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Return to Doomsday

Some 200 Indian scientists have been brave enough to defy the widespread approval and enthusiasm for the tests inside the country by expressing their “deep dismay and unhappiness at this action of the Indian government” in a statement available on the Web. In the statement the scientists caution that “the scientific and technological achievement in conducting these nuclear tests should not be blown out of proportion…We do not see what immediate threats to national security ‘forced’ this move, particularly when people’s needs in terms of education, health, infrastructure and industrial development are urgent.”

Meanwhile the Doomsday Clock – the metaphorical “symbol of nuclear peril” maintained by The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists – has been moved five minutes forward and now stands at nine minutes to midnight. The closest the clock has ever been to midnight was two minutes, when Russia exploded its first thermonuclear device in 1953.

The tests also highlight how difficult it will be to verify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), if it ever comes into force. For this to happen the treaty has to be ratified by the 44 nations that have nuclear power reactors. So far only 13 have ratified the treaty, and India and Pakistan have yet to sign, let alone ratify it. Of the five established nuclear powers – China, France, Russia, the UK and the US – only France and the UK have ratified the treaty.

Preparations for verification are already under way and an International Monitoring System (IMS) capable of detecting nuclear explosions as small as 1 kiloton is being set up. However, there is currently a grey area between 1 and 10 kilotons in which detection is difficult against a background of earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and conventional explosions such as mining blasts. India claims that its five tests had yields in the range 0.2 to 43 kilotons, but only the largest was detected: the bomb dropped on Hiroshima had a yield of 15 kilotons.

The IMS will rely on a worldwide network of four types of sensor: seismic, hydroacoustic, infrasound and radionuclide. Last year a US National Research Council report listed a series of research activities that were needed in all four areas if the IMS was to meet its specification. These included research on theory, modelling, sensor design, background signals and the fusion of data from the different types of sensor.

Ultimately, however, the tests remind us that despite much discussion of other threats to our planet and daily lives – global warming, disease, cyber-terrorism and biological warfare for instance – there are still large arsenals of nuclear warheads dotted around the globe, and very little enthusiasm among the owners of these missiles to get rid of them. And while these weapons remain, no amount of treaties will guarantee that they will never be used.

The world would be a better place if the CTBT were in place, but that still would not stop the US, for example, from spending $5bn per year on a stockpile stewardship programme to ensure that its warheads explode when they are meant to (see Physics World page 39). And for as long as the five established nuclear powers hang on to their weapons, their exhortations to other nations to abandon their nuclear aspirations will ring hollow.

Science pushed to the limit

What are the limits of science? Will the pursuit of knowledge lead to a never-ending source of intellectual (and perhaps even monetary) riches? Or are scientists misleading the public on this score, in an attempt to gain even greater support, power and influence? It seems that we physicists are more and more frequently being forced to tear ourselves away from our calculations and experiments to address questions such as these, often posed by sceptical citizens and politicians. In Impossibility, John Barrow strides confidently into these murky waters.

The book takes on these questions from a wide range of perspectives. Barrow explores the philosophers’ contributions, illustrating how the philosophical climate of an epoch can make or break opportunities to advance human knowledge. The natural limitations of the human mind are examined, and speculations about the impact of biological evolution on the form of these limitations are produced. The limits provided by technology, and by the laws of physics themselves (such as the finite speed of light, cosmic singularity theorems and the second law of thermodynamics) are explored, as are the deep mathematical and logical limitations suggested by the likes of “Gödel’s theorem”, which proves that there are limits to the completeness of logical systems. Throughout the book many sociological aspects are touched on. For example, Barrow asks what sort of people are drawn to a pessimistic view of the future of science, and likewise, what type of person is inclined to passionate defence of its future prospects? What personal satisfaction does each of these groups possibly find in their own respective viewpoints?

I have to confess that I was a difficult reader for this particular book. Having the good fortune to be a participant in the ongoing “golden age of cosmology”, where every few months sees yet more significant advances, means that sitting back and contemplating the limits of science seems at best a very odd diversion. This is even more the case when I find the author – also a cosmologist – reassuring me that when some future super-advanced life forms transfer their minds to computers, the gap in experience they would “necessarily” endure would probably not bother them. A chance to contribute to some of the great successes of current science is simply a much more compelling activity. In the end, I suspect we will only really learn about the limits of science by being as ambitious as possible and seeing what happens, not by stepping back and analysing the prospects ahead of time.

