Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story:Today, many fusion reactors rely on deuterium and tritium—heavy isotopes of hydrogen—to power fusion reactions. Although the Manhattan Project makes mention of the advantages of deuterium-tritium reactions, they only vaguely source pre-war research. Around the world, scientists are working diligently to perfect ways to fuse deuterium and tritium—two heavy isotopes of hydrogen—through nuclear fusion. According to Chadwick and Paris, Ruhlig noted that a DT reaction “must be an exceedingly probable one,” but the paper received few citations. With serious evidence pointing to Ruhlig being the initial mind behind deuterium-tritium fusion, Chadwick, Paris, and a team of physicists from Duke University decided to recreate Ruhlig’s experiment to understand the physicists’ insights and role in fusion history.