We stand up for you and America.

Join the Fusion Energy Foundation Fourteen thousand Americans last year invested from Now we're aiming for 50,000 new members who $75 to $1,000 each in the future of America's scientific believe in progress and growth. Our goals for 1981 are and industrial leadership by joining the Fusion Energy just as important as 1980's fusion legislation: Foundation, the nation's largest scientific membership (1) Eliminate the obstruction of progress by the Envi­ organization. ronmental Protection Agency. With this kind of clout, we waged a vigorous educa­ (2) Launch an unprecedented program of scientific ed­ tional campaign nationwide and on Capitol Hill, culmi­ ucation for our children. nating in what Congressman Mike McCormack called (3) Assure the funds to develop fusion power in the "the most important energy project undertaken any­ manner mandated by the 1980 fusion act. where by anyone"—the Magnetic Fusion Energy Engi­ With your active support, we can make 1981 the year neering Act of 1980. As the first national organization to that environmentalists cease determining U.S. policy. support an Apollo-style fusion program for America, We can eliminate the artificial impediments to nuclear we and our 14,000 members are proud to take credit for energy and put an end to the Malthusian politics of creating the environment in which Congress and the austerity and scarcity. president have mandated fusion as the energy source of Join the Fusion Energy Foundation now. We work for America's future. you all year long. Fill out the membership card opposite this page. We're making progress! Literally. Because, as the Fusion Energy Foundation goes, so goes the na­ tion. Think about it. Our rapid growth in 1980 meant that the McCormack. fusion bill became law and made possible America's renewed commitment to scientific progress.

But making progress costs money. The FEF and the United States face greater challenges in 1981. And as we grow and expand our activities, we can ensure that the new administration fulfills its mandate for economic growth. In 1979 alone, more than 22 million dollars was given to zero-growth groups by just six foundations.* Our fight requires this kind of funding—and more. You can help by giving generously to the FEF and supporting some of our special activities. • Become a corporate or lifetime member of the FEF (Si,000). • Sign up your friends and colleagues as members. • Sponsor bulk subscriptions to The Young Scientist in your area's schools. • Purchase the FEF slide show on fusion to educate your friends and community. 1980 was a year of progress for the FEF and the nation. With your continued support, we'll both do better in 1981. Contributions to the Fusion Energy Foundation are tax-deductible.

For more information, contact Harley Schlanger, FEF Membership Director, 888 Seventh Avenue, Suite 2404, New York, N.Y. 10019, (212) 265-3749.

'See Fusion, March-April, 1981, p. 37. Features

25 The Saturn Puzzle & the Origin of the Solar System Dr. John Schoonover The thermohydrodynamics of the early Saturnian system may provide the explanation of the novel structures of the planet observed by Voyager 1.

32 Piaget's Role in Wrecking U.S. Education Mary Cilbertson Far from being a competent educator or child psychologist, Jean

NASA Piaget was part of a project to contain the development of science. Saturn: The fabulous photographic data from the Voyager mission are a challenge to today's scientists and to­ 38 The New Math: morrow's—a topic explored in this Destroying Cognitive Development issue's editorial and the feature sec­ Dr. Steven Bardwell tion. Johnny and Jane can't add because Jean Piaget's New Math prevents them from thinking.

News

ENERGY NEWS/INTERNATIONAL 12 An Interview with Michel Poniatowski: At the Frontiers of a 'Scientific Civilization' 16 Velikhov Welcomes U.S. Fusion Bill 17 Nuclear Option Brightens for Israel NATIONAL 18 Global 2000: Will the Zero Growthers Capture the White House? 19 Nat'l Academy of Sciences: Turning Away From Science? 19 Domestic Uranium Under Threat WASHINGTON Will the U.S. Back Advanced R&D? 22 Reagan Energy Policy Still Cloudy 23 'Agenda for Progress': The Heritage View 24 DOE Secretary Edwards—A Progrowth Approach 60 On Edwards's Qualifications 60 FEF Testifies for Fusion 60 Congressional Line-up: New Prospects for High Technology 61 Carter Bans Many Chemical Exports 61 NASA Budget Under the Axe

Henri Bureau/Sygma FUSION REPORT "Fusion represents wisdom," says 41 Fusion Budget Caught in Policy Fight Michel Poniatowski, former French 42 FPCC Meeting Plans Fusion Course interior minister, in a wide-ranging 42 Lubin Moves to Sohio interview on energy, science, and 43 U.S. Committed to Intor's Next Stage economics. His comments on the U.S. 43 LLNL to Replace Argus with Novette research situation are particularly in­ 43 TFTR Generator Damaged teresting in light of the Reagan ad­ SCIENCE UPDATE/PHYSICS ministration's budget decisions. See 44 Evidence That Nuclei Have Crystalline Structure page 12. 45 A New Look at the Crystal Lattice FUSION BIOLOGY AT THE FRONTIERS OF SCIENCE AND ENERGY 46 Industrially Caused Cancers 'Exaggerated' Vol. 4, No. 7 46 Report Finds Lower Risk from Radiation May 1981 46 Insulin Found Safe in Human Tests EDITORIAL STAFF 46 Gene Transplant in Mice Editor-in-Chief Dr. Morris Levitt Associate Editor Dr. Steven Bardwell Departments Managing Editor Marjorie Maze! Hecht 4 EDITORIAL Art Director Christopher Sloan 5 THE LIGHTNING ROD Fusion Technology Editor 6 LETTERS Charles B.Stevens 9 VIEWPOINT Washington News Editor 10 NEWS BRIEFS Marsha Freeman 47 FEF NEWS Biology News Editor Dr. Richard Pollak 53 SCIENCE PRESS REVIEW Energy News Editor 55 BOOKS Lydia Dittler Schulman 63 THE BLUE PAGES Physics and Astronomy Editor Dr. John Schoonover Production Editor Catherine Catfrey Editorial Assistant From the Editor's Desk Vin Berg Photo Editor Carlos deHoyos Advertising Manager Basic Science in Jeopardy Anton Chaitkln Circulation and Subscription Manager As we go to press, the Reagan administration plans to adopt research MariaSpida and scientific policies that will reduce the capability of the U.S. economy Contributing Editors to grow. Alleging that there is a fixed budget pie, the budget cutters Carol Cleary, William Engdahl, and Uwe Parpart have set up two false dichotomies to justify their policies: near-term FUSION is published 10 times a year by the versus long-term research and basic versus applied science. The end Fusion Energy Foundation. Suite 2404. 888 Sev­ result of these policies, however, is the same zero growth and deindus-' enth Ave.. New York. NY. 10019,Tel.(212)265-3749. Dedicated to providing accurate and comprehen­ trialization advocated more directly by the Global 2000 proponents (see sive information on advanced energy technolo­ page 18). The implications of the proposed cuts for the fusion program gies and policies, FUSION is committed to re­ storing American scientific and technological are (1) that it will not be possible to begin implementing the engineering leadership. FUSION coverage of the frontiers of science focuses on the self-developing qualities phase of the fusion program specified in the 1980 fusion legislation, of the physical universe in such areas as plasma which mandates the development of a fusion reactor by the year 2000, physics—the basis for fusion power—as well as biology and microphysics, and includes ground­ and (2) that the program will not have the kind of ongoing broad-based breaking studies of the historical development of research that will permit the development of a commercial reactor (see science and technology. The views of the FEF are stated in the editorials. page 41). The planned cuts in the space program, in science research, Opinions expressed in articles are not necessar­ and in education will have similarly serious effects. ily those of the FEF directors or advisory board. Subscriptions by mail are $20 for 10 issues or This budget policy is not only unfortunate but unnecessary. A broad- $38 for 20 issues in the USA; $25 for 10 issues in Canada. Airmail subscriptions to other countries based R&D and basic science effort would take only a fraction of the are $40 for 10 issues. revenues provided by a full gear-up of the U.S. nuclear industry to Address all correspondence to FUSION, Fu­ sion Energy Foundation. Suite 2404. 888 Seventh export technology, for example. Furthermore, delaying fusion or the Ave., New York, N.Y 10019. space effort now will make it impossible to rebuild America's industry or Second class postage is paid at New York. N.Y. and at additional mailing offices. to carry out any large-scale global development plan. Advertising Representatives The FEF has launched a nationwide science alert to organize members, FUSION'S East Coast advertising representative readers, and the majority of Americans who support science and tech­ is Warren Smith and Associates. 38 Hull Rd.. Box 754, Bernardsville. N.J 07924, (201) 221-0184; nology to defend the nation's future by stopping these budget cuts. Call European advertising representative is Karl- Heinz Holz, Pf 3329. 62 Wiesbaden, West Ger­ or write us for copies of the FEF policy statement on the science budget. many. Telephone (06121) 440277.