Of course, in many ways my impatience is quite self-indulgent. If we cannot give a responsible account of our activities, and convince others there is real progress being made, the opportunities to continue our work will greatly diminish. And, closer to home, the issue of what questions can ultimately be addressed by science is a crucial one in the field of cosmology. At the moment, cosmologists have the luxury of focusing on a set of concrete, tractable questions relating to the formation of galaxies and the large-scale features of the universe. Still, it is not yet clear how effective we will be in bringing other interesting cosmological questions into the domain of solid science. I found Barrow’s thoughtful treatment of this issue one of the many strong points of this book.

Impossibility should be accessible to a very wide readership. Anyone with an interest in the subject matter should be able to read and enjoy this book. For the most part, it reads more like an informal conversation in the coffee room (or pub) rather than a tightly argued case for a particular point of view. This can be a bit distracting at times, but the style is actually very well suited to the subject matter. The limits of human knowledge is by no means a closed subject, and Barrow’s survey of the many different ideas and perspectives that have been expressed on the subject comes across as much more honest than a single-minded defence of a particular view could ever be.

The second half of the book is more technically oriented and does contain some carefully argued points. In the process, the reader is given excellent exposure to several interesting aspects of modern research, including “inflationary cosmology” and time travel in general relativity. I was particularly impressed with Barrow’s discussion of the relationship between “Gödel’s theorem” and possible limits on our understanding of the physical world.

Probably the most provocative aspect of the book for me was the fact that Barrow’s fascination with the “anthropic cosmological principle” gets plenty of play. The idea, roughly, is that many aspects of the universe must be as they are so that living creatures can emerge. My objection is that our understanding of what makes a “living thing” and what role that understanding might play in cosmology is much too poorly understood to allow useful results to be obtained.

In the concluding chapter, Barrow comments on the type of scientist whose knee-jerk reaction to the idea that some things might be unachievable or unimaginable is to see it as “an affront to the spirit of human inquiry: raising the white flag to the forces of ignorance”. I certainly count myself as a scientist of that type. In the end I liked Impossibility a great deal because Barrow has managed to take on this difficult subject with his spirit of human inquiry robustly intact. My recommendation to readers is: read the book. It will help you discuss the future of science in a thoughtful and effective way, you will enjoy many thought-provoking science discussions of fundamental interest to a physicist, and it will be fun. But then, please, indulge yourself in the passionate pursuit of your own research. It is only through that process that we will truly discover what is really possible.

Selling physics to unwilling buyers: physics fact and fiction

We’ve all had the following experience. You meet someone at a party, and they ask you what you do. You tell them you are a physicist. Quickly, they change the topic. But if you ask them if they are interested in black holes, warp drives or time travel, then they are fascinated.

Most people think that they have little interest in physics, and yet at the same time they are remarkably interested in many of the things that physics deals with. This dichotomy suggests that we have done a poor job of relating physics to the non-physicist and that the natural way to get people motivated to learn about our field would be to stress the connection between physics and their own interests.

I sometimes have the opportunity to lecture to teachers about teaching and, when I do so, I usually point out that the biggest mistake any teacher can make is to assume that the students are interested in what you have to say. Instead, you have to be prepared to convince them to be interested, and you cannot expect them to come to you. Rather, you must reach out to where they are. I think that this maxim applies far more broadly than just to classroom teaching, but at any rate it certainly applies to public education. Motivation is far more important than clarity, initially at least.

This is all to preface why I – someone who likes to think of himself as a reasonably respectable physicist – found myself writing and lecturing on the physics of Star Trek. After all, Star Trek, as I have to remind many individuals dressed in uniform at my lectures, is science fiction. The show makes no pretence to describe reality, nor to need it. As Gene Rodenberry, the show’s creator, said, the Starship Enterprise is primarily a vehicle for drama. The science is thrown in and arbitrarily bent to fit the needs of the plot – not vice versa.

Nevertheless, Star Trek has captured the public’s imagination. For example, when the Air and Space Museum in Washington DC had an exhibit of the Enterprise, it was the most popular exhibit in the entire history of the museum – far more popular than any real spacecraft that had actually travelled in outer space!

What better way could there be, it seemed to me, to try and reach people than to use an icon of popular culture? As I pondered the issue, I recognized that the series touches on a range of diverse physical phenomena in one way or another. Moreover, I decided that one of the reasons why the series has been so popular with the viewing public over the past 30 years is that it is about possibilities. Surely this is why most physicists do physics? After all, they simply want to know what is possible in the universe. Thus the idea of using the Star Trek setting as a laboratory in which to explore the physics of the real universe began to become more and more natural in my mind.

