In the fall of 2003, defense industry reporter Sharon Weinberger was sitting through yet another Capitol Hill briefing on Pentagon weaponry, when a fellow in the back of the room mentioned something called a “hafnium bomb.” Weinberger had never heard of it. So she turned around and asked the guy what the hell a hafnium bomb was.
The question started Weinberger on a two-year “journey through the Pentagon’s scientific underground.” By the time she was done, Weinberger had run into eavesdropping kittens, wormhole builders, antimatter rocketeers, psychic CIA agents, intelligent designists, and cold fusion true believers. But most importantly, she became deeply intertwined with a far-flung coalition of Defense Department-backed scientists who believed that they could construct nuclear hand grenades out of bits of the radioactive isotope hafnium-178 — despite mountains of evidence to the contrary. It’s all chronicled in Weinberger’s fascinating, disturbing, wickedly funny new book, Imaginary Weapons.
Weinberger’s story centers around Carl Collins, a Texas scientist turned nuclear Don Quixote, who convinces Pentagon and Energy Department officials to spend millions on his jousts with the laws of physics. The fact his windmill-tilting relies on a second-hand X-ray machine, taken from a dentist’s office, doesn’t seem to matter. Or that his Romanian wife has a sketchy choke-hold over the hafnium supply. Or that every scientific panel the Pentagon assembles calls Collins’ work bunk. Or that no reputable physicist can replicate his hafnium experiments.
Luckily for Collins, “no one remembers the failure,” Weinberger quotes Darpa chief Tony Tether as saying. “That allows us to try again and again… Darpa is Groundhog Day. We do things over and over again.” For years, it seems, Tether and others in Defense Department woke up every morning convinced that the Russians were about to have a hafnium bomb. It took a near-Herculean effort to finally persuade them that it might not be true.
In the book – and over the next few days, in a series of exclusive posts for Defense Tech – Weinberger shows how dangerous the amnesiac attitude is for the nation’s security. But God, is it good for readers. Weinberger is a master observer, capturing the sights and sounds surrounding the inanity and near-insanity of military fringe science, from the puffed-up research claims to the hushed denials, based on questionable secrecy. Scientists wax poetic about the beauty of mushroom clouds. Google searches for hafnium turn up an Alabama physicist, who sees the isomer’s intricacy as a sign of intelligent design. Supposedly landmark experiments are commemorated by stryfoam cups marked “Dr. C’s memorial target holder.” Imaginary Weapons can lay the physics on a little thick for the lay reader, at times. But mostly, accompanying Weinberger on her trip through the Pentagon’s pseudo-science netherworld is madcap, farcical fun. Here’s an excerpt:
Hafnium went to the Pentagon by way of New Mexico, helped along by a cadre of believers in the Air Force. One of those, of course, was Forrest “Jack” Agee, the Air Force scientist in charge of funding basic physics. He was the man who, in 1999, started funding Collins, while also publishing with him.
In early 2004, I went to visit Agee at his office in Arlington, Virginia.
Standing in front of the nondescript building that housed the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, I stopped for a moment to take in the gray façade that showed little sign of military occupancy. Office workers shuttled in and out of the multistory building, and it wasn’t until I arrived at the Air Force’s floor that a halfhearted attempt at military security was on display. A sullen woman reading a copy of People shoved a red badge at me, barely glancing at my press credentials.
Agee, once described to me as the eminence grise behind isomers, smiled as I entered his office and extended his hand like a caretaker greeting a mourning relative on their way to buy a casket. It was the last time he smiled. With dark-tinted glasses and a dour demeanor, Agee did not seem like the type of military official to give interviews, and I was surprised, in fact, that he had agreed to speak to me at all. Maybe he was surprised, too, because as soon as we sat down at the small oval table in his office, he immediately looked uncomfortable. Seated at the table, I noticed that Agee had a corner office, but with the windows blocked at every angle by adjacent buildings, casting the room in a permanent gloomy haze.
To Agee’s right sat a public affairs official, and to his left, a security officer, who as Agee explained, was there to make sure he didn’t say anything classified.
What secrets could accidentally slip out, I wondered?…
When I asked him about the controversial nature of the [hafnium] work, particularly the scientific debate around Collins’s hafnium triggering experiment, Agee frowned deeply. “I know that work is going on around the world in this area,” he said. “We are familiar with a number of countries that are pursuing this.”
Agee paused for a moment to clear his throat and glanced out the window with its plaintive view of the next building—perhaps thinking about the legions of foreign countries that could be eavesdropping on our conversation about dreaded isomer weapons.
He cleared his throat again, and then continued: “It was a surprise that Japanese torpedoes worked in a shallow harbor in 1941. We were technologically surprised by that and with awesome impact. So, the fact that there are countries other than ours that are working on this, well, we better be able to know what this is about whether we ever find an application for it or not, in case others find that.” …
I was struck that just about every government scientist I’d met had described their job as preventing “technological surprise,” but something like the isomer weapon was only a threat if it worked, or had a reasonable chance of working, I pointed out… An expert panel of scientists had essentially said the hafnium bomb couldn’t work, or at least had about as much a chance of being a bomb as a jelly donut. Was there really any legitimate fear of isomer bombs raining down on the United States anytime in the near-to-distant future?
Agee scoffed.
“We rely on more than just a few days’ review by some panel—albeit populated by smart people,” he said.
UPDATE 06/14/06 12:06 PM: Carl Collins drops by to respond, here.
If you’re referring to the element, I believe it’s spelled hafnium.
Derf. Fixed.