Copyright < 1981 Fusion Energy Foundation Printed in the USA Ail Rights Reserved Marjorie Maze! Hecht ISSN 0148-0537 Managing Editor USPS 437-370 'ALL WE HAVE TOPO IS GET IT TO JUMP TH&DUGH THE ftlWINQ LOOKS/" The Significance Of the Saturn Results Much has been made in the press and in specialized scientific journals of the paradoxical nature of the Voyager observations. There can be little doubt that the pictures of the Saturn ring and satellite system radioed back to Earth by the Voyager spacecraft pose impossible problems of interpretation for prevailing theories of celestial mechanics. Such theories view the Saturn system as a complicated Newtonian n-body problem; that is, they insist that an explanation must be given in terms of interactions—gravitational and possibly electromagnetic—between a large but finite number (n) of independent bodies of different masses and composition. The main paradox, however, lies in the fact that someone would attempt such a foolish n-body reduction of the Saturn problem in the first place, when there is a much superior scientific methodology available: the scientific tradition and the tried and tested results of the work of Kepler, Leibniz, Dirichlet, and Riemann. Kepler's comprehensive and rigorous approach— scientific rigor exists only when the question "why?" rather than the Aristo­ telian-Newtonian "what?" is posed—in uncovering the "why" of the workings of the solar system, an approach equally adequate and necessary in the analysis of the Jupiter or Saturn subsystems, was first demonstrated in his 1596 Mysterium Cosmographicum and developed in conclusive form in his last major work, the 1619 Harmonices Mundi {Harmonies of the World).

Kepler's Hypothesis These two treatises are singled out rather than Kepler's writings on empirical astronomy, because these beautifully speculative works, often derided today as mystical numerology, so clearly reflect the essential character of his method.

FUSION May 1981 In the Mysterium, Kepler put forward the following hypothesis concerning the relative sizes of the planetary orbits: that the observed quantitative sequence of the orbits is what it is, because it conforms to a unique succession among the five Platonic solids, the regular polyhedra. Specifically, if we take The a sphere for the orbit of Saturn and inscribe a cube that, in turn, has been inscribed by a sphere, the latter will be the orbit sphere of Jupiter, and the remaining orbits are derived with reasonable accuracy, using the tetrahedron, Lightning octahedron, dodecahedron, and icosahedron in analogous fashion to the cube. In the middle of the 18th century, Kepler's hypothesis about the regularity of the planetary orbits was improved upon by two German astronomers, Johann Daniel Titius and Johann Elbert Bode, who developed a quantitatively more accurate formulation known as the Titius-Bode law. Unfortunately, My dear friends, however, the Titius-Bode formula obscures the essentially geometrical and I wish you could become better topological character of Kepler's original idea and makes its fundamental acquainted with my old associate, scientific implications much more difficult to recognize. Kepler, directly Richard Saunders, my collaborator in following Plato in this respect, asserted that the planetary orbits were caused a printing venture some years ago and to be what they are by a certain succession of regular polyhedra. For Arthur an inveterate maker of prognostica­ Koestler (in The Sleepwalker), such talk is proof of a deranged mind: ". . . tions. Among the annual prophecies Kepler's misguided belief in the five perfect bodies was not a passing fancy, of Poor Dick, as he was wont to call but remained with him, in modified version, to the end of his life, showing all himself (especially upon the presen­ the symptoms of a paranoid delusion. . . ." tation of a printer's bill from your However, sticking to this method (which is much more important than the humble servant), was a medical fore­ specific hypothesis in question) to the end of his life, Kepler laid the founda­ cast Of the DISEASES this Year, to wit: tions of modern physics and astronomy; sticking to it with the same tenacity "The worst Disease of all will be a today will allow us to unravel the mysteries of the Saturnian system. certain, most horrid, dreadful, malig­ Viewed from the most advanced elaboration of the Platonic Keplerian nant, catching, perverse and odious standpoint to date, represented by the work of Bernhard Riemann, Kepler malady, almost epidemical, insomuch asserted the identity of the physical and geometrical features of physical that many shall run Mad upon it; I processes as the basis for how the metric relations appropriate to that process quake for very Fear when I think on't; are determined. In fact, this is the full meaning of the principle of relativity. for I assure you very few will escape It is the topological characteristics, such as the distribution of the singularities, this Disease; which is called by the the boundaries, and the overall connectivity of the manifold in question, learned Albumazar Lacko'mony." which determine the "flow" of the physical geometry. Anyone who thinks It was the news that influential per­ that Kepler failed to develop rigorous mathematical analysis (which we are sons in the federal employ were dis­ now able to access with ease as a result of the clarity and conceptual economy cussing the possibility of cutting the of Riemann's formulations in his 1854 essay "On the Hypotheses Upon Which Fusion Budget that alerted me to the Geometry Is Based") should read Kepler's wonderful little book The Six- probability that this "perverse and Cornered Snowflake, which today would be classified as an advanced treatise odious malady" had seized our new in algebraic topology. government in Washington. The investigation conducted there into the relations among the regular When I made inquiries, I was told solids, the successful attempt at the generalization of the concept, and the a Great Accounting had been done, identification of critical invariants were all conceived by him as an exploration whose results proved conclusively of the mind of God the Creator. And by approximating an understanding of that Monstrus deficitus was growing this mind he sought to discover the necessary form of the products of His on the Body Politick, sapping its creative activity. strength; that a specialist had been We need not, of course, adopt Kepler's specific religious attitude or his called in to treat the affliction; that specific scientific hypotheses, but the ontology and method must be the same. the good doctor has resolved upon a In our corner of the universe, for specifiable reasons a hot gas cloud began course of even-handedness in reduc­ a process of condensation, and this process of condensation and self-differ­ ing the cancer; and that according to entiation, under given boundary conditions, followed a definite pathway, this principle, the Fusion Budget, as evolving successively more complex and higher-order structures. The topol­ contributing to the affliction, must be ogy, geometry, and energy flows of such evolution are not arbitrary, but are cut. governed by what might be termed a negentropic least-action principle,^he Who is this learned medical man? type of principle which Leibniz, Plato's and Kepler's most gifted student, I asked. I was informed that the fa­ regarded as the essential characteristic of the physical universe. mous Dr. Jefferson Heritage had con­ The Saturn results thus present us with a twofold challenge: first, to look sented to take the case. foward to the solution of the ever-new problems on the frontiers of physical "Heritage!" I exclaimed in dismay. science and second, to look back, so that we can use as our best guide the "Why he is a notorious bleeder, and real history and conceptual basis of progress in mathematics and physical can be depended upon to reduce science, instead of the prevailing prejudices and mythologies on that subject. Continued on page 6

May 1981 FUSION exercise," when the mathematicians scientist, rather than an established of Europe had struggled with the der­ one, he seems to have a good grasp ivation of an inverse square law and of Kepler. He also analyzes Kepler's failed, is to say the least ingenuous. work with a very sharp insight. It ap­ The schoolboy exercise of today is pears that his fine appreciation of yesterday's tough problem, and last scientific work by history's Great Men week's epoch-making breakthrough. stops at that of Kepler's too. Please That's what scientific progress is all tell Mr. Zubrin that from Kepler's The Question of Kepler about. Newton abandoned causal times till Newton the world had been problems in favor of action at a dis­ endowed with a great many brilliant To the Editor: tance, absolute space, and absolute "elementary schoolboys" who simply The December issue of Fusion just time for one reason: it allowed him did not attempt his famous "deduc­ arrived, and I would like to compli­ to compute numerical results. tion . . . exercise," assuming he is right ment you on your editorial regarding Isn't that what we want to be able about this simple schoolboy matter the complementary nature of space to do in fusion research? If we had . . . gravity. research and fusion research. It is a reliable and inexpensive ways of com­ If, however, . . . Mr. Zubrin is an point we have been making for some puting plasma behavior, I suspect we accomplished scientist, I am amazed time, arguing that all large-scale sci­ would be willing to tolerate a good at his academic integrity which allows entific efforts have common features deal of the "lowering of scientific him to use such language and such that outweigh their detailed differ­ outlook" that Mr. Zubrin regards as sweeping assertions as "Newton con­ ences. Both space and fusion research so reprehensible. tributed absolutely nothing to the un­ act as stimulants and pacemakers for Charles Sheffield derstanding of planetary motion." the development of technology. A President Peter Palutikof strong space program is not possible American Astronautical Society Watertown, Mass. without a healthy technology base, Alexandria, Va. nor is a successful fusion program. . . . The Editor Replies The articles. . . were excellent, with To the Editor: The issue posed by Dr. Sheffield is the disturbing exception of Mr. Zu- I was impressed by the diversity of a crucial one. brin's comments on Kepler. To accept science articles in [the December issue Newton's computational tools can, Kepler as a great scientist—of course; of Fusion]. The article by one "Robert after the fact, describe many physical but to dismiss Newton's accomplish­ Zubrin" left me in a cold shock. . . . states of a process. But they cannot ments as an "elementary schoolboy If [Mr. Zubrin] is just an inspired account for the lawful ordering prin-

