On May 12, 1951, the U.S. government that the atomic weapons tests conducted in the central Pacific had made significant progress in the development of hydrogen bombs. In a statement outlining all the details of these tests, the Atomic Energy Committee and the Ministry of Defense said: ¡°An unexpected progress has been made. Alvin-C-Graves of the Los Angeles Science Laboratory told reporters that ¡°more useful data¡± had been obtained about thermal nuclear reactions. Thermal nuclear reactions were a necessary condition for the explosion of a hydrogen bomb. The destruction of such a bomb using solar energy would be hundreds of times greater than the atomic bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The government stated that atomic technology was developing very rapidly, and therefore tests on the Pacific Ocean will be more frequent than before.