The hafnium controversy has actually been quite a big concern among the scientific Defense related circles. Here’s a background on the issue.
http://www.llnl.gov/str/JulAug05/pdfs/07_05.4.pdf
Basically, the concern was this: Hafnium has a high amount of energy stored in it’s nucleus, which is released extremely slowly over a very long halflife. If you could find a way to get all that energy released instantaneously, you’d have an extremely powerful weapon on hand, in addition to basically a nuclear battery. A scientist in the early 90’s reportedly was able to achieve this by bombarding Hafnium with high energy x-rays. But the study went unnoticed until later, when it became a big concern for the Defense Department. The possibility that such a simple procedure could result in such a powerful reaction was a definite national security risk. So they tried to duplicate the study’s results at LANL, but were unable to even come close, and eventually dismissed it as a non-threat. Pretty cool stuff though.
Are you sure you’re referring to an isomer of hafnium? Isomers would be something else…isotope perhaps.
Isomer. From the link I provided below:
“An isomer is a long-lived excited state of an atomʼs nucleus — a state in which decay back to the nuclear ground state is inhibited.”
I should clarify. The reference is to nuclear isomers, not chemical isomers.
Stimulated energy release from Hafnium looks like a non-starter, but it works well enough (though less spectatcularly) with other isomers.
It’s just a question of how much you can get.
More fun ! Checkout URL:
http://www.imaginaryweapons.net
Come on, Folks – Lighten up a bit. Fact is Sharon Weinberger may seem to be a barrel of fun, but she mixes up a lot of things for the sake of a “good story” – and sometimes she just messes up. The location of the dump for nuke waste is very important to everybody, but she locates it, Yucca Mtn., in Colorado! Good Gad, imagine how much acid has been churned in the stomachs of Colorado by her carelessness!!!
I think that the root of my problem has been that for 42 years of academic life I have absolutely refused to accept a “Security Clearance” – from anybody. I do not know any “Secrets.” I do physics that is interesting to me and to my Graduate Students (36 through their PhD dissertations, so far) without permissions from anybody, JASONS, the “Brightest and the Best,” or Government funding agencies. Sometimes we have funding, sometimes we don’t; and then we improvise. Incidentally, the apocryphal dental X-ray, was not “taken from a dentist,” but was purchased with $1,500 we had gotten from some successful tech transfer and Catalin Zoita (who is really bright, but was denigrated by Sharon Weinberger because he did not “warm-up” to her nicely) powered it with a final audio amplifier originally used for outdoor rock-concerts. The amplifier was driven with some ultra sophisticated digital concoction that was described in Zoita’s dissertaton. The whole gig threw us into contact with some really interesting types of colleagues, new to us – and also like us, not members of the “Best and Brightest.” Incidentally, when I advised Sharon that Dr. Zoita had lost his job as a postdoc ( and did not get another) when we lost our funding because of her, she replied “He can always get a job at Wal-Mart.” Is that also funny – possibly to some Folks, since the hurt is not among the “Brightest and the Best.” She reports (as I have observed, also) those Guys at the JASON level have very thin skins.
Speaking of messing up – think for a minute; what happens if the Best and Brightest do successfully repeat our international team’s early experiment with the dental X-ray machine powered by a rock-concert amp? As attributed to Wilhelmy by Sharon, they realized that if they confirmed our weird, cost-effective breakthrough with the $10’s millions Argonne synchrotron, then they would be in deep you-know-what with their establishment where paychecks depend upon just how expensive research can be made. So they assumed linearity of this unexpected phenomenon and cranked up the power, by about five orders-of-magnitude. John Becker publicly admitted that the first try blew-up their radioactive sample, vaporizing it into the open laboratory air – ah the Best at work; and clearly failing to confirm our positive results. Doina (my wife) explained the matter.
She was making a cake for which the instructions were to bake for 30 min. at 350F. Her view was that with linearity, as assumed for everything at Argonne, they probably would think that they could bake it in 3 minutes at 3500F or going the full orders-of-magnitude, give it 1.8 sec at 350,000 degrees. Yes, I know that this is not perfect linearity because I did not correct for absolute zero not happening at 0F, but that complicates the illustration too much and it’s about right, anyway.
The whole deal about the “choke-hold” on the Hf-178 isomer supply is a “crock.” After the Best and Brightest blew up their sample was Doina supposed to give them one of hers? Fact is, any amount is for sale at her invoice price she paid appreciated by the Lipper average for any other growth investment over the same period of time. Want to buy some?
Maybe, fun it is, but why did Sharon Weinberger put the tragic death of our beloved Son in a public transportation accident in the index of her book?
Carl
This is a very important book. This military should not be wasting tax payer’s money on obvious crackpot nonsense.
I have just finished reading the book Imaginary Weapons by Sharon Weinberger and I so much wish I could agree that it is an important book. It is not an important book. Unhappily it is a busted flush. It is so full of mistakes and third hand hearsay that there is a danger that it is a red herring that will send us all off in silly directions and dead ends.
John Walker over at Fourmilab in Switzerland first caught onto this pointing out that the poor usage of language and grammar such as sites instead of cites and wonder instead of wander made him wonder why it was published so carelessly. It was already established that she put the nuke dump in the wrong state. At http://www.imaginaryweapons.net they claim some important incidents Sharon Weinberger emphasizes so much in Imaginary Weapons are simply fantasies, completely made up. I know one person mentioned in the book as a critic of Hafnium and I asked for confirmation of the incident involving that person. They evaded as much as possible and finally just refused to talk about it.
I think we had better be a bit careful embracing Imaginary Weapons so uncritically.
