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Imaginary Weapons
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
The Pentagon's fascination with fringe science is old news, writes veteran defense reporter Weinberger in this incisive study, but the Bush administration has pushed it to new levels of wackiness. After reviewing our government's pursuit of antimatter weapons, psychics and telepathy, she focuses on a "nuclear hand grenade" that may cost billions and seems certain to fail. Before the War on Terror and the avalanche of government money for advanced new weapons, few paid attention to physicists who said they could harness the energy of unstable atomic nuclei, or "isomers," through a wildly expensive process involving atomic reactors. But in recent years, a group of fringe scientists aided by defense industry insiders has convinced the Pentagon that America's post-9/11 survival depends on developing an isomer bomb. While proponents compare it to the Manhattan Project, opponents point out that independent researchers have not been able to duplicate the results attained by isomer enthusiasts, and that many assumptions behind the bomb contradict the laws of physics. Though Congress canceled isomer bomb development in 2004, the Department of Energy found $5 million to continue the research. (July 1)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
That the Pentagon wastes billions of dollars on outmoded or ineffective weaponry has been old news for decades, but Weinberger offers a new dimension. Editor of the magazine Defense Technology International, Weinberger has previously worked for the U.S. State Department and the Systems Planning Corporation, and she uses her insider's understanding to expose the flaws in weapons design through a case study built around a device called a hafnium bomb. The idea for a handheld weapon with the explosive power of a nuclear bomb begins in the mind of a pseudoscientist who makes more headway with the Pentagon than seems logical. "All it took," Weinberger notes, "was a used dental X-ray, a few die-hard supporters, some farfetched claims of a new arms race, and the Pentagon thought it was on its way to the next superbomb." The episode seems outlandish enough to be satire, but alas, it's true to life. Weinberger injects humor into the saga, but comedy pales in light of the potentially deadly nature of the proposed weapon. Steve Weinberg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
See all Editorial Reviews
The Pentagon's fascination with fringe science is old news, writes veteran defense reporter Weinberger in this incisive study, but the Bush administration has pushed it to new levels of wackiness. After reviewing our government's pursuit of antimatter weapons, psychics and telepathy, she focuses on a "nuclear hand grenade" that may cost billions and seems certain to fail. Before the War on Terror and the avalanche of government money for advanced new weapons, few paid attention to physicists who said they could harness the energy of unstable atomic nuclei, or "isomers," through a wildly expensive process involving atomic reactors. But in recent years, a group of fringe scientists aided by defense industry insiders has convinced the Pentagon that America's post-9/11 survival depends on developing an isomer bomb. While proponents compare it to the Manhattan Project, opponents point out that independent researchers have not been able to duplicate the results attained by isomer enthusiasts, and that many assumptions behind the bomb contradict the laws of physics. Though Congress canceled isomer bomb development in 2004, the Department of Energy found $5 million to continue the research. (July 1)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
That the Pentagon wastes billions of dollars on outmoded or ineffective weaponry has been old news for decades, but Weinberger offers a new dimension. Editor of the magazine Defense Technology International, Weinberger has previously worked for the U.S. State Department and the Systems Planning Corporation, and she uses her insider's understanding to expose the flaws in weapons design through a case study built around a device called a hafnium bomb. The idea for a handheld weapon with the explosive power of a nuclear bomb begins in the mind of a pseudoscientist who makes more headway with the Pentagon than seems logical. "All it took," Weinberger notes, "was a used dental X-ray, a few die-hard supporters, some farfetched claims of a new arms race, and the Pentagon thought it was on its way to the next superbomb." The episode seems outlandish enough to be satire, but alas, it's true to life. Weinberger injects humor into the saga, but comedy pales in light of the potentially deadly nature of the proposed weapon. Steve Weinberg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
See all Editorial Reviews
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Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
IN THE SUMMER of 2002, Tony Tether, the head of the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency was having a good day. Read the first page Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Los Alamos, United States, Department of Energy, Carl Collins, Star Wars, Martin Stickley, New Mexico, Soviet Union, Hill Roberts, Nobel Prize, Cold War, James Carroll, Manhattan Project, State Department, William Herrmannsfeldt, Tony Tether, Defense Department, Donald Gemmell, Eastern Europe, Nancy Ries, Peter Zimmerman, American Physical Society, Ehsan Khan, Fred Ambrose, Mickey Mouse New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
IN THE SUMMER of 2002, Tony Tether, the head of the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency was having a good day. Read the first page Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Los Alamos, United States, Department of Energy, Carl Collins, Star Wars, Martin Stickley, New Mexico, Soviet Union, Hill Roberts, Nobel Prize, Cold War, James Carroll, Manhattan Project, State Department, William Herrmannsfeldt, Tony Tether, Defense Department, Donald Gemmell, Eastern Europe, Nancy Ries, Peter Zimmerman, American Physical Society, Ehsan Khan, Fred Ambrose, Mickey Mouse New!
Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 8
books:
See all 8 books this book cites
- New Mexico (Celebrate the States) by Melissa McDaniel on 5 pages
- The Air Force (Defending the Nation) by John Hamilton on page 210, page 211, and page 212
- Thunder of Erebus by Payne Harrison on page 169, and page 170
- How Did It Happen? - The Cold War by Paul Harrison on page 169
- Los Alamos (Spanish Edition) by Martin Cruz Smith on page 23
See all 8 books this book cites
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