The military subculture that pursues the development of fabulous, physically impossible weapons concepts at taxpayer expense is the subject of a new book by defense reporter Sharon Weinberger called “Imaginary Weapons.”
Weinberger introduces the hafnium bomb, a hypothetical weapon that would supposedly harness the energy released from a nuclear transition within a hafnium isomer. It is a purely speculative notion that has been largely discredited, but one that attracted nearly cultish attention — and millions of dollars — within the defense establishment.
It is akin in its eccentricity, and lack of reproducibility, to “zero point energy,” “psychic teleportation” (pdf), and other notions that Weinberger terms “fringe science.”
Fringe science, she contends, “has reached new heights under the Bush Administration. We have fewer and fewer scientific experts in the government, and an increasing unwillingness by the government to turn to outside scientific advisers.”
“The real danger in this story is not the existence of fringe science, but of fringe science in government, particularly when it receives substantial funding or guides decision-making.”
“I see this problem getting worse, not better. If the government doesn’t take steps to shore up its scientific expertise, I think we are facing a future filled with imaginary weapons.”
Her highly readable new book, filled with entertaining or disgusting anecdotes, has just been published.
See “Imaginary Weapons: A Journey Through the Pentagon’s Scientific Underworld” by Sharon Weinberger, Nation Books, June 2006.
Update: For archived comments on this article, see the Wayback Machine here.
About 86% of Colorado’s water is used for agriculture, but only about 30-60% of that water actually reaches crops. Conveyance efficiency through canal modernization is a powerful drought resilience and water saving strategy with proven technical feasibility.
“One thing became increasingly clear: AI doesn’t simply introduce a new category of risk. It changes the speed, scale, complexity, and interaction of risks that already exist.”
In an ideal world, we would not have state or federal climate intervention research bans. We would have researchers and institutions that would not shy away from revealing the good, the bad, and the ugly of these technologies and doing so responsibly.
“What excites me is that it’s very tempting to be very discouraged, and say, ‘Oh, we’ve got these archaic institutions that are calcified and you could never change them.’ But I think we’re in the middle of a technological revolution that will upend lots of things, and does provide a window.”