cutting into the Brain of the patient." so frightfully dear. I am told each 1 The Lightning Rod "Dr. Heritage never makes conces­ percent increase in the prime interest Continued from page S sions to special interests," he angrily rate increases the monstrus deficitus circulation until the patient is incap­ replied. "He is against elitism, by $2 billion." able of ingesting anything but large and believes in Democratic "Alas, no," my acquaintance said. quantities of embalming fluid." Decentralization." "The opinion of Dr. Jefferson Heri­ "But he has never failed to stabilize "Even of the central nervous sys­ tage is that the cost of money is the a patient," my source reproved. tem? By that logic," I pointed out, one thing that may not be cut. You I could not let this matter rest. "The "the Dinosaur was superior to man, see," he continued, "the reason Fusion Budget is an infinitesimal part as it is said that he had a second Brain money costs so much is that it is the of the total Accounting," I replied, at the base of his Tail." one thing everyone wants. That is the "amounting to something less than "Two heads are better than one," law of supply and demand which on one-tenth of 7 percent. Yet it my acquaintance rejoined. no account may we interfere with." promises unlimited Energy. Surely "But not on the same person. Un­ By this time I had determined that that would improve our economic less, of course, he is the editor of a urgent communication with you was Health." liberal newspaper, in which case the absolutely required, in the interests "That is in the future," my interlo­ condition is known as pluralism and of restraining the mad Dr. Heritage cutor complained. "Now it is only a is regarded as indispensable for his before serious damage is done. To­ part of the monstrus deficitus, a small functioning." gether let us do what we can to keep part to be sure, but according to the My informant was again incensed. the President and the Congress safe principle of even-handedness it must "Dr. Heritage will have nothing to do from his ministrations. be cut." with liberals," he stressed. "He is Yr. obt. svt., I decided on another approach. a most conservative doctor, except "Scientific research is a developing when it comes to radical surgery." Mental Power applied in the service "Well if the good doctor is deter­ of the Body Politick," I argued. "By mined to cut something," said I, "let cutting the Fusion Budget, you are him cut the cost of money, which is

6 FUSION May 1981 ciples of the phenomena they de­ plasma of a candle's flame. He dem­ scribe, or the succession of physical onstrated how the method of hypoth­ geometries. esis could be used to guide experi­ The difficulties that arise from this mental discoveries, and he mounted are plain enough in the inability of repeated and sophisticated polemics Newtonian equations to adequately against the Aristotelian materialist tra­ you're fed up describe a so-called three-body inter­ dition in the sciences. action. The same problem is demon­ Gilbert's importance is summed up with the myth that strated in the case of the recent results in the fact that he is almost totally of the Voyager 1 fly-by of Saturn, and unknown today to working scientists the "liberal arts" in the theoretical impasse in inertial and the educated population at large. are the exclusive fusion work. We refer you to Dr. He was plunged into this obscurity Steven Bardwell's "Solving the Three- through the efforts of his enemy Fran­ property of the Body Problem" (Fusion, June 1978) cis Bacon, who launched a campaign and "The Theoretical Impasse in In­ of slander and vilification after Gil­ anti-science, ertial Confinement Fusion" by Uwe bert's death. Bacon, who updated the Parpart (Fusion, Nov. 1979). Aristotelian materialist categories in environmentalist Kepler's approach, however, pro­ his Organon, ridiculed Gilbert's pre­ mob... ceeds from a more advanced stand­ cise experimental work in order to point—the relativistic physics of the reduce the influence of Gilbert's sci­ system as a whole. entific circle, inasmuch as this circle Subscribe to Dr. Morris Levitt was heir to the political-scientific fac­ Editor-in-chief tion of John Dee and the Earl of Leicester, which had planned Tudor Campaigner England's republican thrust for colo­ Kepler's Debt to Gilbert nization of the New World. Britain's Royal Society, modeled on To the Editor: Bacon's New Atlantis and committed Coming Robert Zubrin's review of the to the empiricist methods of his Or- method which underlay Kepler's as- ganon's silly experiments, continued Next Month trophysical discoveries will undoubt­ the slander for the same political fac­ edly prove painful to those historians tional advantage. That this was at least of science who, like Arthur Koestler, partially understood in the United ascribe Kepler's geometrical intuition States during the last century is made The to some sort of mysticism, rather than clear by the relative treatment given the Neoplatonic tradition in which he to Gilbert and the Royal Society in was rooted. Three cheers for that! The Intellectual Rise in Electricity by Truth One aspect of the story, however, Park Benjamin (New York: 1895), it­ was not treated in its actual signi­ self an American factional document ficance—the seminal role of the Eng­ against the reign of British empiricist About lish physicist and physician William science. Gilbert. Gilbert's work was enthused with Zubrin comments that "Kepler fol­ the epistemological standpoint of the Plato lowed Gilbert in the wrong supposi­ Neoplatonic Renaissance, the tradi­ tion that [the force organizing the tion of Nicholas of Cusa, Dante, and heavenly motions] was magnetic." Giordano Bruno. He most likely knew True enough, but the crucial point is Bruno in England, and his conceptual that Kepler followed Gilbert in the borrowings from Bruno are obvious right supposition that "all the mani­ in On the Magnet. Gilbert used the fold motions are taken care of by one word "virtue" (virtu), which had been single absolutely simple bodily force." used by Renaissance thinkers begin­ Kepler was straightforward in ac­ ning with Dante and later Machiavelli knowledging his debt to Gilbert, since to signify the quality or force of cre­ Gilbert was an international leader of ative intellect and will, to represent the Platonic scientific faction to which the magnetic field phenomena he was he. belonged. studying, and Kepler followed suit in Gilbert's experimental work—re­ his description of the gravitational ported in 1600 in his On the Magnet— field of the planetary system. was the first systematic treatment of Thus, clearing up the historical rec­ a field phenomenon, including the ord concerning Gilbert is important effect of the magnetic field on the precisely because it makes totally un-

May 1981 tenable the myth that the scientific voted that issue to a discussion of hind the success of the MIT high-field fraud Francis Bacon was the "initiator fusion. . . . Alcator tokamak. Coppi's paper laying of modern science," as he is often The [article] "Fusion Politics" by the basis for this general approach to described by many misinformed peo­ Daniel Greenberg astounded me. It fusion, "Compact Experiments for Al­ ple. Since Zubrin's article was aimed managed to trace the past 10 years of pha-Particle Heating" [PRR Report, 76, against the Bacon-Newton history of political and scientific debate around 31 (1976)], and its implications for de­ scientific perversion (and plain per­ fusion leading up to the McCormack veloping a "throwaway reactor" were version), there was certainly no inten­ fusion bill without once mentioning discussed in the Dec. 1977-Jan. 1978 tion to peddle the same line against the Fusion Energy Foundation. That is issue of Fusion (p. 32): Gilbert that the Newtonians have an accomplishment equivalent to out­ "Coppi's basic idea is to go for consistently used against Kepler. lining the scientific history of fusion broke on high magnetic fields, push­ Kenneth Kronberg without mentioning the Soviets and ing the technology as far as conceiv­ New York City the original tokamak! able. With innovative concepts, fusion I am far more questioning of the temperatures could be obtained. . . . To the Editor: interview with Robert Bussard, the If the Coppi experiment is modestly Having read . . . "Kepler and the well-known physicist. While I tend to successful, one speculation is that Harmony of the Spheres," 1 wish to be suspicious of any "advocate of the high power density reactors, possibly read the "recent theoretical work" small-is-better school," the man's cre­ just for breeding fission fuel, could and any modern work on this subject. dentials are quite impressive. In ad­ be built rapidly. The reactor core that But you gave no references. . . . dition, there seems to me to be no deteriorates in the fusion environ­ Louis P. Kerpan inherent, obvious facileness in his ad­ ment, because it is so small and cheap, Surrey, B.C., Canada vocacy of a small "throw away" mod­ could be replaced every year or so— ular fusion reactor design. . . . the throwaway reactor." The Author Replies As far as can be recalled Fusion As for Dr. Ohkawa's Ohte (which Some of the recent theoretical and magazine has never delved into the Omni fallaciously reports as an exper­ experimental work demonstrating the merits of Bussard's Riggatron device. iment in his garage!), Fusion has not "harmonic" or self-organizing prop­ Is Bussard spewing forth merely hot reported on this device because it has erties of matter on an astronomical air or is it potentially an energy-rich not yet operated, and the Ohte con­ scale is discussed in the Dec. 1980 hot plasma? cept has until recently been consid­ Fusion features on the magnetic Ronald M. Castonguay ered a proprietary concept, privately structure of the Sun, supernovas, Nashville, Tenn. developed by General Atomic. Thus and shock waves in cosmology. Dr. details are not available in the scien­ Schoonover's article on Saturn in the To the Editor: tific literature. present issue is also relevant. I have depended on Fusion to keep Note that Omni in no way describes For a necessary fundamental back­ me up-to-date on the developments how the Ohte is supposed to work, ground in the negentropic nature of in fusion since the beginning of the even in simple terms. The general matter in general and plasma physics publication of the magazine. scientific basis for the Ohte is directly in particular, see the articles by Dr. Imagine my surprise when in the related to work on field-reversed to­ Steven Bardwell, "Elementary Plasma Jan. 1981 issue of Omni I read about roidal pinches. In fact, the Ohte is Physics from an Advanced Stand­ work on the Riggatron by Inesco and called a reversed pinch by its inven­ point" [Fusion, Nov. 1978) and "Elec­ work on the Ohte by Dr. Tihiro tors. The growing success of research tron Transport in Tokamaks: A Case Ohkawa. along this general line is reviewed in Study in Negentropy" (Fusion, Sept. Why have I read nothing on these the Jan. 1980 issue of Fusion, "The 1979). The next issue of the Interna­ in Fusion? They appear to offer a Zeta Moves into First Place in Fusion." tional Journal of Fusion Energy, also quicker way to fusion now. See the Science Press Review in this available from the FEF, carries a re­ Frank E. Rickel issue for further comment on the view of recent work on gas flows at Pittsburgh, Pa. Omni fusion articles. various velocities, showing that the Charles B. Stevens tendency is for large-scale vortical The Editor Replies Fusion Technology Editor structures to form on all levels, The Aug. 1978 issue of Fusion (p. superseding the apparent random­ 51) in "Is the Riggatron Case Rigged?" ness for any individual particle. reviewed the political and scientific RARE II Goes to Trial Robert Zubrin questions involved in the Bussard Rig­ gatron proposal. To the Editor: Long before this, Fusion had cov­ I was disappointed that William 'Chic' Fusion ered in detail the scientific concepts Engdahl's Dec. 1980 column on the upon which Bussard based his partic­ Department of Agriculture's RARE II To the Editor: ular approach to developing a high- study was rife with errors. . . . Engdahl I recently purchased the Jan. 1981 magnetic-field tokamak. These con­ also cites the Eastern Wilderness Act issue of Omni magazine, the "chic" cepts were originally the work of Dr. as providing that "only Congress, not science publication, which had de­ Bruno Coppi, the scientific genius be­ Continued on page 62

