Fuzzy Logic

An interesting story today comes from the AP (and, by association, CNN’s Website) telling the tale of a court in Pakistan that has issued a gag order on one of their Nuclear Scientists/Engineers/Physicists, Abdul Qadeer Khan, because he has been telling the media about how Pakistan helped North Korea develop nuclear bombs.

A court on Monday barred the disgraced architect of Pakistan’s atomic weapons program from speaking about nuclear proliferation, less than three weeks after he implicated the army in the sharing of nuclear technology with North Korea.

That’s right–the Pakistani court has the ability to refrain a person from talking completely about a subject because they don’t want to have to admit what happened.  Great.

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It seems that Prof. Rusi Taleyarkhan, a Purdue University Professor in the School of Nuclear Engineering, has been found guilty of scientific misconduct.

Quote from the Purdue News Service:

Purdue University on Friday (July 18) announced that an investigative committee with members from five institutions has concluded that two allegations against Rusi Taleyarkhan, a professor of nuclear engineering, constituted research misconduct.

I can’t really comment on this too terribly much as I’m a student in the School of Nuclear Engineering.  That being said, I hope that this doesn’t tarnish the reputation of Purdue or NE there–there is only so much they can do and they couldn’t be expected to do more than they already have.  So, that all being said, read up on it and see what you think.

The site Little Green Footballs comments on Obama’s new plan to rid the planet of nuclear weapons.  Now I have been following everything that Obama says about Nuclear technology for personal reasons and most of it I simply think about and then add that to my list of reasons why Obama aggravates the piss out of me.  I’m not saying he’s a horrible person and I’m not saying that I won’t vote for him (as I am still completely undecided), but he just is so aggravating sometimes that it’s ridiculous.  Why would Obama take away our main deterrant force?

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CNN brings us this little gem:

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has formally ordered the Air Force, Navy and Defense Logistics Agency to conduct an inventory of all U.S. nuclear weapons and nuclear weapon-related materials to make sure all items are accounted for, according to a Pentagon memo released Thursday.

What’s that, Secretary Gates? You mean that we have to take care of the most powerful weapons known to mankind? I am absolutely horrified with the casual manner that the United States seems to act with in respect to their nuclear weapons. The know-how to make a nuclear weapon is no longer hard to come by–the nuclear physics is relatively simple and could be figured out by a few graduate students in physics and nuclear engineering. The really hard part of building a nuclear bomb is getting the appropriate nuclear material. Seeing as how we have somewhere near 5000 nuclear warheads (according to Wikipedia) around in the United States alone, I would hope this is a top priority.

Just as big of a priority, of course, is the fact that there are over 400 nuclear power plants active in the world, with almost all of those running on a uranium fuel. Why we aren’t policing those as well, I’m not sure–Uranium bombs are generally not as powerful, but they’re a lot easier to make, disassemble, transport, and reassemble.

I think the most interesting thing from this entire article, however, is the fact that Secretary Gates is giving the US Forces sixty days to locate all of our nuclear warheads and to report back. This brings up two very very interesting questions–First of all, why does it take sixty days to count all of our most powerful weapons? Secondly, if we were in a war situation and needed to launch our nuclear missiles at a country, how long would it take the Air Force/Navy to respond then? If missiles from Russia are supposed to take around twenty minutes to hit the mainland United States, shouldn’t we theoretically be able to do a relatively close count of our nuclear weapons in, say, double that time? The only exceptions, I would assume, would be nuclear subs sleeping out in the ocean, only getting signals every once in a while. Other than those subs, every nuclear weapon depot and Air Force base with nuclear bombs should be able to perform an accurate count in less than a day. I think the sixty days are just a great ‘out’ given by the Defense Department, basically saying “If you can’t find your nukes right now, you better find them in the next 59 days or else you’re going to be in trouble.”

The pessimistic side of me says that I shouldn’t be surprised: that it is the government, and I should let it go. The realistic side of me, however, says that these are nuclear weapons capable of slaughtering millions of people with ease and maybe, just maybe, we should keep track of them.