The idea of boosting was originally developed between late 1947 and late 1949 at Los Alamos. The primary benefit of boosting is further miniaturization of nuclear weapons as it reduces the minimum inertial confinement time required for a supercritical nuclear explosion by providing a sudden influx of fast neutrons before the critical mass would blow itself apart. This would eliminate the need for an aluminum pusher and uranium tamper and the explosives needed to push them and the fissile material into a supercritical state. While the bulky Fat Man had a diameter of  and required 3 tons of high explosives for implosion, a boosted fission primary can be fitted on a small nuclear warhead (such as the W88) to ignite the thermonuclear secondary.