8 FUSION May 1981 Viewpoint

Editor's note: Dr. Gottlieb's view­ a broad program is important. That point is excerpted from his remarks Fusion Is 'Achievable' is why I supported the mirror pro­ at a press conference Feb. 6 at FEF gram even when it was under strong headquarters. The discussion with attack in the past. . . . the press preceded the banquet There are substantial improve­ sponsored by the FEF in honor of ments that can be made in the tok­ Gottlieb's retirement as director of amak, many modifications that the Princeton Plasma Physics Labo­ might in the end prove simpler, or ratory. See page 47 for a report on cheaper, or more reliable. And there the banquet. are different approaches like the mirror, or hybrids between the s the fusion program amenable to two—for example, the Elmo Bumpy Itradeoffs of one program for an­ Torus, which is a sequence of mir­ other for budget cuts? Not very by Dr. Melvin B. Gottlieb rors, arranged around a ring. These much, although some of this could take time to work out. And unfor­ be done. You could decide to nar­ tunately, this research is not row the efforts. In my view, how­ cal problems, but to that must be cheap. . . . ever, this would be extremely pre­ added a great deal of work on the Ten or fifteen years ago, fusion mature and would represent a engineering and technological as­ energy seemed almost impossible. diversion. One could say that the pects. These must be resolved, in We were frustrated. But then every­ system that is farthest ahead, the addition to the physics problems, thing started to work, probably be­ tokamak, should be the focus— before you have a practical reactor. cause of better control of the tech­ "let's put all our eggs in that basket." We are just getting into that phase nology, at the same time that we got But we're not ready for such a step. where we can at least get a plasma better control over the physical It would be a serious error. or hot gas under conditions very ideas. There was a turnabout. Now, You could simply insert delay into similar to those that will exist inside I feel sure that it is achievable. I the program, do all the things al­ a fusion reactor, and now start to can't tell you what the costs will be, ready under way in the program, engage the technological questions for that still has to be worked out. just do them slower. This would also that must be solved and try out these We have to get the costs down to have a very serious effect. solutions in an apparatus that has where fusion will be competitive. We have many very good and this hot plasma within it. Here, too, I have no doubt that it well-trained people. I have seen This is a field in which the tech­ can be done. . .. them develop over the years. They nology and the science are so inter­ The change, I can only describe are now fully engaged, and we have dependent that they must be devel­ this way. Back in the beginning, the begun to engage industry as well. oped together. . . . theorists were working in one place, The people in industry have their We now have confidence that the the experimentalists in another, and own skills, but those skills must be tokamak can produce a thermo­ it almost seemed as if they weren't fine tuned. It takes a period of train­ nuclear plasma with a density, tem­ even speaking to each other, in the ing before these people are indeed perature, and containment time sense that what you saw in the lab­ useful, as they now are. To disen­ high enough to represent a dem­ oratory bore little relationship to gage them at the present time would onstration that a reactor can be what the theorists were discussing. dissipate those efforts that have al­ built. But that's not sufficient for a Now, both are addressing the ready been made. These trained practical reactor. For a practical re­ same points. In other words, it's people would move to other activi­ actor you must make sure that you gone from a very exploratory stage ties, would no longer be available. have a device simple enough and to a solid science. It's that change There is also the effort required to cheap enough. Economics are basic. which has made the real difference. get into technology. Certainly there It is quite clear that the tokamak One can now talk even about new are many things required for a suc­ itself can be improved substantially, ideas with confidence: ideas that cessful fusion reactor. One among in economic terms. The present tok­ involve much closer control of the them is, of course, the physical as­ amak has, in a sense, given us the plasma. We can even hope that pect of being able to heat a gas to easiest path. At times it has shown these very simplified forms—which a high enough temperature and us solutions that we didn't know are tremendously sophisticated from keep heat losses to a sufficiently low existed, providing us with a some­ a scientific standpoint, but very sim­ level. That is certainly one requisite. what simplified road. It is important ple from an engineering stand­ But it alone doesn't build you a now to explore the adjacent possi­ point—will work. power reactor. It gives you a solu­ bilities and other methods, and see It is as different as day and night. tion of some very interesting physi- which one is really best. That is why That is the change of the last years.

May 1981 FUSION 9 News Briefs FRANCE SIGNS NUCLEAR TECHNOLOGY DEAL WITH EGYPT France and Egypt signed a nuclear cooperation agreement in Paris Feb. 12 under which France will begin supplying Egypt with nuclear power stations, fuel, and technology. French Foreign Minister Jean Frangois-Poncet said after the signing ceremony that the details of the agreement still have to be hammered out, but that it will involve the sale of two 1,000-megawatt nuclear reactors. The Egyptian government currently has plans to build eight nuclear power generating stations by the year 2000. The French-Egyptian agreement is only one of a series of nuclear deals that the French government is arranging with, to date, five African countries. The most ambitious of these involves Morocco, with which France has signed an agreement to supply a nuclear reactor by the mid-1990s and to help develop a major national uranium industry. Another target of French nuclear export diplomacy is oil-rich Nigeria, whose foreign minister came to France in late January to discuss a broad array of trade deals including an oil-for-nuclear exchange.

S. KOREA HOPING FOR U.S. NUCLEAR EXPORTS During his trip to the United States in January, South Korean President Chun France leads the world in nuclear Doo Hwan informed President Reagan of his country's ambitious nuclear technology. Here the nuclear waste program, based on a proposal by the Korean Institute of Science and Tech- vitrification plant at Marcoule. nology for a $100 billion plan to build 110 nuclear reactors by the year 2020, 46 of them by the year 2000. South Korea now has nine nuclear plants either completed or under construction. Its new construction plans additionally call for the development of the fast breeder, without which nuclear fuel would become too expensive, the South Korean report states. The report also criticizes the United States and the Soviet Union for attempting to deny this critical technology to developing nations like South Korea. The final communique issued after the Chun-Reagan talks stated that "President Reagan promised that the United States would remain a reliable supplier of nuclear fuel, generation equipment, and power technology." The South Koreans are reportedly hopeful that the new administration in Wash­ ington will reverse the Carter administration's disruptive policies on nuclear exports, which lost Westinghouse Electric millions of dollars worth of contracts to France's Framatome during 1980.

HITACHI DEVELOPING NUCLEAR REACTORS FOR EXPORT Hitachi, Ltd. of Japan disclosed in January that it embarked on a program last fall to develop a 200,000-kilowatt boiling water type nuclear reactor (BWR) for export. This makes Hitachi the first Japanese manufacturer of nuclear reactors to begin developing a model for export; thus far the international nuclear reactor market has been exclusively dominated by American and European reactor manufacturers. Japanese sources indicate that Japan's Ministry of Trade and Industry (MITI) and its Foreign Ministry are reviewing international nuclear export regulations and readying themselves to fully back up Hitachi's new export efforts from the standpoint of promoting economic cooperation between Japan and develop­ ing nations. The prospective export destinations under consideration for the small-size, compact reactor model are Singapore and other Southeast Asian countries, China, and Latin America.

NUCLEAR ENGINEER ASSASSINATED BY ETA TERRORISTS Despite widespread outrage in Spain over the assassination of the chief engineer of Iberduero's Lemoniz nuclear plant by a Basque terrorist group, the Spanish utility company has announced that it is delaying construction on the plant out of fear for the lives of other employees. The assassination of Jose Maria Ryan, 39, marked a bloody escalation in the

Sylvain Julienne/Sygma violence that ETA terrorists have used to halt construction on the Lemoniz ETA terrorists in training: "A murder­ plant. Iberduero has invested $1.5 billion in the plant since construction began ous fury" against progress. in Aug. 1972. Lemoniz 1, a 1,000-megawatt unit is 90 to 95 percent completed

10 FUSION May 1981 and was expected to begin commercial operation by the end of 1981; the second 1,000-megawatt unit is 25 percent completed and was scheduled to be operational in three years. The ETA terrorists gave Iberduero one week to shut down and begin dismantling the plant in return for the release of Ryan, who was kidnapped Jan. 29. The response to the murder of the engineer and other acts of terrorism bv ETA was a general strike throughout the Basque country. Even the Basque Nationalist Party, of which ETA was an offshoot, came out with strong denunciations of ETA's terror campaign. Party leader Juan Jose Pujama called the killing "a murderous fury that must be eradicated."

