Imaginary Weapons: A Journey Through the Pentagon's Scientific Underworld
Sharon Weinberger
Nation Books, New York,
2006. $26.00 (276 pp.). ISBN 1-56025-849-7
January 2007, page 58
Good science
fiction must rest upon plausible science. Sharon Weinberger's Imaginary Weapons: A Journey
Through the Pentagon's Scientific Underworld tells a real-life story that relied on implau-sible
science. The book is a shocking reminder of how, in a time of hyper-inflated defense budgets, sanity
can be tossed aside and real money can be squandered beyond belief in the false name of "scientific
promise."
Weinberger's story is about the government's
pursuit of an allegedly new kind of powerful weapon envisaged by scientist Carl Collins, who hyped
the results of a bad 1998 experiment and, over the course of several years, doggedly sold his dream
to people in the defense community for untold money. It was, at best, a case of selling "snake oil."
The hafnium bomb project involved gullible weapons enthusiasts who had more spending authority
than good sense. Steve Younger, a senior weapons specialist in the US Department of Defense, typified
this characteristic. Despite unsuccessful attempts by numerous federal agencies to replicate
the original bad experiment, which involved a dental x-ray machine, word of the potential to build
a Hf explosive spread quickly throughout the defense community. The subject matter became classified,
which, unhappily, made it more difficult for the project to be examined by the scientific community.
Classification can protect vital information from misuse, but—and here's the lesson—it
can also protect bad ideas (such as Star Wars, the space-based missile defense system) from the
scrutiny of objective evaluation.
In a nutshell, the Hf proponents
urged federal officials in the Pentagon and the US Department of Energy to produce gram quantities
of the isotope 182Hf and excite it into a high-spin isomer 178Hfm2,
which has a relatively long half-life of about 30 years (see PHYSICS TODAY, May 2004,
page 21). The
advocates of the project then proposed to have x rays trigger rapid de-excitation of the isomer,
thus causing a massive cascade of gamma rays as the isomer relaxes to the ground state. Little analysis
is required to show that production of the needed quantities of the Hf isomer would be horrendously
expensive. And a trigger mechanism such as an x-ray laser was only a wispy dream.
Despite the physical facts,
the dream of producing a Hf explosive prevailed and was repeatedly sold to inept decision makers.
Even the once-heralded Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency seemed to fall prey to the idea.
Peter Zimmerman, then chief scientist of the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and a born skeptic
but capable scientist, asked the famed JASON group of elite scientists to evaluate the Hf proposals.
The group dismissed the idea as not remotely feasible, but that still didn't stop the proponents.
Only several years later did a series of experiments and tests finally discredit the original report
of success.
So why did it take so long and millions of dollars to dispel the rumor?
Through her persistent tracking of the events and people, Weinberger
shows us the veracity behind Mark Twain's statement that a lie can make
it halfway around the world before the truth can even get its shoes on.
Her highly readable account underscores the wisdom that "a little
knowledge can be a dangerous thing." Her important story reminds us
that the government must support and use highly credible analysis
groups, such as the National Academies; the congressional Office of
Technology Assessment, which was dismantled in 1995 during the
Republican Revolution led by Newt Gingrich, former speaker of the US
House of Representatives; and professional groups, such as the American
Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Physical
Society. Needless to say, snake oil finely dressed up is always going
to be available for sale.
For me, the hero in Imaginary
Weapons is Zimmerman, who quietly used his scientific training and experience in Washington
to nudge the fable of a Hf bomb into a deservedly deep hole. Sadly, his nudge took several years to
complete.