Ground rules

This is not to say that I did not have misgivings about the whole effort. Since it goes without saying that much of science fiction – and indeed a great deal of Star Trek – involves scientific nonsense, does it diminish the real world of physics to delve into such fantasy worlds? Moreover, what is the point of debunking a fictional universe? And indeed, how would my colleagues view the effort, and how would the fans of Star Trek react to what I was doing?

I decided early on that there had to be several ground rules if this effort were not to revert either into an apologia for the indiscretions of Star Trek writers, or into a nit-picking diatribe that would be of interest to no-one. First, no matter how much it hurt, if something was impossible, I would say so. Second, rather than dwell on these impossibilities, if something in the fiction were impossible, I would find something in the real world to relate it to that might not be.

This whole enterprise has reinforced my conviction that truth is indeed stranger than fiction, and I think that people are most taken by this when examples are thrust in their faces. Indeed, in one of my favourite reviews of my most recent book, Beyond Star Trek , which appeared in the US magazine Publisher’s Weekly , the reviewer – much to his surprise apparently – acknowledged that scientific phenomena are often far more fascinating than fictional ones. I find no better justification for using science fiction as a way to teach science than this demonstration that it can convince people that the real world is fascinating.

I have yet to talk to an audience of laypeople about, say, solar neutrino detection in the context of Star Trek bloopers about neutrinos, without hearing titters erupt when I make the claim that all you have to do to detect solar neutrons is detect several argon atoms in 100 000 gallons of cleaning fluid! It is great fun to then point out that this experiment has been done, and moreover that no science fiction writer in his or her right mind would introduce such a notion in a screenplay because it seems so implausible. And without the Star Trek hook, I am not sure I would even have had an audience in the lecture theatre to have this kind of “ah ha” experience, as they say in science museums.

Science fiction into the classroom

But can this approach work beyond the world of popular books and lectures, and in the classroom? I believe it can. Since writing my books, I have heard from countless high-school teachers that they have used Star Trek or other examples from science fiction for some time as a way to both motivate otherwise uninterested students and to further excite those students who are already turned on by physics. Having books that touch on the most modern developments in physics in this context helps teachers by giving them access to examples of which they would probably otherwise not have been aware.

Nevertheless, I have found that realizing that something very basic can be understood in a new way is often far more powerful than the satisfaction gained from obtaining new perspectives on the various exotica of modern physics. We all try to make the questions in our problem sets more exciting than the “Joe and Jane were travelling down the road at 50 miles per hour…” type that many of us were exposed to in introductory physics courses. Why not then get students to show that Jean-Luc Picard, captain of the Enterprise in Star Trek: The Next Generation , would be squashed like an ant by g-forces every time he uttered “Engage!”, or that the alien invaders in the movie Independence Day would wreak havoc merely by bringing a spacecraft with a quarter of the mass of the Moon into a geostationary orbit around the Earth? It is for precisely these reasons, in fact, that I began my last two books with these two examples.

Indeed, there is a school of thought in physics education that suggests that the only way to really have students learn things and remember them afterwards is to make them directly confront their own incorrect preconceptions about physics. Get them, for example, to first explain why objects of different mass fall at different rates, and then show them that this isn’t so. A generation reared on Star Trek – and more recently The X Files and movies such as Star Wars and Independence Day – is primed with misconceptions just waiting to be exploited!

Dangers and pitfalls

This approach is, of course, not without its pitfalls. I have found that the most egregious public misconception about science is the feeling that scientific revolutions do away with all that came before them. The public thinks that nothing is impossible and that everything that we think is true today will one day be proved wrong. (So, the logic goes, why bother paying attention to physics at all?) This, needless to say, is completely antithetical to the central features of science – namely that we can only prove things to be false (not true) and that principles that violate experimental test now will continue to violate them in the future. (I wish I could convey these ideas more effectively to some of my Post-modernist colleagues in the humanities!)

You have to be careful when having fun with the universes of science fiction to make sure that your audience does not come away confused about these central themes. Indeed, I receive more letters about ideas that I claim are impossible than anything else. (Most of the letters are prefaced by something like: “They would have said you were crazy if you talked about aeroplanes in the 16th century…”.) Our responsibility is to teach people how to separate the difference between areas where we simply do not know the answers – where indeed, anything, or almost anything, may be possible – from those areas where we have a clear notion of which ideas are incorrect.