LOPEZ, GANDHI PLEDGE FIGHT FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT Mexican President Jose Lopez Portillo concluded a historic six-day visit to India in late January with an affirmation that the two nations will assume leadership roles in the battle for global economic development over the coming months. Lopez Portillo told reporters at the conclusion of his visit that his discussions with Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had covered "all aspects" of multilateral and bilateral issues, taking up such topics as the necessity to renew North-South talks on technology transfer and India's success in achieving self-sufficiency in grain production using high-yield wheat varieties imported from Mexico. Paying tribute to India's commitment to progress, Lopez Portillo declared: "We have been greatly impressed by the conjunction of India's great past with its exemplary development efforts. We have seen the temple caves carved out of the rocks in Aurangabad [dating from the second century B.C.], the Taj courtesy oi me Government ot India Mahal, and also its efforts to develop nuclear energy, all of which are very Gandhi and Lopez Portillo: A pledge representative of this great nation." for transfer of high technology.

LIFE-SAVING MEDICAL TECHNOLOGY UNDER ATTACK Investigators at the Duke University School of Medicine, led by Dr. Robert Gutman, have published preliminary results that maintain that more than 50 percent of the patients receiving dialysis, a life-saving treatment tor people with failing kidneys, are too sick to function in a normal manner. The figures in the report, which was published in the Feb. 6 New England journal of Medicine, have been challenged by other researchers such as Dr. Freeman of the National Kidney Foundation. He reported that at the medical institution where he practices, "We've never had as many as 20 percent who are severely debilitated." The Duke study, however, has resulted in a renewal of the attacks on the use of dialysis machines for kidney failure patients and high-technology medicine generally—bone transplants, heart transplants, and other revolution­ ary techniques that some consider too great a drain on society's resources. Roger W. Evans, a researcher at the Batelle Human Affairs Research Center in Seattle and a student of health care triage, suggests that the United States look to England as a model for the rationing of health care. There, patients are generally denied access to dialysis and other advanced medical treatment because they are over 65, and health care expenditures are thereby held down.

MAY LOUSEWORT LAURELS: LET EM EAT GRAIN This month's lousewort award goes to David Pimentel of Cornell University and Alex Herschaft of the Mitre Corporation for their presentations at the annual AAAS meeting Jan. 4 in Toronto arguing that the problems of energy, raw material scarcity, pollution, and health all could be solved if Americans would stop eating meat. Pimentel, an agricultural economist, claimed that the United States would realize a savings of 75 percent in energy inputs if Americans would switch to grain consumption for protein intake, because meat production is so "energy inefficient." Meat production, Herschaft said, consumes 14 percent of all energy consumed. The award winners also claimed that cutting down on meat and dairy consumption will "improve" the nation's health.

May 1981 FUSION 11 Energy News/International

An Interview with Michel Poniatowski At the Frontiers of a 'Scientific Civilization

An influential voice in French pol­ laser beams, the magnetic system, and itics, Michel Poniatowski is director of "For us in France the prob­ possibly other methods if the laser the Institut de Prospectives, a private lem is a simple one. We are and magnetic systems prove to be think tank engaged in the study of unsatisfactory. advanced technologies and the prob­ absolutely obliged to launch In other words, we are probably lems of future civilization, which he ourselves into a nuclear pro­ very close to the scientific experience founded. Poniatowski was minister of gram, even if this does not of fusion, but the industrial imple­ the interior in the government of Gis- mentation is still a bit farther down card d'Estaing from 1974 to 1977, and please everyone." the line, by about 20 or 25 years. In he continues to be a close political any case, this is the impression I have ally of the French president, serving that represent about 20 years' worth received from all the meetings I have as Ciscard's ambassador without port­ of fuel supply for ordinary nuclear had with American experts and also folio. Poniatowski toured the U.S. na­ plants. If these resources are applied with French and German experts. tional fusion laboratories in spring to the fast breeder, they represent 1980 in the interests of his institute. reserves of about 1,200 years, not 20. Question: After your recent visit to In December 1980, Poniatowski was This is why we in France have com­ the United States, do you think effec­ interviewed in Paris by Dana Sloan, a mitted ourselves to a fast breeder pro­ tive collaboration can take place be­ frequent contributor to Fusion, and gram. The first reactor will be built at tween France and the United States? Philip Golub, who works with the Creys-Malville and will begin operat­ I think that this is very desirable, Fusion Energy Foundation in Europe. ing toward the end of 1983. and I think, I hope, that in the frame­ The policy questions raised here, par­ In the nuclear field, and as long as work that will be opened by the new ticularly the role of nuclear energy in we have not found other forms of Reagan administration, such collabo­ the Third World, will be discussed in energy, the fast breeder is our only ration will be possible. I must tell you the next two issues of Fusion. future because it completely alters that when I visited the United States the problem of necessary mineral re­ last March, I was very much struck by Question: You have often referred to serves. Without the fast breeder, nu­ the fact that people were extremely different scientific and technological clear will end up being like oil. discouraged. I found scientists and breakthroughs, in particular to ther­ experts who had the impression that monuclear fusion power, as holding Question: What are the prospects in their work could not lead to results in out the promise of a future free of the field of fusion energy? terms of its economic realization. energy constraints. Could you elabo­ We are carrying out research and They had the impression that politics rate on this? studies in France, and what I saw in were preventing them from realizing Fusion, quite simply, represents the United States seems quite ad­ economic breakthroughs that to them wisdom. vanced. I think that in the next few appeared absolutely indispensable— Known uranium resources are lim­ years—it is always very unwise to give and that are absolutely indispensable. ited. If between now and 1985-1990 figures, even though the American I would almost say that people felt we actually put on line the 400 nuclear experts I met gave me figures—we humiliated, humiliated because they power plants that theoretically are will achieve experimental results. You could not do their job as they knew scheduled, including the 200 or so know that it is a question of achieving they must. that are now functioning, then by a certain temperature, 100 million de­ The United States is a country that 1990, with known uranium resources grees, in a continuous manner, that I like very much; I came to know it what they are, we will have about a creates the conditions for fusion. well when I was stationed at the 20-year reserve. In other words, we From the experiments now being French Embassy in Washington. One will have the same problem with ura­ conducted, I understand that in the of the things that has struck me, par­ nium that we now have with oil. next three to four years fusion reac­ ticularly in the last few years, is that Then there is the fast breeder tion will be achieved in the range of although you have remarkable people reactor. The advantage of the fast 100 million degrees. But to go to the in many fields—whether industry, sci­ breeder is that it multiplies 60-fold industrial stage it will probably take entific research, university education, the value of those reserves. France an additional 20 years. And we must banking, and so on—the political do­ has known uranium resources in Brit­ also ask ourselves which is the best main is not marked by such a display tany, in Auvergne, and in other places method, because there are several: of qualities. It is not always necessary

12 FUSION May 1981 Energy News/International for people in the political world to be brilliantly intelligent, but they do have to be able to determine what are the real problems of the future. They do not have to know everything, but they do have to know how to choose their advisors for each essential area. Dur­ ing the trip I took last March, I was struck by the degree of discourage­ ment felt in many areas, because peo­ ple had the impression that politics were paralyzing what was necessary to do for the future of the country.

Question: Given the considerable ef­ forts that the Soviet Union has de­ voted to fusion research, do you think that Soviet-Western collaboration in this field is possible? This is a question that should be posed to the United States. Before the tensions unleashed by the Afghani­ Nogues/Sygma stan affair—in which, by occupying Michel Poniatowski (left) greets West German Chancellor Schmidt, as French that country, the Soviets carried out President Giscard looks on. an operation that was politically in­ admissible—the United States and the Soviet Union had very advanced sci­ race—no one dares to use this word Yes, it could be a nuclear war. At entific relations. You must not forget anymore, but it's the truth—and this any rate, the European countries that there were 120 joint Soviet- world is already quite welded to­ could find themselves in conditions American working commissions in all gether. The countries are differen­ that would lead them to a real civil major areas, and in particular in en­ tiated by many things—by competi­ war in the advanced world. But if they ergy-related areas, and there was a tion in industry, in production, and don't come to war, when countries commission concerned with fusion so on—but fundamentally these are are not making war, they are talking energy in which information was countries tied to each other. Already to each other, they are developing being exchanged. 60 percent of industrial trade takes their relations, they are developing But to really answer your question: place among them; it is only the re­ their trade, they interpenetrate more One can think of the planet in many maining 40 percent that is sought and more, and I think that this is what different ways. One can think of it in elsewhere in the form of raw materials will happen in the advanced world. In political terms, in other words, in and energy. And in my opinion, if we any case, we will have the answer very terms of a confrontation between the don't have a war, this meshing will soon, because either we will have a liberal world and the Marxist world. continue to develop even further. conflict in the four or five years to One can think of it in geographic Of course, we can do what Europe come, or we will have more and more terms. But there is a way of looking at did in 1914, which is to have a civil marked interpenetration. In this re­ it that people don't generally think war. Europe was the great power of spect, the advanced world will be­ of, but that they will more and more the world. It was the great financial come really international, because because it will impose itself. It is that power, and the great scientific and everything that occurs in one country the industrially advanced countries technological power. These were the will necessarily have repercussions in form a community, and this commu­ countries that were colonizing the another. nity is made up of the Soviet Union, rest of the world in Africa, Asia, and It is already happening now. When the two Europes, the United States, Latin America. And then the Euro­ the Japanese make a breakthrough in Canada, Japan, Australia, and South pean countries carried out the abom­ robotics, the Americans follow as Africa. And these countries form a inable crime of making a civil war quickly as they can, and we Europeans community of countries that are in­ against each other. The countries of follow after the Americans. All scien­ dustrially, technologically, and scien­ the advanced industrial world today tific breakthroughs—such as a break­ tifically advanced, and that, leaving could also commit this crime of mak­ through in fusion—will necessarily aside Japan, are countries of the same ing war against each other. become international breakthroughs religion, of the same cultural origin, very rapidly. It is like what happened which is Latin-Greek, of the same Question: Nuclear war? in robotics. In Japan, the first robot

