At the end of an article about the National Academies glossary project, Lionel Beehner in SEED Magazine mentions the trouble that beset the translation of my book into Chinese: That means translation will likely remain a sensitive and sometimes contentious subject in US-China relations, especially in matters of science. Take American nuclear expert Jeffrey Lewis’s …
Cosmic Clockwork
by | 2009-03-24 | 17 Comments
Click on the image for a larger version Just how much warning do you need? If a strange satellite came within 10 km of your satellite every month, would you start to worry? Apparently not, not that is, if you are Iridium. I have been puzzling over the probability of one satellite, even if it’s …
Ripping Off Ronen Bergman
by | 2009-03-24 | 10 Comments
The blog-o-sphere is all worked up over an op-ed (in German) by Hans Rühle claiming that Iran funded Syria’s Al Kibar reactor. Central to Rühle’s stardom is the credence lent to his claims by his former position — he is the “former chief of the planning staff of the German Defense Ministry.” (He is the …
Bodman Letter to Gates on RRW
by | 2009-03-23 | 7 Comments
I came across an interesting letter (full text) from then-Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. The letter was Bodman’s parting shot — he cc’d then Energy Secretary-designate Steven Chu — on nuclear weapons modernization. (Chu was sworn in on January 21, 2009.) Bodman warns that the lack of enthusiasm for …