I am very sorry to say that I believe we must consider Imaginary Weapons by Sharon Weinberger as a possible fraud. If you Google on Imaginary Weapons you can find a significant number of blogs, interviews and technical evaluations of the material offered as truth in the book, some are even posted overseas. As more copies of the book are read, comments are shading from how wonderful and how wickedly funny and how important to know that the Pentagon wasted 5 seconds of expenditure examining the possibility of a Hafnium bomb to why such a potentially important message was delivered in such a flawed package as Ms. Weinberger did in Imaginary Weapons. If you do search you will find Stephen who warns us of the danger of such uncritical acceptance of what Ms. Weinberger has written so carelessly. He points the way to a site from which free copies of nine different technical publications by that obscure Texas professor can be downloaded to see what was actually claimed. I did that and I could find no mention or picture of a bomb or a grenade. There was only a lot of technical detail telling how to repeat the experiments – if of course you could get to the first class synchrotron hidden away in Japan. A glaring error is Sharon Weinberger’s placement of the Yucca Mtn long-term nuclear waste dump in Colorado. If you only Google on Yucca Mtn you will get http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/ which tells exactly where it is – in Nevada like anyone would have guessed anyway. Why didn’t Ms. Weinberger make the trivial effort to see where it was before writing authoritatively about it? It would have taken only a minute to get the facts on Yucca Mtn. In short there is a great amount of contradictory evidence that proves Sharon Weinberger made some big mistakes in Imaginary Weapons. Why did she publish such foolish mistakes? Those of us who would like to believe what she says are repulsed by the low level of competency in researching the problem and by the low quality of the writing. I worry that if so much is wrong, what is actually corroborated by somebody else? The sad answer is nothing has been corroborated beyond what she published in the Washington Post in 2004. This is 2006. No JASON has responded with a supporting review of the book. The scientists of Argonne Labs have not written to congratulate her or to support her reporting of what they are supposed to have said. We can easily find what Collins says, but what does Donald Gemmell say, what does Esen Alp say? What does anyone else named in the book say? For me the worst is that Sharon Weinberger has not answered any of the growing reports of her (so far) 100% erroneous content. I am truly sorry to conclude that Imaginary Weapons by Sharon Weinberger is just made-up nonsense, if not worse.
Yes, indeed there are some mistakes (Yucca Mountain in the wrong state, tantulum vs tantalum at times, sites vs cites, etc.). And some would like to use these errors to indict the whole book.
Very weak.
Citing various blogs and other anecdotal evidence as authoritative feels like a desperate and feeble attempt at deflecting attention away from the central arguments in the book. And in case you missed them, some are:
1) Collins made various claims. Every independent attempt at replication has failed. Collins blames each failure on incompetence and/or ill intent, introducing new criteria *not mentioned earlier, nor described in his publications* each time. By moving the target around, Collins buys himself time. Those predisposed to believing him grasp at this. I am not so inclined to giving him the benefit of the doubt. The way science works is simple: If you make an extraordinary claim, put up or shut up. The burden of proof is on the one making the claim. Period.
2) Even if you go out on a limb and provisionally accept Collins’ claims, the cost of producing the hafnium would be absurdly high. It would, in fact, be so high as to be impractical.
3) Even if you could produce the hafnium at reasonable cost, no one — Collins included — has described how a chain reaction could be sustained. No chain reaction, no bomb.
So there you have it: An unconfirmed, extraordinary claim of a phenomenon that no one knows how to exploit to produce a prohibitively expensive bomb even if the claim were true.
Just because “the establishment” disagrees with you does not mean that you are right. For every revolutionary like Lister or Pasteur, there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Blondlots — poor wannabe Nobelists, with delusions of grandeur. Wearing a persecution complex on your sleeve is most often not a badge of honor, but a call for professional help.
Hi Tom L.
Too bad you had not the courage to use your real name so we might have had a significant discussion. Since you didn’t, the only way I can start is to repeat, “Come on, lighten up a bit.” It appears that you are really uptight about this, so much so that you are willing to ignore Sharon Weinberger’s many, many inaccuracies, uses of uncorroborated hearsay of hearsay, and probably that utterly ridiculous tale of the interception of 3 kg of (ground state) Hafnium, shining in the moonlight at the Bulgarian border crossing at Ruse. Ever seen Hafnium shine? You would be the first, and what use or point is a slug of ground state Hafnium in Bulgaria? Do you think that has something to do with me also? (That’s a joke!)
You come on rather strongly, if you are a stranger, Tom L. Why would you suppose that I had, or have, some responsibility to try to guess why some other folks’ experiments would not work. My wife, Doina, already gave a lay explanation about trying to “bake the cake in 1.8 seconds at 350,000 degrees.” That was pretty clear, I thought. It is not my responsibility or fault that those who want to do the experiment differently get a different result. Anyway, many other confirming experiments did succeed. The DARPA confirming experiment called TRIP did work, several times, as was disclosed in a FOIA response to Sharon Weinberger; but she hid that information, of course. A summary of the confidences of the various experiments has been available for over a year and can be seen by all at:
http://www.utdallas.edu/research/quantum/Hafnium_isomer_triggering.htm
Finally, Tom L., there are 9 free reprints of my recent articles published in peer-reviewed journals that can be downloaded at URL: http://www.utdallas.edu/research/quantum/isomer/isomerPubl.htm
Bloggers have done this and have found no mention and certainly not any drawings of bombs or grenades. Just because Sharon Weinberger “says so” does not make something true, nor does it make me father of the Hafnium bomb. (Usually it is just the opposite).