Energy News/International May 1981 FUSION 13 Energy News/International

arrived in 1968. It was an American problem of resources. The countries economies of a number of develop­ robot. The Japanese copied it, they that do not build fast breeders will ing-sector countries. The projections improved it, and they invented their not multiply their resources. And i for 1980 are that the balance of pay­ own robot. Now they are four or five would almost say that it makes no ments of the oil-producing countries years in advance, and the Americans sense to build nuclear reactors, if you will be in surplus by $120 billion, while are running after them. But since the don't also build breeders that reuse the developing-sector countries will Americans are starting later, they will the materials that were used a first run a balance of payments deficit on end up with the most refined, the time in the nuclear plant and that the order of $75 to $80 billion. most advanced models. multiply by 60 the value of available The OECD [Organization for Eco­ In Europe, everyone is very worried resources. Any nuclear program must nomic Cooperation and Develop­ about the Japanese; however, this is naturally lead to a fast breeder ment] countries will have a $40 to $45 a mistake. We should be worried program. billion deficit, which will be partially about the following phase, which is offset with other receipts, what we the American phase, because there Question: The oil price increases have call the "invisibles," but the OECD will also be a political aspect to it; shown the developing-sector coun­ countries will still be in deficit. The namely, that we cannot carry out pro­ tries to be vulnerable and shown that developing-sector coOntries will have tectionism against the Americans. only the transfer of advanced tech­ to sustain their additional $75 to $80 nologies can guarantee their energy billion deficit on top of their existing Question: Can the French nuclear independence and economic survival. indebtedness, which at the beginning program, which includes the fast What role can nuclear energy play in of 1980 was on the order of $300 breeder and a complete nuclear fuel the transfer of technology? billion. So at the end of 1980, the cycle, serve as a model for the indus­ Your first premise is exactly right. developing-sector countries will find trialized countries? Because of the oil crisis, we are con­ themselves with a deficit somewhere This question brings us back to the fronted with a sort of blockage of the between $375 and $400 billion, with about 20 countries in a state of abso­ lute bankruptcy. To a large extent, this situation is the result of the oil crisis. Is nuclear energy the answer? Nu­ clear energy is very expensive. It is not very expensive to consume, since the kilowatt-hour cost comes to about 10 centimes for electricity produced from nuclear, about 20 to 24 centimes for electricity from coal, and about 30 centimes for electricity from oil. [A centime equals 0.22 cents.] You should also know that the price of electricity produced by the fast breeder is high, because it includes a large amortization of the construc­ tion. For about 20 years, it adds 28 or 30 centimes per kilowatt-hour. So, a priori, it makes sense to use nuclear energy, since it is one-third as expen­ sive as electricity produced by oil and one-half as expensive as the elec­ tricity produced by coal. However, it requires an enormous investment. Creys-Malville, for example, will cost between 7 and 8 billion francs [$1.6- $1.8 billion]. This is entirely sustainable in France, but what developing-sector countries could afford this type of project? "The countries that do not build fast breeders will not multiply their resources. Any nuclear program must naturally lead to a fast breeder program." Here, Question: If developing-sector coun­ the French Phenix fast breeder. tries had access to large amounts of

14 FUSION May 1981 Energy News/International credit at low interest rates, couldn't nuclear become viable for those that have the proper infrastructure? Certainly, but you still have to cal­ culate the cost. If you take a country like Brazil, is it more to its interest to develop hydroelectricity or to build a nuclear plant? If Brazil has uranium, it makes sense for its energy indepen­ dence to build a nuclear power plant. But if it doesn't have any, then from the standpoint of the profitability of the kilowatt-hour produced, it is more to its interest to produce hydro­ electric power. So the answer varies from one area to another. To take the example of Mexico, which has enormous oil resources, does it pay off more to build an elec­ tricity plant that runs on oil or to DOE build nuclear plants in addition? "The industrially advanced countries form a community. ... All scientific For us in France, the problem is a breakthroughs—such as a breakthrough in fusion—will necessarily become simple one. We have coal that is very international breakthroughs very rapidly." Here a U.S. team led by Atomic mediocre and so not very usable, we Energy Commission chairman Glenn Seaborg visits the colliding beam accel­ have exhausted all our hydroelectric erators at the Institute of Nuclear Physics in Novosibirsk. possibilities, we have built dams ev­ erywhere we could, and we have no oil. So we are absolutely obliged to reasons, has a particularly important goods have multiplied considerably. launch ourselves into a nuclear pro­ role to play in the creation of this new Now the dollar continues to be gram, even if this does not please system? managed on the basis of the national everyone. We have come to the end of the interests of the United States alone. monetary system as we know it today. This is becoming more difficult for Question: Fifty or sixty years from We cannot continue indefinitely with the rest of the international commu­ now, when countries like Mexico be­ the present system, which is charac­ nity to accept. This, combined with gin to exhaust their oil resources, do terized by the creation of artificial the fact that the dollar is becoming a you think it will become indispens­ dollars by the international banking totally artificial currency (since it is able for the entire world to go nu­ system in order to mobilize the re­ composed of one element that is the clear? sources produced by oil. Each year, fiduciary dollar circulated inside the Yes, unless we find something else. new quantities of Eurodollars are cre­ United States and of another element Forty years ago, no one dared to talk ated that are theoretically transform­ created by international banks out­ about nuclear energy, and there is able into dollars, to a point today side the United States), has led to the still something about it that seems where the Eurodollars, petrodollars, end of the monetary system as we unthinkable at the present time. No Asiadollars, and so forth in circulation know it today. one, however, now knows what con­ represent two and a half times the This is part of a set of factors that tribution can be made by solar total fiduciary circulation in the will make it necessary to build an energy—not solar energy on the United States. international monetary system, if we ground, of course, but in space sta­ Second, we are reaching a point want to avoid a crisis of the dollar as tions. No one can say what will come where the weight of the dollar in the an international currency. of this. So the answer is yes, for the world has been considerably weak­ 20 or 25 years to come we must have ened, simply because trade is much Question: France and West Germany nuclear. more developed. During the 1950s, took a step in this direction with the the dollar represented 50 percent of creation of the European Monetary Question: Now let us take up the the reserves held by national banks System. But its second phase, the Eu­ problems involved in the creation of throughout the world. Dollar reserves ropean Monetary Fund, has been a new international monetary system, have now fallen to the level of 17 to postponed until 1982. What are the a system that will ensure credits for 18 percent, because the number of obstacles preventing the implemen­ technology transfers. Do you think developed national economies and tation of phase two? that France, for historic and other the mass of circulating international The monetary problem is a techni-

