” his project was the only one in that seminar to get an A.