Tom, “Get a life,” as the good advice goes, and if you are unable to do that, get better informed; be more critical of what you find in your readings of the likes of Imaginary Weapons by Sharon Weinberger.
Carl
There are many reasons for anonymity, Prof. Collins. One is that we simply have too many friends and acquaintances in common. Another is a simple fear of potential harassment (you need to lighten up as much as you advise others to; I recommend slow, deep breaths while humming). Yet another is that a protracted debate would be pointless.
But indeed I have read the papers you’ve cited. Several times. To assert that there has been independent confirmation is, at best, an exaggeration. Even your own best results, from the 2004 Laser Phys. paper, show error bars of such magnitude that the “best fit” curve provided is less than convincing. And we both know what peer review is like with Phys Rev C, to say nothing of Letters. Clunkers get through as often as not (sorry, reviewers, but you know it’s true). But if it’s important enough, eventually the truth gets sorted out.
But why my opinion matters to you (or anyone else) is baffling. Why should you give a rat’s patootie what some random poster thinks? If there’s real science in what you’ve been claiming, others will be able to confirm it, and my writings will be regarded by future historians as foolish prattle by an old fart hidebound by tradition. My point remains that you have provided nothing in the way of convincing proof. The utter lack of a theoretical foundation for why one should expect any such effect further raises the bar for you. Your writings have the gestalt of physics, but ain’t any physics I know. And it doesn’t help your case at all that your own former graduate student can’t replicate these results any better than anyone else can. And presumably he knows what the experimental protocols are.
Tom L.
Good Gad, your feelings were hurt by the statement on the http://www.imaginaryweapons.net site where you were cited as not being a member of the “Best and Brightest!” If you had just communicated your upset I could have tried to get that part deleted or rephrased – but then you know my strong commitment to facts and actual data. When they asked me, I had to mention that in a 40-50 year career you seemed to have published in a peer reviewed journal only one “real” article that was not a conference proceeding, namely, Nucl.Instrum.Meth.OOOOOO, 1995. (Please note, I have redacted enough in order to respect your “simple fear of potential harassment.” Actually, not being myself a member of the “Best and Brightest,” I do not know the requirement for membership, but maybe one real publication is enough.
Yes indeed, your personal opinion does not matter to me, (it is cute and profane, true your style and proves the efficacy of my advice. You did lighten up!) However, for the fellow-bloggers trying to sort this out, I have to highlight a few points.
As I said before, Sharon Weinberger forced out of DARPA an FOIR about TRIP. The FOIR told that the Rusu dissertation, that had become the “gold standard” for Hafnium triggering experiments, was fully confirmed. (Dr. Rusu was one of my excellent PhD students, and one who CAN reproduce Hf-isomer triggering.) Now, we can individually decide whether to believe or not believe the DARPA FOIR statements given to and concealed by Sharon Weinberger. I happen to believe the confirmation, you do not. The difficulty is that none of us can see the TRIP data or read of the results. I guess it depends upon the definition of a “black program,” but I would say a program is black if the results cannot be published or examined by anyone without a security clearance and if the budget is unknown. (Ms. Weinberger writes that $5 Million is currently available for continuation of that TRIP work in 2006, but she is so unreliable, that means nothing).
So, “Tom L.,” I congratulate you and Sharon Weinberger on your achievement in forcing the Hf-isomer triggering issue into the realm of “black programs.” Hafnium isomer triggering goes on in good health, but without the involvement of you or me. Rather a relief; and if you stop humming and wish to learn more you can observe it is no longer 2004, but 2006, and there are some really exciting publications we have in the open literature, published before the program went “black.” Anyone interested in progress since 2004 will have to order reprints from the publishers, as is the custom for new publications.
Anyway, I will do my best to fix your hurt feelings and get the statement about your not being one of the “Best and Brightest” out of sight.
Carl
My negative review of Imaginary Weapons was another of the ones rejected over at Amazon. Now, that’s past and OK, because we can understand that Amazon is trying to sell books; and by now, others have raised the same thing that I was aiming at then.
A different concern bothers me and I want to share it here. These new blogs emphasize that DARPA was forced to respond to a Freedom of Information Request (FOIR) made by Weinberger; and I have seen a copy of the DARPA response. It says the “TRIP test” independently confirmed the Hf-isomer triggering experiment.
In the TRIP test DARPA had demanded a confirmation of the “Rusu PhD dissertation,” because it was accepted as “the gold standard for Hf-isomer triggering proofs.” While some claim that the peer review process is flawed for publishing articles, stronger standards exist in the Universities. We cannot access the now-black data and results of the official TRIP test, but we can easily get a copy of the gold standard.
At the bottom of the URL:
http://www.utdallas.edu/research/quantum/Hafnium_isomer_triggering.htm
is the information for ordering a copy of that so-called gold standard for isomer triggering. I got one and it is a bigger book and much better written than Imaginary Weapons; and coming from a non-profit source it is a much better value for the money. Ordering information is given at the target of the link at the bottom of the URL. When you have a copy in hand, you will see that it is crammed with experimental detail; and we must remember that it was examined and passed by the University of Texas Graduate Faculty. It is an impressively solid work and if TRIP reproduced that; then Hf-isomer triggering is proven.
I guess the question is whether we can believe the FOIR response. Honestly, I have to say that I cannot believe that DARPA would send a false report to an obviously hostile FOIR demand from Ms. Weinberger.
I strongly recommend those really interested buy the gold standard Rusu dissertation and not Imaginary Weapons by Sharon Weinberger.
I’m adding some factual information here.