Energy News/International May 1981 FUSION 15 Energy News/International

cal problem and a problem of confi­ dence. Each currency must conform Soviet Fusion Leader Interviewed to a certain necessity. In the European framework, we still find ourselves Velikhov Welcomes U.S. Fusion Bill with currencies that fluctuate exces­ sively. It is only after our currencies The triumphal march of tokamaks have stabilized little by little—this is is continuing. There is an experimen­ what they are doing now, since the "Mastering thermonuclear tal reactor being built in the United European currencies live together and fusion is one of those gran­ States on this basis, which should be are the expressions of economies that diose projects that is fully installed at Princeton University are more and more interconnected— by the end of 1981. The West Euro­ that we can move to the next phase, scarcely possible without pean countries have pooled their the European Monetary Fund. This is broad international cooper­ efforts for the creation of a joint tok­ inevitable, because to the extent that ation." amak in 1983-84. Last September, the the economies are becoming more United States adopted as law a na­ integrated, the currencies will neces­ tional nuclear fusion program, ex­ sarily follow, but they will follow at a ceeding in scope the program to put distance. At the present time, there In a New Year's Day interview with a man on the Moon, and this should are still excessive monetary fluctua the popular Soviet weekly Literary conclude with the creation of a tions, because there are international Gazette, fusion physicist E.P. Velikhov tokamak-based thermonuclear fusion games that come to bear on these welcomed international progress in power station by the end of the currencies. fusion development, including pas­ century. sage of the Magnetic Fusion Energy Tokamaks: Simple and Reliable Question: You are saying that imple­ Engineering Act of 1980, the "Mc- The tokamak is evidently one of the menting the second phase will de­ Cormack bill," in the United States. simplest and most reliable thermo­ pend on achieving stability first. Don't Velikhov, vice president of the Soviet nuclear confinement designs, which you see the possibility of creating the Academy of Sciences, is a leader of is fully projected forward from its cur­ fund first in order to achieve that the Soviet fusion effort rent status to the stage of a function­ stability? Noting that "the role of fusion in ing thermonuclear reactor. It has Yes, if there is an international the energy industry of the future been discussed in detail not only by monetary crisis in which the European will constantly increase," Velikhov specialists in individual countries, but countries decide to create the Euro­ stressed the importance of interna­ by the International Council on Fu­ pean Monetary Fund in order to pro­ tional cooperation on fusion research. sion Research, which works in Vienna tect themselves, to protect their Excerpts from his interview follow: under the International Atomic En­ economies. But if this international ergy Agency (IAEA). . . . monetary crisis does not occur, we Mastering thermonuclear fusion is In 1978, the Soviet Union submitted will have to wait for the stabilization one of those grandiose projects that a proposal to the International Atomic to take place first, before there is a is scarcely possible without broad in­ Energy Agency: to unite the efforts of kind of monetary integration as ad­ ternational cooperation. There are in scientists of all countries for the cre­ vanced as the economic integration. the world today approximately 50 tok- ation of an international tokamak. What is slowing things down is the amaks, which have cost billions in This would make it possible to join international capital flows that come monetary expenditures, the develop­ together all the achievements of to­ to bear on each currency. There is ment of very sophisticated technolo­ day's tokamak machines. This pro­ money coming in from the Arab gies, and, of course, the intellectual posal was adopted, and draft work on countries to Germany, to England, energy of many talented researchers. the international thermonuclear fu­ and even to France, creating artificial I might point out that the very se­ sion tokamak reactor, Intor, is pro­ movements of capital. One day it will lection of the tokamak as an excellent ceeding. True, a place for building it be in Europe's interest to protect itself basis for fusion research is a good has not yet been chosen, although collectively, in order to prevent these example of how fruitful such coop­ the Soviet Union, Austria, and several imbalances from occurring, which are eration is. This successful principle, other European countries have of­ not good for the currencies or the discovered and preliminarily devel­ fered their territory. economies in question. England, for oped in our country, served as a pow­ I think that carrying out this inter­ example, is certainly suffering eco­ erful push forward for thermonuclear national project, where "everyone is nomically from having a pound that fusion work all over the world. (And working for everyone," will be a fine is too strong and from experiencing this is not superfluous to recall now, example of the materialization of de­ large influxes of capital from the Arab when people in the West are asserting tente, a condition essential for the countries. that cooperation with "those sneaky truly fruitful development of inter­ Continued on page 54 Russians" is a one-way street.) national science.

16 FUSION May 1981 Energy News/International ergy is coming from a group of sci­ entists associated with the Israeli Academy of Sciences Committee for Projecting the State's Needs in Basic Research. The committee issued a re­ port in late 1980 calling for a strength­ ening of research in plasma physics, the scientific field necessary for the development of thermonuclear fu­ sion power, in view of "its importance when applied to the world's energy problems." The committee also called for research into quantum electron­ ics, lasers, astronomy, and astro­ physics. The future of the nuclear option in Israel now hinges on the work of a government-appointed commis­ sion, which is to present its findings this April. The head of the commis­ sion is retired General Amos Horev, presently head of the Haifa-based Israel's role in the development of nuplexes, agroindustrial complexes cen­ Technion Institute, a key training tered around one or more nuclear plants, was a central part of the Fusion ground for Israeli scientists and engi­ Energy Foundation's Mideast Peace and Development Program issued two neers. In a speech in late November, years ago. Above: the research reactor at Dimona. General Horev warned that the cur­ rent stagnation in the training of sci­ entific and engineering personnel in Israel "will seriously limit the coun­ try's aspirations and capabilities in the Nuclear Option Brightens for Israel future." Ever since Israel became a state in have "important spin-off effects for Prior to the completion of the 1948, there have been voices raised in Israel, if it decided to use outside help Horev commission's work, several the country for Israel to "go nuclear." and experience to build its own re­ possible sites for building nuclear And Israel has had access to a nuclear actors," a project that is now feasible plants in Israel are being investigated. capability for the last two decades at technically but would take eight to One of the more interesting possibil­ its reactor facility at Dimona. How­ ten years to complete without outside ities involves the building of nuclear ever, it is only in the last six months assistance. This process, the Post said, reactors underground. An interdisci­ that nuclear energy has been dis­ could lead to "a nuclear-based econ­ plinary team from the Israeli Atomic cussed as a serious future energy op­ omy in Israel." Energy Commission has been estab­ tion for Israel. Pronuclear Organizing lished to study this possibility, and its The new pronuclear mood among The post-Carter optimism in Israel findings will be released sometime in Israeli scientists and the general pop­ was expressed in the keynote speech early to mid-1982. ulation is in part attributable to the of Israeli Nuclear Society head Shi­ If, as expected, Israel's government defeat of the Carter administration, mon Yiftah to the society's annual changes hands when elections are which had refused to sell Israel a meeting at Ben-Gurion University of held in June, the prospects for nuclear reactor that had been promised dur­ the Negev last December. Also pro­ power are likely to be even brighter. ing the Nixon years. According to the moting the nuclear option at the De­ Shimon Peres, Labour Party candidate Jan. 23 Jerusalem Post, the prevailing cember meeting was Professor Alvin for prime minister, is a long-standing assessment now in Israel is that "at Radkowsky of the Tel-Aviv University advocate of the nuclear option. In a the very least, President Reagan will School of Engineering, who is active speech to a Labour Party policy-mak­ honor his campaign pledge to end in organizing scientists across Israel. ing convention Feb. 1, Peres stated the freeze on building nuclear power Dr. Radkowsky, who formerly worked that under his rule Israel would be stations in the U.S., and may even with Admiral Hyman Rickover in the committed to "a vast range of devel­ revert to the nuclear export policy of United States, has developed a new opment enterprises" and "several the Nixon administration." design concept for building light- large national projects," including The Post noted that a reinvigorat- water pressurized reactors. "establishing nuclear power plants." ed American nuclear program would A second impetus for nuclear en­ —Mark Burdman

Energy News/International May 1981 FUSION 17 Energy News/National

Global 2000: Will the Zero-Growthers Capture the White House?

Most Americans considered the developing nations alike; strict con­ voting in of the Reagan administration trol of "hazardous waste" in the last Nov. 4 a decisive blow against United States and other advanced environmentalism in the United countries to the point of severely lim­ States. Yet, a group of zero-growthers iting future industrial development; in and around the Reagan administra­ the definition of water as a scarce tion—including prominently Secre­ resource, forcing the adoption of tary of State Alexander Haig—are backward agricultural technologies planning to sell the environmentalist that use less water; and a global "pol­ doctrines of the Global 2000 Report lution watch" and concern fbr the to the new administration. environmental impact of all trade and The Global 2000 Report to the Pres­ development projects. ident, a project of former President For the United States and other How will it be possible to inject Carter's Council on Environmental advanced countries, the new report zero growth into the Reagan admin­ Quality (CEQ) and the Vance-Muskie means reduced living standards and istration? "You do not understand State Department, was released in an end to scientific progress. For the how many friends we have in the new spring 1980 and immediately en­ Third World, it means a ban on tech­ administration," Nicholas Yost told a dorsed as policy by the State Depart­ nology transfer—and thus enforced journalist recently. "We have what ment, the White House, and various underdevelopment and genocide. you can call major channels of influ­ members of Congress. It is not surprising, therefore, to ence." At the top of the list he placed The report calls for a sharp reduc­ find that the technocrats who have Secretary of State Alexander Haig, tion in world population growth be­ been involved in the different phases whom he described as a "closet en­ tween now and the end of the cen­ of the Global 2000 project cite the vironmentalist." tury, stating at the beginning: "If work of the Brandt Commission as Former NATO commander "Haig present trends continue, the world in parallel to their own. (The Brandt fully understands the national security 2000 will be more crowded, more Commission, an offshoot of the World implications of the doctrine of limit­ polluted, less stable ecologically, and Bank, touts "appropriate technolo­ ing population growth and develop­ more vulnerable to disruption than gies" for the Third World, with special ment to managing potential crises" the world we live in now. Serious emphasis on developing indigenous and of the necessity of convincing the stresses involving population, re­ energy sources such as wind and solar Soviet Union to adopt convergent, sources, and the environment are power, organic fertilizer, and so antitechnology policies, a source at clearly visible ahead. Despite greater forth.) the Natural Resources Defense Coun­ material output, the world's people CEQ staffer Nicholas Yost and cil said. will be poorer in many ways than they Thomas Pickering of the State De­ Underneath Haig, former New York are today." partment oversaw the second, Global Senator James Buckley, the newly ap­ On Jan. 14, less than a week before Future report, which involved more pointed undersecretary of state for the Carter administration left Wash­ than 13 interagency taskforces and security affairs, is a very strong sup­ ington, the CEQ and the State De­ 1,000 outside consultants. Former porter of the Global 2000 doctrine. partment released the implementa­ Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti The leading supporters in the new tion document of the Global 2000 loaned a key aide, Christine Hall, for Congress are Sen. Claiborne Pell (D- Report, titled Global Future: Time to coordinating purposes. But the em­ R.I.), a member of the U.S. association Act. This document makes specific inence grise behind the whole oper­ of the Club of Rome, and Rep. Rich­ the zero-growth doctrine left general ation was Russell Train, head of the ard Ottinger (D-N.Y.), who intro­ in the original report. World Wildlife Fund-U.S. and the duced legislation Jan. 19 calling for a Among the new recommendations arch-environmentalist who formerly national population policy aimed at are: an almost exclusive emphasis on directed the Environmental Protec­ achieving zero or negative growth so-called renewable energy resources tion Agency. Train loaned a top aide, "stability" in the United States. like solar power and the limiting of Mike Wright, to work on the final This pernicious inside operation in energy use by advanced sector and project. Continued on page 61