While I recognize that resorting to the world of science fiction can sometimes blur this distinction, I think that, if one is careful, the advantages of reaching out to popular culture do, in the end, far outweigh the possible dangers.

Benefits of informal education

Delacôte suggests there are several lessons that can be applied to science popularisation in general: the emphasis must be on a ‘active experience’; the best techniques work for all age groups; the most rewarding experiences result from the integration of museum displays with school courses; and the best exhibits are produced when artists and scientists work together. Delacôte also calls for new interactive media such as the Internet to be used to reach a global audience, and for institutional Web sites to foster a “culture of learning”.

There is also evidence from the UK that informal science education is attracting students to science. According to Catherine Wilson of the Institute of Physics, “when students are asked why they are studying physics at advanced level, many of them say that taking part in project work, extra-curriculum visits, and people coming to the school helped them choose the subject.” And Queen Mary and Westfield College in London runs a scheme in which undergraduates help teach science courses at local schools. Jim Emerson, a physicist at the college, says that students on the scheme felt that they had benefited, but he says that there is not enough data to conclusively prove this claim.

ESA demands new money

Antonio Rodota, ESA’s director general, has been campaigning to increase the amount of industrial involvement in the space agency. However it has been clear for many months that there would be substantial overlap between some ESA research programmes – satellite telecommunications, Earth observation and navigation systems – and those planned by the EU. The deal is attractive to both sides as both are trying to reduce the cost of Europe’s space programmes and to make them competitive with US programmes.

Battle also confirmed that ESA is radically shaking up the way it will run future programmes. “The key to further gains in efficiency must lie in new ways of managing programmes”, he said. “We need to transfer more risk and reward to industry in a better partnership of public and private sectors and to devise performance objectives for satellites without specifying their design down to the last nut and bolt.”

Criticism of the inefficiency of ESA programme’s have become increasingly public. Last week Claude Allegre, the French science minister, complained that the agency, the EU and Europe’s smaller nations – who include the UK – were all responsible for the inefficiencies. Allegre added that Europe’s three biggest space powers — France, Germany and Italy — were determined to get more for their investment in ESA.

Gamma-ray bursts could test quantum gravity

Gamma-ray bursts appear to be related to the deaths of massive stars. Amelino-Camelia and colleagues claim that if the difference in the arrival times of photons with different energies can be measured, they will be able to test various theories of quantum gravity. This is because some of the theories treat the vacuum as a region in which particles with different energies travel at different velocities.

In these theories the vacuum is treated as an ‘energy foam’ in which microscopic quantum energy fluctuations occur on approximately the Planck length (10-33 cm) and time (10-19 GeV). As photons pass through the vacuum, they deform and excite these fluctuations and this, in turn, reduces the photon’s velocity. The higher the energy of the photon, the greater the effect. Therefore, because of the vast distances travelled by the photons from gamma-ray bursts, the difference in arrival times could be on the scale of milliseconds, which is well inside the capabilities of present gamma-ray observatories.

Why earthquakes stop

The barriers found on fault lines are usually regions in which a strong pinning force reduces the movement of the plates. However geologists cannot define the position of these barriers around the fault lines. Rundle et al . use a ‘stochastic Griffith theory’ to statistically calculate the distribution of barriers, and thus predict if it will arrest an earthquake or not. The Griffith theory of tensile fracture suggests that the growth of a crack in a material – which is what an earthquake is – is determined by factors such as surface energy, friction and elastic energy of the material. The crack only becomes bigger when the energy needed to separate the crack tip is greater than the energy released upon the growth of the total surface area. Their theory includes a term which represents an additional energy sink that arises from the barriers.

Computer simulations by Rundle et al. show a series of “earthquake cycles” – including foreshocks, a main shock and aftershocks – that are similar to what is observed in “real” earthquakes.

An evening with the Bohrs

There is a new play by Michael Frayn, best known for his humorous writings, about the famous visit of Werner Heisenberg to Niels Bohr in Copenhagen in the autumn of 1941. Those who dismiss the work as likely to be yet another populist mishmash of half-understood physics, personality stereotyping and political mystery-mongering would be wrong. An enquiry into the events of a particular evening in Bohr’s home becomes a wise and perfectly informed journey to the core of the scientific enterprise.

