The Atomic Age is born in a football stadium

News this week of a historic fusion reaction that produced more energy than was used to ignite it could move the world one step closer to a power source that doesn’t create radioactive waste as a byproduct.

This is a major advancement in the long, complicated history of nuclear energy — which has been used to create electricity but also weapons.

During World War II, the United States became concerned that Nazi scientists were close to creating an atomic bomb. Nobel Prize-winning physicist Albert Einstein issued an alert to then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt:

“A single bomb of this type, carried by boat and exploded in a port, might very well destroy the whole port together with some of the surrounding territory,” Einstein wrote.

U.S. scientists and government officials…