1) The Freedom of Information Act Request was filed and answered in 2004, prior to the TRIPP experiment. The only previously undisclosed materials I received as part of this request was a report, commissioned by DARPA, that was extremely critical of the Texas team’s earlier results. This was reported on in the book.
2) The idea that I have in my possession documents showing a successful replication of the Texas team’s results is ludicrous. I asked about the experiment and received a written response from a DARPA spokeswoman that the TRIPP experiment was a success, but to date there has been no supporting details, data, or written publication released that I know of. The claim of a successful replication was reported in the book. It is now up to the scientist in charge of the experiment to take those results and publish them and/or present them to the scientific community for scrutiny.
3) The idea that I’ve had any personal interaction with the lead investigator of the Texas team since publication of the book, let alone expressed glee over his post-doc losing his job as was earlier claimed on a blog posting on this site, is ludicrous. Well, actually it’s a lie. We’ve exchanged no such communication since publication of the book. In many ways, I view what happened to the head of the Texas team (and his colleagues) as a tragic lesson in human folly, not something to gloat over. I state as much in the book.
4) The tendency of the Texas team to use personal attacks rather than reasoned critiques may explain why some are afraid to use real names. This is also an odd criticism for the head of the Texas team to make, because I’ve noticed a disturbing tendency of the proponent(s) of the hafnium bomb to use anonymity to post bogus Amazon reviews and blog postings to make the appearance of multiple criticisms. The issue here is not anonymity per se – when anonymity is used to promote the illusion of multiple critics, it is a fabrication.
5) It is interesting to note that proponents of other areas of ‘fringe science’ criticized in the book, such as remote viewing or cold fusion, have not responded with personal attacks on me as the author, or on the critics quoted in the book. Rather, some have sent me scientific papers to show where there has been real science, and others have simply decided that the best response is to continue trying to replicate their results to meet the standards of the scientific community. Regardless of the truth/non truth of their claims, they should be commended for acting like scientists. It would be nice if the same could be said of the Texas team’s head.
6) In the end, if the proponents of hafnium triggering are able to do an experiment that meets the standards of the scientific community, then nothing I write (or have written) will matter – the scientific community will accept those new results. It will be the scientists and the scientific community that will have the last word on hafnium triggering, not my book.
Sharon: re: no 4. and anonymity.
The sad fact is, at least in some cases, people are doing so because they haven’t a clue as to what’s okay to say. using their own real names.
Pathetic.
democracy yeah yeah. Dream on yall.
Quoting from Ms. Weinberger’s blog below:
“2) The idea that I have in my possession documents showing a successful replication of the Texas team’s results is ludicrous. I asked about the experiment and received a written response from a DARPA spokeswoman that the TRIPP experiment was a success….”
A perfect Weinbergerism. I had written: “I have to say that I cannot believe that DARPA would send a false report to an obviously hostile FOIR demand from Ms. Weinberger.” Still true.
To my negative review of Imaginary Weapons I now add my negative view of Sharon Weinberger. I say again, I strongly recommend those really interested buy the gold standard Rusu dissertation and not Imaginary Weapons by Sharon Weinberger.
Another Weinbergerism !!! There is no such thing as TRIPP. In the course of HF-isomer triggering there were HIPP meetings and a couple of successful TRIP experiments, there was no TRIPP anything.
We could define “Weinbergerism” as an impassioned military assault with dud ammunition – and to think she is editor-in-chief of a once respectable defense magazine.
Hi Leul,
I like it !
Let’s polish it a bit more and define Weinbergerism as “a fanatical assault with dud ammunition”.
Cheers,
Andarte
Dear Ms.Weinberger,perhaps you may want to read Belic et al.Phys Rev Letter 83 p 5242(1999)”Stuttgart group”, they seem to think it is possible.
Best Regards
Please, “A.N.,” don’t try to get away with more misdirection. Everyone in the field knows the Belic work has nothing to do with Hf. The paper, if you actually *read* it, concerns tantalum. As in “not hafnium.” As in, “everyone — including Belic and his group — acknowledges that there is no theoretical or experimental basis for imagining any possibility of a chain reaction, or even net energy release.” And I’m close to quoting Belic verbatim on this. Next, I’m expecting you to re-invoke NEET. To head you off at the pass, I’m giving you homework. Do some calculations. Then verify that there’s a several-order-of-magnitude gap to be bridged before you’re even allowed to utter the acronym. If you get a different answer, send a correspondence to Tkalya. Evgeny will set you straight.
Ad hominem attacks, attempts at misdirection, and generally sleazy tactics have no place in science. As your intellectual father has advised repeatedly, lighten up, people. If there’s a real effect, real scientists will be able to verify it. It’s that simple.
Thus far, *no* independent confirmation exists. And all independent reviews so far have been very critical of Collins’ work. Don’t forget: The DOD’s own IDA review roughly coincided with, and perhaps precipitated, the breakup of Collins’ research group, with Carroll now distancing himself from that work. Collins’ emotional behavior has not aided the case for hafnium triggering.
Just do the science. Results speak eloquently for themselves, and have a persuasive power far in excess of whining. So far, the best assessment is that it is ganz falsch.
Shame !!! The revered genius of Physics, W. Pauli, died 48 years ago and it is a disgrace for you to hide behind his glorious name. If you are too frightened to speak for yourself, I recommend using the name of a cartoon character as did “Ray Mebert” while praising the Weinbergerisms over at Amazon. That would lighten things up.
