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A 21-year-old Princeton college student's school paper showed step-by-step how to build an atomic bomb — all using only books and publicly available data at the time.
In 1977, during the height of the Cold War, a college student in the United States attracted the attention of the FBI and the CIA when he submitted an academic paper that went far beyond the confines of the classroom. John Aristotle Phillips, then 21 years old and a physics student at the renowned Princeton University, presented a working design for a nuclear bomb using only public information. The episode gained international attention and sparked debates that are still relevant today, especially around scientific ethics and national security.
Phillips' unusual proposal for the final project of the course was titled "How to Build Your Own Atomic Bomb." Although many might consider the topic provocative or even absurd, it was treated seriously. Using sources accessible to any citizen—including scientific books, declassified archives, and even correspondence with companies like DuPont—Phillips constructed a technical plan theoretically feasible to create a bomb similar to the one dropped on Nagasaki during World War II.
John Aristotle Phillips' 40-page project detailed the construction of an atomic bomb and alarmed American authorities
The document delivered by Phillips consisted of a 40 page report which described step by step the construction of a nuclear bomb. Although the project was entirely theoretical, experts consulted at the time stated that, with the addition of plutonium — the only missing element — the device would be functional.
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What most impressed authorities and academics was the fact that all the knowledge gathered by Phillips was available in public sources, demonstrating the ease with which sensitive information could be used for dangerous purposes.
Contrary to what one might imagine, Phillips was not an exceptional student. He performed averagely in physics, but he dedicated himself intensely to research, exploring libraries, scientific publications and even commonly accessed technical information.
His goal was to prove that the knowledge needed to build a working nuclear bomb was already, in part, available to anyone with sufficient curiosity — and this was convincingly proven.
FBI and CIA intervened after foreign agents showed interest in Phillips' working nuclear bomb project
The situation took on even greater proportions when the press reported the case, dubbing the young man “the A-bomb boy”. The public outcry was so intense that foreign agents reportedly tried to obtain copies of the project, which led to the FBI and the CIA to act quickly. Federal authorities confiscated all documents and materials used, including a harmless physical model that Phillips had assembled in his dorm room.
From then on, the contents were considered classified. Although the project did not involve actual nuclear materials, the case raised serious concerns about the proliferation of nuclear knowledge and the possibility that malicious individuals or groups could replicate the feat with dangerous intentions. For many, Phillips's attitude was irresponsible; for others, a necessary warning.
Student abandoned science and became an anti-nuclear activist in the United States
Despite the controversy, the episode left a profound mark on John Aristotle Phillips' life. He abandoned his plans to pursue a career in physics and became an active campaigner against nuclear weapons. He published a book about his experience and even ran for the United States Congress., without electoral success. Still, his name remains recorded in history as the protagonist of one of the most emblematic cases of the intersection between science, politics and security.
Phillips' story is often revisited in conferences, academic debates and even works of fiction. His work is considered a classic example of how a curiosity scientific can transcend ethical and political boundaries, especially when it involves technologies of mass destruction. The episode also contributed to the tightening of technical information control policies in the United States and other nuclear powers.
The case remains a reference to this day in debates on scientific ethics and nuclear information security
More than four decades later, the John Phillips case remains relevant, especially in times of hyperconnectivity and widespread data circulation. Today, access to technical and scientific knowledge is just a few clicks away for anyone with an internet connection. And
Nuclear nonproliferation experts often cite the Phillips case as evidence that the line between curiosity and actual threat can be very thin. At the same time, his work exposed a weakness in the system for protecting sensitive information, showing that censorship is not the only way to avoid risks — but that ethics education and international vigilance are also essential.
