In 1920 , Arthur Eddington suggested hydrogen-helium fusion could be the primary source of stellar energy . Quantum tunneling was discovered by Friedrich Hund in 1929 , and shortly afterwards Robert Atkinson and Fritz Houtermans used the measured masses of light elements to show that large amounts of energy could be released by fusing small nuclei . Building on the early experiments in nuclear transmutation by Ernest Rutherford , laboratory fusion of hydrogen isotopes was accomplished by Mark Oliphant in 1932 . In the remainder of that decade , the theory of the main cycle of nuclear fusion in stars were worked out by Hans Bethe . Research into fusion for military purposes began in the early 1940s as part of the Manhattan Project . Fusion was accomplished in 1951 with the Greenhouse Item nuclear test . Nuclear fusion on a large scale in an explosion was first carried out on 1 November 1952 , in the Ivy Mike hydrogen bomb test
Ivy Mike
Ivy Mike
Nuclear fusion