It is also brilliant theatre. The three characters – Bohr, Heisenberg and Bohr’s wife Margrethe – are on stage nearly all of the time. Notionally, they are in the Bohrs’ house, with three chairs as their only props. But they grip us continually with words, tones, gestures, movement and lights. The professional magic of the Royal National Theatre, embodied in David Burke [Bohr], Sara Kestelman [Margrethe] and Matthew Marsh [Heisenberg], is mediated by the refined direction of Michael Blakemore. But Frayn’s sharp, spare script is the score for an intricate contrapuntal trio, played briskly back and forth in crisp sentences that merge into a sparkling stream of conversation, confrontation and debate among three old friends.

Historically, of course, Bohr was notoriously woolly in speech, and Margrethe was probably much gentler. Sometimes Heisenberg interpolates comments into a conversation about himself from which he is supposedly absent, or Margrethe plays Greek chorus to the other two. But this is not an exercise in factitious reconstruction. In any case, they are all ghosts, trying to work out in an after-life what really happened, re-enacting various versions of that brief encounter or recalling other times together. With unostentatious skill, these chunks of memory and afterthought are woven seamlessly into the fabric of the conversation. Nothing is unclear – except what was actually said between two people in a few fateful minutes.

And that uncertainty – the physics metaphor is much used throughout – is genuine. It was a very secret, undated conversation, of which the participants gave changing and conflicting accounts in later years. On stage, the actors are as much in the dark as the many historians who have studied the two physicists’ lives and times. The actors must also infer the facts from the surrounding circumstances, with only the advantage of fallible emotional memories and empathic insights. Stepping out of that frame, we see how the author has built into his drama as much as he can find out about two highly complex individuals and about the extremely tense world in which they lived. Alas for the recent death of Charles Frank (Physics World June p43), who interrogated many German scientists at the end of the Second World War and edited the “Farm Hall” transcripts, in which Heisenberg unwittingly revealed some of his thoughts when he heard of Hiroshima. Not being an expert on this subject, I can only assume that Michael Frayn has pretty fairly represented what is now publicly known.

The question is: in which of many contexts should the visit be best interpreted? The political context is obvious. But it is deeply fissured and riddled with secret caverns. Heisenberg was involved in a German nuclear weapons project. He suspected that there was a parallel Anglo-American project, and might have been fishing for information about it from Bohr. Or was he trying to tell the Americans, through Bohr, that the German project was not likely to be fruitful? Or perhaps it was just a subtle move in Heisenberg’s campaign to retain control of his project inside the Nazi bureaucratic jungle.

The patriotic context seems clearer, yet makes no sense. Heisenberg was a sentimental German. His country was his beloved home: its people were his people. It must continue to shine among nations for its science, he felt. In 1941 the ultimate national disaster was not obvious. Even though Hitler was a homicidal maniac, it would probably come out all right in the end, he possibly thought. In visiting the Bohrs, Heisenberg tries clumsily to play a card of potential protection for Bohr, who is half-Jewish. They love him, but are affronted by his disregard for their Danish patriotism. Could he really have expected to enlist Bohr in the Nazi cause?

Hindsight makes the immediate scientific context too credible. Was a uranium-235 fission bomb feasible? Conveniently for his conscience, Heisenberg had grossly overestimated the required critical mass of such a bomb, and was only trying to build a power reactor. But even if Bohr would not help directly, his confirmation of the estimate would have been reassuring. Indeed, in retrospect, one can imagine a fearful alternative universe opening up, in which Bohr suggests to Heisenberg that he should check his calculation, the Germans make the bomb, and eventually London replaces Hiroshima as the first nuked city.

All physicists know of the communal context. Just fifteen years earlier, Bohr and Heisenberg had tirelessly walked and talked themselves into the “Copenhagen interpretation” of quantum mechanics. Advised by Balazs Gyorffy, formerly professor of theoretical physics at Bristol University, Frayn has made a witty attempt to present this in lay terms, although I cannot guess how successfully. The main point is that Bohr and Heisenberg were at the centre of a truly international “invisible college” in which the new theoretical physics was being created. Perhaps Heisenberg was moved by the fragmentation of that community under the hammers of anti-Semitism and war, and was seeking vaguely to regenerate it.

It could be, of course, that Heisenberg, who had worked as a brilliant young man with Bohr back in the 1920s, has returned years later to show himself off to his former patron as a power in the great world. I doubt it. Certainly, the intellectual rivalry with Schrödinger spilled into their professional careers, but that was all past. Much more likely was a deeper personal context, in which Bohr plays father figure to the clever but insecure younger man. Was Heisenberg desperately seeking moral reassurance? Was he asking for absolution for the sin of plunging pure physics into the pitchpot of war? But then, didn’t he realize that there could be no forgiveness for putting the diabolic power of the atom into human hands, especially the hands of such demons as the Hitler gang? Did even Niels Bohr understand then what is now all too clear?