Now, let me say you are 100% wrong. Weinberger was sent a letter (that is surely a “document”) officially from DARPA affirming that the TRIP (one P) test was a success. It has the same “official” status as the two year older IDA report, but also has the advantage of being based on the TRIP data that has become secret, or so it seems. To you IDA is true, but DARPA is false.
Is denial so deep in you that you are able to believe that DARPA would issue a false affirmation to such a fanatical adversary as Weinberger? To me it is unthinkable. I suppose it is unthinkable to you as well, but your passions are running too high for clarity of thought.
Once again, there has been no independent confirmation. A letter from some DARPA functionary hardly qualifies as an independently reviewed piece of scientific work.
Please, dispense with this line. The fact that you cleave so desperately to this thin “document” betrays the weakness of your position. You’re embarrassing yourself.
For your own good, Carl, er, Leul, I beg you to stop!
Wait for the real scientists to do their job.
If you do a quick Google search, it’s apparent that Ray Mebert is not a cartoon character. He is the name of a human character, played by the cartoonist, Scott Adams.
But I guess, to you, the distinction between a cartoonist (real human) and a cartoon character (imaginary, non-human) is as unimportant as that between an independently peer-reviewed scientific paper, and a letter from an administrator. Or that between a real experimental result, and a pathological artefact.
Das ist ganz falsch. Ich habe richt.
Shame !!! The revered genius of Physics, W. Pauli, died 48 years ago and it is a disgrace for you to hide behind his glorious name. If you are too frightened to speak for yourself, I recommend using the name of a cartoon character as did “Ray Mebert” praising the Weinbergerisms over at Amazon.
Why don’t you, yourself wait for the real scientists to do their jobs? You are the one who lowered the tone of the blog when you attacked a simple staement about the book contributed by A.N. In what hidden matter lies your equity that compels you to spend so much effort to defend that flop of a book, Imaginary Weapons by Sharon Weinberger? That book is a discredit to all scientists and I cannot imagine why you defend it.
Now, you can keep on bullying the other bloggers on this site because I am completely turned off by someone so insensitive to claim the mantle of Pauli.
There are several common characteristics among crackpots: They resort to ad hominem attacks, they speak the language of the subject (while betraying a total lack of understanding), and they suffer from a persecution complex.
You presume a lot in saying that Ms. Weinberger’s book is a discredit to scientists. I know many scientists. They are all cheering the book. But again, why does that matter? All along, I’ve been saying that real science will sort it out. The only ones displaying irrational emotionalism have been you and your alter egos. Just reread the posts here. Ask strangers which posts appear to be written by the unhinged.
Again, keep it simple: Wait for the real scientists to do the job of science.
Whether W. Pauli is a pseudonym or whether my real first name is Wilhelm or Wernher shouldn’t matter, now should it? Again, your emotionalism discredits you. Stick to facts. Relax. Lighten up. Watch some sitcoms. Get outside.
‘Nuff said. You have grown tiresome, and are fundamentally beyond education.
Your German is incorrect.
The rest is incorrect also.
Imaginary Weapons is a fraud and a shame to the author. If there are real scientists who cheer it, then it is a shame to them too.
Allegations of fraud are a very serious matter. As you have offered no proof, one must presume that you have none.
I join Mr. “Pauli” in leaving this place. You can lead a nutjob to knowledge, but you can’t make him think.
Indeed! Some of the proof is posted at http://www.imaginaryweapons.net. The Chief Counsel of the Chicago Office of the DOE wrote that Esen Alp completely refuted the slanderous story of the actions that Sharon Weinberger attributed to him on p. 205 of Imaginary Weapons.
Another Weinbergerism – that’s a “fanatical assault with dud ammunition”.
This is not just a Weinbergerism, it is fraud.
Strange that those who accuse others of fraud are actually the ones with a truth problem. The “Esen Alp” affair is entirely one of Collins’ doing. If anyone committed a slanderous act, it’s Collins himself! Here is the relevant email. Carl/Doina/”Ingeborg”/Andarte/Leul (have I missed any of your aliases?) can scream fraud all day long, but it just calls attention to their own continued campaign of distortions. With ethics like that, no wonder their scientific work is being questioned.
Naughty, naughty! Bad scientist! Bad scientist! >
Received: Fri, 16 Apr 2004 11:11:49 -0400
Received: ; Fri, 16 Apr 2004 11:11:49 -0400
From: “Carl Collins”
To: “mstickley”
Dear Martin,
Your kind words and enthusiasm continue to sustain us; and we =
Greatly appreciate them. However, I am wondering if somehow you are being “kept in the dark” as far as concerns the depth of the terribly unprincipled actions of the “opposition.” I attach a message from Dr. Yoshitaka Yoda, whom you remember meeting at SLS. As a beamline scientist, I rank his ability far above that of anyone at Argonne.
The individual referenced by Yoshitaka is Esen Alp, a senior manipulator at Argonne claiming to be a scientist. Please notice the dates. The Post Article was published on March 28. Before April 6, Esen Alp had hand-carried a copy to the Director of SPring-8 in order to block our further experiments there. Recall, at SPring-8 we had been getting the time for free and Yoshitaka Had agreed to build the shielding against ElectroMagnetic Interference (EMI) at their expense; and in time for our next (free) experiments. Now we will not have shielding and I suppose we will lose the time. Also, we do not have the money for 2004 yet – another problem.
My reading of the FAR and DFAR regulations is that the actions of Esen Alp constitute a crime that requires us to report such interference in Defense contracted work that impedes the work and raises the price. The unprincipled actions of Esen Alp have certainly committed that action. To whom do we report that; or am I incorrect in understanding it to be a crime?
