American Scientist

Recently I came across my copy of Freeman Dyson’s 1981 lecture, “Quick Is Beautiful,” in which the mathematical physicist spoke about “ways in which the scientific community may help solve some of the urgent practical problems” facing humankind. Among the problems he described in his talk was the development of nuclear reactors, and how, in the mid-1950s, the fledgling General Atomics division of General Dynamics assembled a group of consultants (including Dyson) to come up with ideas for viable concepts that the company might pursue to commercialization. The team, under the leadership of physicist Edward Teller (a lead developer of the first thermonuclear bomb), proposed three novel systems. One was “built, tested, licensed, and sold within less than three years,” and called the TRIGA reactor, an acronym for Training, Research, Isotopes, General Atomics. According to the company, the TRIGA reactor became “the most widely used non-power nuclear reactor in the world.” To Dyson, it exemplified what he meant by “Quick Is Beautiful,” a title that may have been inspired by economist E. F. Schumacher’s 1973 book, Small Is Beautiful, which was read as an argument for the use of appropriate technologies.