It is impossible to answer these questions, for nobody can know what happened that evening in Copenhagen. The contexts and dimensions are too complex and contradictory. But these are also the contexts and dimensions of the great world of physics. They can no more be reconciled or resolved in the large than in the small. Copenhagen rehearses in microcosm the indeterminacy of all our lives and works. It is a fable for our times, a Greek tragedy where fate itself is shrouded in mystery and uncertainty. Go and see it, for sure.

  • Copenhagen is on at the Royal National Theatre in London and at the Playhouse in Oxford at various dates until September. Further details are available from the RNT box office (http://www.nt-online.org)

Clinton nominates energy secretary

The move surprised observers. Most people expected Elizabeth Moler, Peña’s deputy, to get the position because of her experience in a number of important issues. Over the next few months the DOE plans to increase competition in the US electricity market; increase shipments of nuclear weapon grade material from Russia to the US; and finally negotiate an agreement with US civilian nuclear power plants for the disposal of their radioactive waste.

But at a press conference yesterday, Richardson emphasize the stockpile stewardship programme (which maintains the reliability of US nuclear weapons), increased diversification from military research to the civilian sector, environmental clean-up of DOE laboratories, and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Richardson’s experience at the UN – where he tried to build a coalition to force international weapons inspection on Iraq – explains his interest in controlling weapons of mass destruction.

It will take serveral months for Richardson’s appointment to be approved by Congress. Moler will take on the day-to-day running of the organization in his absence.

Fallout from nuclear tests continues

Under the CTBT, a network of seismic stations around the world is being set up to monitor the treaty and automatically send information to an International Data Centre (IDC) in Vienna, Austria. A prototype centre in Virginia (PIDC) currently receives information from existing stations. So far only 64% of the primary seismic stations, and 27% of the secondary stations are active and none of the stations send their data in real time to Virginia. Recent analysis of PIDC data by the US Geological Survey pinpointed India’s nuclear tests to within 12 km of its location. The analysis also suggested that the explosion was between 30-60 kilotons – consistent with the 43 kiloton yield claimed by the Indian government.

However the signals suggest a single smooth spike, not a multiple explosion as claimed by the Indian officials. Experts believe that multiple explosions would only show a subtle variation in the signal and hence be hard to detect. Furthermore the sub-kiloton explosions from 13 May were apparently detonated in a sand dune which ‘muffled’ the already weak seismic signals produced by the explosion. This disparity between the results from the PIDC and the yields claimed by the Indian Government are increasing calls for a seismic monitoring station in India. So far the closest monitoring station is 2800 Km away in Tibet.

Some analysts believe that it is unfair to consider the Pakistan and India tests as a failure of the CTBT as other countries testing nuclear weapons would detonate much larger explosions. “Both countries have decades of nuclear experience, ” says one CTBT observer “and a non-nuclear state would not have the capability to detonate a similar [kiloton] yield”. Trevor Findlay, executive director of VERTIC – a verification information centre based in the UK – believes the biggest failure came from the national governments own attempts to police the treaty, particularly the US. “It was a major disappointment” he says.

Meanwhile, the UK government is concerned about the long term feasibility of Blacknest – the forensic seismology facility at the Aldermaston defence laboratory in Berkshire. In the next four years most of the expertise at the unit will retire and over forty years worth of experience will be lost. An official from the Ministry of Defence confirmed that the government is looking to outsource all its expertise in seismology. During the CTBT negotiations Blacknest provided independent scientific advice to the treaty negotiators on what sort of monitoring regime should be instigated. Indeed, some observers say they stopped the treaty from falling apart. However, the UK government awarded the task of monitoring the CTBT to the British Geological Survey in Edinburgh, under a competitive tendering agreement. It is expected that the remaining staff at Blacknest – along with their archive record – will be moved to Edinburgh.

Across at CERN all discussions on granting India observer status on the Large Hadron Collider in wake of the country’s nuclear tests has been stopped. According to the Swiss newspaper, Le Temps, CERN’s governing council was due to discuss India’s observer status at a meeting on 19 June. However, after the nuclear tests carried out on May 11, the topic was deleted from the agenda. A CERN spokesman confirmed that member states have been discussing India’s observer status, and that the issue is not on the agenda of any current meetings.

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