We are working upon access to an alternate site, but surely will have to pay; and have not received guaranteed access as soon as this Fall.
I am preparing ASAP, a more realistic proposal to you for movement toward a definitive experiment; and ask you again to please wait to send “the letter” until you have the chance to consider what I assert is a more workable scientific alternative.
Very best regards,
Sincerely,
Carl
I wonder why Sharon Weinberger did not check with Mr. Alp BEFORE publishing a story about him in Imaginary Weapons. She is supposed to be an investigative reporter and Editor-in-Chief of a once respectable magazine.
The e-mail you reproduced was issued out by Sharon Weinberger yesterday and dutifully distributed by her apologists who seemed to miss the whole point. Whether you wrote it in 2004 or whether Collins wrote it in 2004 it was an uncorroborated source of gossip. In the two years since 2004 she did not even take the trouble to ask Esen Alp if he did it.
In the same alibi yesterday Sharon Weinberger wrote “Here’s Collins’ email that was quoted in the book (and I’m still waiting for the Argonne scientist to contact me….” At last, she seems to understand that an investigative reporter needs to investigate, but why did she not simply ask Mr. Alp in the past two years? Does she really imagine he will answer now?
Investigate first, then publish.
Diogenes says “The Esen Alp affair is entirely one of Collins’ doing” – along with global warming, no doubt.
Diogenes needs a stronger lamp, this dim bulb isn’t doing the job. What fantastic illogic. I guess it goes like this. Two years ago Collins plots to trap Sharon Weinberger with a clumsy spoof email and the experienced investigative reporter “acquires” it and falls for it completely. She has no slightest suspicion during the next 2 yrs. What a devil of a guy!
Now, she finally decides to check, but once again there’s Collins ahead of her. The matter is settled by Esen Alp’s lawyers and Collins gets the confirming letter. The letter is posted on the internet. Poor investigative reporter, she needs these many apologists.
It’s all Weinbergerism – that’s a “fanatical assault with dud ammunition”.
Funny how the argument keeps shifting. First, loose allegations of fraud fly about. Then, when faced with contrary evidence, the argument becomes “she’s a sloppy reporter.”
Carl, we both *know* that you sent that email. Watch what you say next — your pants may catch on fire. And then you will indeed be responsible for abetting global warming.
Since that “Devil of a Guy” seems able to take it, I am going to go ahead and let your misidentification of authorship pass. Too bad for Collins, but then maybe he did write the email and so deserves some heat. As has been pointed out, it does not matter who wrote it. The result is the same. Sharon Weinberger cobbled together Imaginary Weapons from hearsay and gossip without checking her sources at all. If that email was her source for the Esen Alp story, then I pity her for career dreams in a field in which she is grossly inept. Send her a piece of junk and she incorporates it in her book, and then hides behind the nostrum, “original sources”.
However I am not going to let the rest of the nonsense you write go without correction. Since you are so obsessed with multiple pen names and psychobabble, it tells me that you are writing with several identities. It is not even a reach, because you use some peculiar font that maps ” as *.
As this first amendment exercise of everyone saying everything has developed, there was a healthy trend from fierce to funny. Indeed money was wasted, but actually very little. Even that bit succeeded in producing an impression that Hf-triggering has to be denigrated BECAUSE IT MIGHT BE TRUE. That is something to consider because some of the arguments are quite funny, such as the one that even a (physically) small device would be so radioactive that only a suicide bomber could use it. That was supposed to be an argument why no one could ever use it. Well, I think most people could think of some realistic examples along those lines. Or the argument that it was too expensive to make. Available publications (not from the Devil either) show that the many old cyclotrons aging away all over the world could be realistically renovated and put to work making the isomer in small, but enough, amounts. But, then the product would be even more expensive than gasoline and what bunch wanting to produce isomers in old cyclotrons could afford that kind of money?
Now, the movement of dialog from fierce to funny is well along and since the legals have taken briefs on some of the sides, soon Imaginary Weapons will dry up and blow away, all while denying Sharon Weinberger the martyrdom she seeks. The research on Hf-isomer triggering will continue at Argonne as it should, since the US has no better place. At the end of the day you will be the only one snarling and spoiling the fun.
If you would concentrate on the book and drop your tiresome personal vendetta, you could be more constructive in ways that matter.
I’m going against my better judgment now by rejoining this discussion. I know Noah likes a good argument, and I like Noah’s blog, so what the heck, I’m going to live dangerously.
Carl Collins sets up an interesting conundrum here: by putting on me accusations that he made originally, he can turn around and claim that I’m guilty. What? Huh? I feel like I’m back in grade school, except that grade schoolers are more intellectually honest.
So, let’s go through this again. Collins declares that I fabricated a story. So, I then post a full e-mail from Collins recounting this story, because I’m continually amazed by his ability to twist the facts. No wait, I’m horrified beyond all belief. Oops, Collins is calling himself a liar. I’m then accused of sloppy journalism. Most excellent.
So, let me return to what I wrote in the book: A Japanese scientist wrote that an Argonne scientist gave his director a copy of an article. This is indeed what the Japanese scientist wrote. This is what was reported on in the book, with proper attribution. This version of events was vetted to several people familiar with the scientists involved.
What Collins wants of course, is to bully people. He wants others to do his dirty work. If the Argonne scientist says he gave this article to the director, then he’s accused of a crime and/or attacked by Collins. If he denies it, Collins can accuse me of wrongdoing. Nowhere in there is there any personal responsibility for Collins’ actions.
I cannot imagine what Collins is feeling now. As a human being, I feel bad for him. I say that without a touch of irony.
