Imaginary Weapons: A Journey Through the Pentagon’s Scientific Underworld
Product Description
How did a fluke experiment in 1998, involving a used dental X-ray machine and a dubious sample of radioactive material, become the Pentagon’s pet weapons project? It had been rejected by one of the Pentagon’s most important advisory groups, but the Pentagon found an eccentric scientist who believed that a super “isomer” bomb could be built, and deliver the punch of a two-kiloton nuke packaged in a hand grenade. Ideologues at the Pentagon claimed that the Russian… More >>
Imaginary Weapons: A Journey Through the Pentagon’s Scientific Underworld
Tagged with: Imaginary • Journey • Pentagon's • Scientific • Through • Underworld • weapons
Filed under: Conspiracy
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I’ve seen the bomb. Believe me it’s nothing to be mocked. We must resume funding for research into this weapon or doom our very civilization.
I did give this book a few more stars for the cover which is a masterpiece of graphic design and artistic delicacy.
Rating: 3 / 5
I heard of the book on NPR’s Freshair and the topic is interesting. After familiarizing myself with the many names the book begins to flow and you begin to see how far-fetched ideas can gain momentum. I am happy the author has brought this topic to my attention.
I am halfway through the book, and I have noted many grammatical errors (wrong word used, word left out). Although readable, it is distracting. This is the reasoning for the 3 stars. Where was the editor? How about the publisher? Or even simple proofreading software? The author claims to be a writer for a magazine, but seems to have forgotten to read through her text. If you can forgive this, it is an interesting read.
Rating: 3 / 5
The thing the author does is pass judgment without looking at how the “bad guys” did what they did. An action officer or technical executive has very little time to make decisions. Because the subject matter of the necessary decisions comes from all points of the intellectual compass, the folks under discussion literally cannot be as informed as they would like to be on every thing they must act on. And they must act. Quickly. Excuses for inaction are never acceptable in this business.
In retrospect some decisions look pretty dumb. Sometimes they both look dumb and are dumb, but you must look back at the circumstances, most carefully, to sort out which label applies to the specific decisions. You ought to try making them in real time. It isn’t easy.
As a chronology of a process the book is valuable. As a set of characterizations it is less so. This story is the nightmare of any technical executive or action officer: plausibility not backed up by good science, but the science is difficult to acquire in a hurry, and almost by definition likely to be way outside the AO or exec’s previous training. If it weren’t new the requirement for a decision would not go to many of to the people described here.
With the invention of the web browser I expect less of this kind of tale to happen, but I will be astounded if it disappears entirely. It is implied that, of course!, the AO or exec MUST have known the prior events, and after the fact it may well be that they could have. It is a big world out there, though, and sometimes what happened in the past or somewhere else is hard to dig out, again, in real time. I wonder how long it took the author, working full time, to find some of this stuff: try doing it in real time, from a standing start, all the while attending meeting, writing status reports, going on travel, etc. etc.
The financial conflicts of interest that are alleged are interesting, but are they allegations or something that can be used to press charges? It is not too clear on a first reading. I certainly do not intend to waste time on a second.
This is a good effort, possibly a great job of investigation, but I think a not-so-great job of reporting. I would recommend it to any tech exec or AO as a caution about just how badly things can go wrong if you don’t really dig. I would NOT make up my mind about global issues such as those awful military types, just based on this. Just my $.02, though.
Rating: 2 / 5
Susan Weinberger is a defense journalist and first heard about isomer weapons at a casual defense briefing in Washington – a device no bigger than a hand grenade with the punch of a nuclear weapon. Her investigation into one lone device led to insights on everything from weapons development strategies to particular weapon concepts in the works in IMAGINARY WEAPONS: A JOURNEY THROUGH THE PENTAGON’S SCIENTIFIC UNDERWORLD. Most are considered ‘fringe science’ possibilities now – but the government’s embracing of such concepts holds vast military applications and promises many changes, so IMAGINARY WEAPONS is more than idea alone.
Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch
Rating: 5 / 5
Kudos to “Tax Payer” who has enriched the language and added clarity to the debate. To avoid arguments about what we are all saying, let’s settle the terms and concepts in this nuclear struggle, as he says. Dictionary additions,
Thackery – self defining – use as in “Imaginary Weapons is ridiculous thackery”.
Plog (comments disabled variety) – P(ropaganda) log – SPAM from Sharon Weinberger. You get it but cannot comment back. Used to communicate her alibis and shift the blame for goof-ups. Her husband didn’t proofread very good. Collins told her so; and (of course) she didn’t think she needed to ask the guy she accused.
Peer review – “early stages can be pooh-poohed”…”science with concrete claims based on repeatable experiments can be rightly slaughtered.”
Taxpayer justice – “Many parties honed their knives”…”some even serenaded it with with bagpipes.”
Fringe science – Sharon Weinberger doesn’t like it – “…don’t need a physics degree”…”Sharon Weinberger didn’t need one to get to the bottom and expose the fringe science….”
This review is one of the few that loves Imaginary Weapons and still gets the majority vote “yes”. Easy to see why.
Rating: 1 / 5