The Department of Energy has announced that a new computer to be housed at Los Alamos — named RoadRunner after the state bird of New Mexico — is the first computer in the world to break the petaflop barrier, or perform 10 15 floating operations per second. U.S. Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman today announced …
Indian PM on Disarmament
by | 2008-06-10 | 10 Comments
Greetings from Delhi. Yesterday, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh opened the conference, Towards a World Free of Nuclear Weapons, by lighting a lamp (left) and giving a speech (right). (I tried to convince George Perkovich to have a lamp lighting ceremony at the 2009 Carnegie Nonproliferation Conference, but I don’t think he bought it.) Singh’s …
Did Pakistan Test a North Korean Bomb?
by | 2008-06-08 | 11 Comments
Golly, I had no idea that Qatar Airlines has an entire premium Terminal for First and Business class patrons. Wow. The other day a reader, Tom, asked about rumors that one of Pakistan’s nuclear tests in 1998 involved North Korean supplied plutonium: Weren’t there credible allegations that at least one of Pakistan’s May 1998 nuclear …
More Nuclear Mistakes
by | 2008-06-07 | 5 Comments
Greetings from Istanbul. Several people have sent me stories about the latest kerfuffle involving the 5th Bomb Wing at Minot AFB, which failed a nuclear surety inspection, and the separate decision by SECDEF Gates to fire Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Moseley and Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne for the accidental shipment of …