Wonderful! Finally, after more than 2 years Ms. Weinberger, an investigative reporter, is beginning to investigate an event that she should have resolved before publishing it. The most significant part of what Ms. Weinberger writes is: “A Japanese scientist wrote that an Argonne scientist gave his director a copy of an article.” Let’s remember that the “scientist” did not witness the meeting but was told about it by his boss. That’s from Boss to Yoda to me to Martin Stickley. As pointed out by Doina in her blog, this is reliance upon third-hand hearsay and should not be used in any professional writing without careful corroboration. If Weinberger had investigated before publishing, she would have learned the true facts, namely that the “event” was not as it had originally appeared. I investigated it in 2004 and reached just such a conclusion – it didn’t happen.
What were the facts? Because of the strong momentum of the research successes at SPring-8 prior to 2004, the distinguished beamline scientist, Dr. Yoda, agreed to construct, at Japanese expense, some special electrical shielding that was needed only for our work. Our work accounted for no more than 2% of the activity of that beamline so it was a remarkably generous offer in a tight-budget situation in Japan. That’s fact one. Fact two is that we were told later that the shielding would not be available, and it was not. However, we did do a very successful experiment even without the shielding, as originally scheduled.
I was required to write an annual performance report to DARPA and AFOSR on our research and those reports were and continues to be available through a Government document agency upon request, no FOIR needed. Those reports are fact and exist for 2004 and 2005. They describe successes, difficulties and plans. It is fact that they DO NOT support the story attributed to “Boss” at the head of the chain of gossip. He just cut the budget and “explained” that to Dr. Yoda.
Even after the publication of Sharon Weinberger’s Washington Post Magazine article relations between us were good and we frequently communicated by e-mail. I even offered to help her with the technical aspects of her forthcoming book. However, when I received her “Let them work at Wal-Mart” e-mail about my students and young professionals, I saw the real Sharon Weinberger. I broke communications and so I did not tell her later that the matter had been cleared up. However, an investigative reporter should have been able to find publicly available contract reports by herself.
As far as “dirty work,” I just do not understand the point. The official conclusion communicated by the Chief Counsel of the Chicago Office of the United States Department of Energy is that the story Sharon Weinberger published about purported actions of a senior scientist at Argonne did not happen. That’s nice, and I feel it atones for my original harsh e-mail that I did not publish anywhere. Though I know Ms. Weinberger never takes personal responsibility for her messes, some of us do.
Unfortunately, Imaginary Weapons is full of situations like the one just debunked, and so I am hoping we can simply take the advice being offered in the community. It is terrible thackery, but it is funny and a good read over morning coffee. Just read it as science fiction.
What’s tragic is that, with every post, Collins just digs himself a deeper hole, then jumps down it. His juvenile, whiny posts have all of the intellectual profundity of “what you say bounces off of me and sticks to you.” Carl — for your own sake, just stop! Lighten up!
Btw, Carl — if you had actually used computers for more than a polemical paperweight, you would know that the asterisk is used as a delimiter to identify boldface type in pure-ASCII systems that predate HTML (as in the ARPANET). It’s not a “font.” Other useful delimiters include the underscore, which signifies italics. There are also things called “emoticons,” which allow you to embed some crude graphics, such as smiley faces, winks, grimaces, etc. Don’t let your grad students do all the computer work. You’ll find that many people use asterisks. And underscores. And smiley faces.
And oh. Your pants are on fire!
While I definitely do not support wasting DOD funding (I can not make a judgment either way on the topic of HF bombs as I am not informed on the issue to make such a judgment) I have done some background research on Sharon Weinberger and have come to observe trends in her reporting that lean towards left leaning advocacy journalism. I corroborate such a claim by pointing to the specifics of her academic training (B.A. from >>Johns Hopkins University<<) to her experiences in the state department an organization whose nature by definition leans to the left regarding international relations. I also point to the fact that Ms Weinberger writes for “Slate†a publication that is known for its left wing political bias.
You ask what that has to do with her reporting on defense issues, easy with a few exceptions left wing politics (within the United States that is) is renown for its negative view on defense expenditure / hostility towards defense establishment in general. Such viewpoints are left over remnants of the sociological warfare levied against the United States by the Soviet Union during the cold war.1 It is in my observation hat such bias colors Ms Weinberger’s observation on defense expenditure and weapons development. As such I would keep that in mind when such a person makes the claim that a “weapon is not feasibleâ€. Even if such positions are based on “conventional reason and not political bias remember before General Mitchell test in 1929 such conventional reason said that air planes would not supplant the battleship as the strategic attribute of importance. We all know the out come of that test ïŠ In short my point is, be careful whose advice you buy (including Ms Weinberger, Dr. Collins of mine for that matter) and do some back ground research on those who provide it.
Just my two cents
Jeffrey Damien Cappella
P.S. On a side note the above mentioned form of “law fare†2 is being used by current adversaries of the United States. Adversaries including both proximate extra state security threats -read rogue state supported transnational terrorist organizations – as well as more traditional interim-long term interstate security threats posed by rising peer competitor states like China. Now I am not saying that Ms. Weinberger is a paid Chinese insurgent, rather I am saying that such left wing biases due to where it puts primacy regarding national goals / expenditures are used by our adversaries to undermine our ability to allocate national will in the manner that will maximize relative comprehensive national power.
1. Puzzles of Democratic peace Rastler and Thompson, Page 16, it explains the vulnerabilities of representative republics to external meddlers supporting internal dissident factions to undermine national will.
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawfare