From What's New by Bob Park


http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN06/wn052606.html#3

Friday, May 26, 2006

3. IMAGINARY WEAPONS: WHY THE PENTAGON KEEPS THIS STUFF SECRET.
The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA), one of the countless independent, nonprofit, public policy research institutes in Washington, reported last week that the Pentagon will spend $30 billion on classified programs in FY 2007. Why? In a new book, Imaginary Weapon: A Journey Through the Pentagon's Scientific Underworld, Sharon Weinberger peeks behind the curtain at hafnium bombs, "remote viewing," telepathy and all the rest and concludes secrecy is mostly to avoid rational oversight.


http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN04/wn101504.html

Friday, October 15, 2004

1. EXOTIC WEAPONS: WHAT'S NEW ESTABLISHES THE "EXCALIBUR PRIZE."
The $10 million X-Prize for the first civilian sort-of space ship capable of offering affordable space sickness to the public got front-page coverage around the world. The WN editorial board was inspired to offer a prize of our own. We put our head together and came up with the Excalibur Prize for the weapon based on the most speculative physics. "Excalibur" was the code name of the fearsome X-ray laser that Edward Teller promised could wipe out the entire Soviet missile fleet simultaneously. They chose the name of another mythical weapon. Candidates abound, such as the hafnium bomb (WN 16 Apr 04), but lest you think the prize is wired for Carl Collins, there's the awesome anti-matter bomb, which comes up so often it's now called the "doesn't-matter bomb." The Air Farce slapped a secrecy lid on the "positron bomb" after the San Francisco Chronicle carried a story on it. No word on how many positrons the Air Farce has. The Excalibur Prize consists of a free subscription to WN.


http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN04/wn080604.html

Friday, August 6, 2004

1. COLD FUSION: JUST WHEN YOU THINK LIFE CAN'T GET ANY SILLIER.
The cover of Popular Mechanics for August warns that "Cold Fusion Technology Enables Anyone To Build A Nuke From Commonly Available Materials." A nuke? The cold fusion guys can't brew a cup of tea. The article: "Dangerous Science" is by Jim Wilson, whose cover story in April proclaimed the dawn of the age of atomic aircraft powered by hafnium-178 isomer reactors, which don't exist and never will (WN 16 Apr 04). OK, so grownups aren't supposed to read Popular Mechanics, but if the cold fusion faithful think they're going to get a cover story in Time, get over it. DOE recently announced that cold fusion research will be reviewed, and believers imagined they'd been vindicated (WN 02 Apr 04). Wilson says Eugene Mallove of Infinite Energy Magazine assured him that the experimental evidence for cold fusion is too compelling for DOE to ignore. Mallove couldn't be reached for comment.


http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN04/wn060404.html

Friday, June 4, 2004

1. HAFNIUM: CONGRESS KILLS THE "ISOMER ENERGY RELEASE PROGRAM."
In spite of the Pentagon's fascination with imaginary weapons, the Senate Armed Services Committee listened to the scientists and recommended a $4 million reduction in the program. That puts it at zero. The House Armed Services Committee agreed: "The committee questions the utility of this research under any circumstances and is particularly skeptical of research into nuclear isomer production before triggering is shown to be possible." WN recommends they also cancel DARPA's subscription to Popular Mechanics (WN 16 Apr 04).


http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN04/wn041604.html

Friday, April 16, 2004

1. HAFNIUM-178: JUST WHEN YOU THINK LIFE CAN'T GET ANY SILLIER.
The cover of Popular Mechanics for May proclaims the dawn of the age of atomic airplanes powered by miniature nuclear reactors. These are not old-fashioned fission reactors. These are the new "quantum nucleonic reactors," a.k.a. hafnium-178 isomer reactors. The problem with fission reactors was that they required too much shielding. The problem with the hafnium-178 reactor is that it doesn't exist. Carl Collins at U. of Texas, Dallas, claimed to be able to trigger decay of the hafnium-178 nuclear isomer with x-rays. That would be a miracle, but several other groups found it just doesn't happen. That detail was left out of the Popular Mechanics story, which contains nothing beyond the New Scientist story a year ago (WN 15 Aug 03). The hafnium-178 isomer avalanche now seems destined to join hydrinos, zero-point energy, gravity shields, cold fusion and all the other free-energy fantasies that only work for believers. In the paranormal world this is known as "the investigator effect."


http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN04/wn040204.html#2

Friday, April 2, 2004

2. THE HAFNIUM BOMB: THE DARPA MOTTO IS "HIGH RISK, HIGH PAYOFF."
With DARPA support, a group led by Carl Collins at the U. of Texas at Dallas claimed to be able to trigger energy release from a hafnium-178 isomer using a dental X-ray machine. As What's New reported last October, a group using the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne found no sign of the hafnium-178 isomer-triggering effect (WN 24 Oct 03). We thought that would be the end of it, but Sunday there was a long cover story on the hafnium-178 bomb in the Washington Post Magazine. The people at DARPA seem to have the "high risk" thing down pretty well, but "high payoff" still seems to be a problem.


http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN03/wn102403.html#4

Friday, October 24, 2003

4. HAFNIUM-178 BOMB: SOME BELIEVE IT, BUT FEW HAVE SEEN IT.
Some in the Pentagon apparently choose scientific beliefs the way they choose to be Methodists, or Democrats or Chicago Cubs fans. Claims that the Hf-178 isomer can be triggered to release its stored energy by irradiating it with X-rays found plenty of fans in the Pentagon. The energy would lie somewhere between chemical and nuclear. That is, it would if it was so. A group using the Advanced Photon Source (APS) at Argonne tried to repeat the isomer-triggering effect reported by Carl Collins and colleagues at U. of Texas at Dallas, using a borrowed dental X-ray machine. Despite a far greater X-ray intensity, the APS group, led by John Schiffer and Don Gemmell found no effect (WN 15 Aug 03). Still, some at the Pentagon call for a costly program to make Hf-178.


http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN03/wn081503.html#3

Friday, August 15, 2003

3. THE ISOMER BOMB: HOW A DENTIST'S X-RAY MACHINE WENT TO WAR.
Well, maybe not quite. A news story in this week's issue of New Scientist magazine reports that the Department of Defense is currently pursuing an isomer bomb, which would supposedly release its energy in the form of gamma rays from the decay of a nuclear isomer of Hf-178. Indeed, such nuclear isomers are on the Militarily Critical Technologies List. The claim is that decay can be accelerated by irradiation with low-energy x-rays. We're told that the scientist who did the research used an x-ray machine borrowed from a dentist friend. A JASON panel determined that the idea is theoretically implausible and the evidence shaky at best. A group that attempted to reproduce the effect in a carefully controlled study at the Advanced Photon Source found nothing.