2008 Fireworks Show!

Kristen and I got a chance to see the 2008 Rhythm and Booms annual fireworks display here in Madison. Last year, we decided to go to it rather late, and ended up in a field just outside Governor Nelson state park. (Lots of mosquitoes, a poor view of the fireworks, and ticks, to boot!)

This year was better.


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We found an awesome viewing location in a parking lot just outside Warner park. The lot afforded a wide view of the sky, and (based on my calculations) about 0.5-1 km from the explosions of the shells. A spectacular view, and the booms would give you the whole-body shake that makes fireworks oh-so fun! I strongly suspect that we'll be back there next year.

My Letter to Obama

I am a scientist who is actively working on solving our Nation's (and world's) energy crisis, and hold an advanced degree in nuclear engineering and engineering physics. I respectfully urge Senator Obama to revise his policies towards nuclear energy.

As the Senator is well aware, nuclear power is a proven technology which has zero carbon emissions and is capable of providing base-load electrical power. Despite its wastes, nuclear power is currently the best of our available options when it comes to electric generation while satisfying carbon emission requirements to combat global warming.

I am a nuclear engineer -- and I fully support deploying a broad base of green electrical power generation technologies such as wind, solar, geothermal, and hydro-power in order to help clean up our grid. However, eliminating nuclear power from serious, immediate consideration in the energy discussion effectively removes one of our most powerful weapons against combating global warming from the table.

Therefore, I again strongly urge Senator Obama, as a scientist, nuclear engineer, and an enthusiastic supporter of your campaign to reconsider his stance on nuclear power.

We'll need a lot more of it in the days to come if we mean to seriously combat global warming -- a worldwide crisis which needs to be attacked from every possible angle, sooner rather than later. I do not relish the prospect that my children, and their children's children, will be paying the price for our inaction today.

Arsenals of Folly

I think this post represents my first book review on my website, but hey -- you have to start somewhere!

I recently finished reading Richard Rhodes' Arsenals of Folly:The Making of the Nuclear Arms Race (2007, Knopf). (Amazon link) I have read with great interest his more mammoth tomes The Making of the Atomic Bomb and Dark Sun; the latest book in the series was much slimmer (at a more modest 300-ish pages) and had a different focus.

While the prior two books focused on WWII and the scientists who were crucial to the discovery of nuclear fission and fusion; its eventual application to atomic weaponry; Soviet espionage; and political ramifications of post-WWII following the dawn of the nuclear age, Arsenals focuses primarily on the interplay between Ronald Regan and Mikhail Gorbachev near the end of the Cold War.

A theme that continues to shine through the historical accounts is the paranoia, on both sides of the conflict, which led to the arms race. It's amazing to me how close we've come -- on many more occasions than you'd like to believe -- to full-scale nuclear war. Being a nuclear physicist myself, the prospect is terrifying. (The image below is of the crater generated by a preliminary-phase hydrogen bomb in 1954; modern weapons (and all H-bombs in general) can be scaled to much higher destructive yields.)



Although I lived through the end of the Cold War as a child, Arsenals helped me to put it in perspective. Until I read it, I don't think I truly appreciated the danger that we were all living under (myself included) of nuclear annihilation. And while the arms reduction goals achieved and documented in the book significantly reduce the threat, we still have so many nuclear weapons that it hardly seems justified.

Something else that I found particularly interesting: how people ended up rationalizing the truly awesome destructive capabilities of nuclear weapons. Presidential advisers and military brass of the 70's and 80's were arguing about "winnable" nuclear wars where we would only lose 150,000,000 American lives in the exchange. These people wanted to see such an exchange! I prefer the view of Fermi and Rabi, key contributors to the nuclear science and ultimately the weapons: "By [the H-bomb's] very nature it cannot be confined to a military objective but becomes a weapon which in practical effect is almost one of genocide...it is necessarily an evil thing considered in any light."

So, the interested reader will have lots to learn from Arsenals of Folly. While it is a sobering read, I highly recommend it to all -- and especially Rhodes' prior works on the history of atomic weaponry. They serve as powerful reminders of why we need to continue to strive towards elimination of nuclear weaponry (and more importantly, securing of nuclear materials) in order to ensure the continued survival of all humanity.