18 FUSION May 1981 Energy News/National Domestic Uranium Under Threat

It is a real possibility that the United States, with by far the most extensive uranium resources of any nation in the world, could soon find itself 50 percent dependent on foreign pro­ ducers for its uranium supplies—the same Australian, Canadian, and South African producers who, as parties to the early-1970s international uranium The Global 2000 (action intends to cartel, drove up world uranium prices replace the American System with from $5 to $40 per pound and created deindustria/ization and zero growth. havoc in the U.S. nuclear industry. A number of well-placed uranium market analysts are predicting that this will be the case by the mid-1980s. And late last year, Senator Pete Do- menici of New Mexico demanded a National Academy of Sciences: Department of Energy investigation Turning Away from Science? into the long-term viability of the U.S. uranium industry and the effects of This spring the National Academy of Sciences, America's most presti­ low-cost foreign imports. gious scientific organization, will present its Public Welfare Medal to an Domenici's concern, according to individual who has worked against industrial progress and science in this his aides, is that the current depressed country for the past decade. Former Environmental Protection Agency conditions in the uranium market administrator Russell E. Train willreceive the award at the academy's could force irreversible shutdowns in 118th annual meeting April 28, in recognition of his "continued and far- the domestic industry, leading to se­ reaching contributions to the quality of our environment and to public vere unemployment and economic action for its protection." hardships in the western mining states Train, a tax accountant by profession, was head of the President's and creating a U.S. dependence on Council on Environmental Quality in the early 1970s and EPA director foreign suppliers whose reliability is later in the decade. In these positions he was instrumental in pushing questionable. The results of the DOE through legislation that broke with the American tradition of science- study, which is being conducted by vectored industrial progress, banning many useful and safe pesticides; the department's Division of Re­ forcing American industry to invest in costly and inefficient "pollution source Assessment Operations, abatement" equipment, to the detriment of investment in innovative should be released this spring. technologies; and imposing a restrictive land use policy on resource- The main source of the industry's rich expanses of the country. problems is the precipitous drop in Train is currently president of the U.S. branch of the World Wildlife uranium prices over the last few years, Fund, an institution whose international head is Prince Bernhardt of the primarily a result of the decline in Netherlands and whose mission has been to perpetuate a feudalist nuclear electric generation and the outlook. Train is also a founding member of the German Marshall Fund, phase-out of new nuclear orders dur­ the creator in 1979 of the Brandt Commission, which has promoted ing the four years of the antinuclear "appropriate" technology instead of the modern technology required Carter administration. for developing the Third World. Spot market prices for uranium And, as noted in the accompanying article, Train was instrumental in dropped from more than $43 per framing the environmentalist Global 2000 Report and its follow-up pound of milled product in 1978-1979 implementation report, Global Future: Time to Act. to $27 per pound in Jan. 1981. This is Fusion polled several prominent academy members and found them at or below the cost of production for all outraged at the Train award. Many planned to protest to academy an estimated 50 percent of domestic president Philip Handler. uranium mines, according to DOE ex­ perts.

Energy News/National May 1981 FUSION 19 Energy News /National

There have been other aggravating miners in Senator Domenici's home ment regulations is another source of factors, too. During 1980, utility com­ state of New Mexico, and there have the growing financial crisis of the panies began actively selling off their been extensive mine and mill shut­ small miners, according to the West­ burgeoning inventories, which now downs throughout the western ura­ ern Small Miners Association. stand at around 120 million pounds, nium states. The threatened closing of United or six years' uranium supply at current Small Miners Hit Hard Nuclear Corporation's Church Rock, consumption levels. Whereas the Union Carbides and New Mexico mill is a case of The SALT II talks, with what some Anacondas are large diversified com­ the outright environmentalist block­ analysts believed to be implications panies that can absorb the financial age the uranium industry faces. UNC for an East-West freeze on all nuclear loss, the smaller miners cannot. And was granted a 60-day reprieve to technology, also weighed down on as in the petroleum industry, the small counter the state Environmental Im­ prices. independent operator plays a critical provement Division's claim that see­ The other ingredient has been the role in the uranium mining process. page from the mill's tailings pond is aggressive worldwide marketing cam­ The Western Small Miners Associ­ contaminating underground aquifers. paign by new Australian mining ation, which includes both small and Otherwise, the mill will be shut down, consortia. The development of the large mining concerns in 11 western and along with it will go more than continent's high-grade ore deposits states, points out that large companies 600 jobs and a mine with an estimated was stalled in the mid-1970s by ob­ like Union Carbide and Anaconda 35 million pounds of uranium, which struction by the Friends of the Earth, have historically contracted proper­ could be mined for another 20 to 25 Australian aboriginal tribes, and the ties out to small independent opera­ years. country's Labour Party government, tors, who can often mine the deposits (In its peak year 1978, the UNC contributing to the rigged increase in more efficiently. But with the current operation produced some 2 million prices in the early 1970s. slump in uranium demand, Union pounds of uranium oxide, or enough Together these factors have con­ Carbide has terminated all of its in­ reactor fuel to operate five 1,000- tributed to the unabating price dependent operator leases, and many megawatt reactors per year, or the decline and hard times for the U.S. miners have been forced into other equivalent of 50 million barrels of oil uranium industry. Unemployment is areas such as synfuel development. annually.) running more than 20 percent among The high cost of meeting govern­ At the Jan. 9 hearings the state Environmental Improvement Division could present no positive evidence to back up its charges against UNC. However, the agency is demanding that the company prove that it is not contaminating the underground water—an unheard-of negative proof, by nature difficult, which could set a dangerous precedent for toxic waste cases across the country. A New Uranium Cartel? Some uranium market analysts think that the threat to domestic ura­ nium production is nothing to worry about—foreign producers can pro­ vide the United States with lower-cost nuclear fuel. But what about the re­ liability of supply? "Some utilities think that foreign uranium is like oil from Iran," com­ mented Robert Pitman, one of the DOE officials involved in the Domen- ici study. "Of course, Canada, Aus­ tralia, and South Africa won't be as unpredictable, though there have been some worrisome statements from the opposition Labour Party in Australia." However, serving as a reminder of the disruption caused by the earlier uranium cartel is the recent spate of multi-million-dollar, out-of-court set­ tlements in the antitrust suit Westing- house brought against 29 uranium producers for engineering the price runup. The fivefold rise caught West- inghouse short of millions of pounds of uranium committed for delivery to customers at fixed prices, and it led to suits, countersuits, and, to date, five years of litigation. Gulf Oil, the main defendant in the suit, claimed that the Canadian gov­ ernment had required it and other producers operating in the country to join the cartel. Getty Oil, a second defendant, submitted that its Austra­ lian operations were covered by that country's secrecy laws. (Getty is cur­ rently developing one of the new Australian deposits.) Rio TintoZinc of The space shuttle Orbiter Columbia is now scheduled for launch in London and eight other foreign com­ April. The world's first reusable space vehicle, it will be the most panies similarly cited national secrecy complicated craft ever flown—launched like a rocket and landed like an laws and contended that they had no airplane. When fully operational in the mid-1980s, the shuttle will open liability under U.S. law. up space to scientific experimentation and specialized manufacturing Does the United States want to be­ performed not only by astronauts but by scientists and trained techni­ come dependent on these producers cians. Shown above is the Orbiter Columbia traveling to its test site; for its nuclear reactor fuel? below is the first payload to be carried into space. —Lydia Schulman

Energy News/National May 1981 FUSION 21 Energy News/Washington

Will the U.S. Back Advanced R&D?

by Marsha Freeman

Above: work on the PDX tokamak Reagan Energy Policy Still Cloudy vacuum vessel at Princeton.

he direction the Reagan adminis­ remains vacant on the Nuclear Reg­ he wanted to cut by one-third. Later, Ttration will take in important en­ ulatory Commission. in mid-January, Stockman said that ergy areas, particularly those that in­ The policy perspective fight that has long-term R&D programs would have volve advanced technology R&D and produced this paralysis has the Milton to be stretched out or delayed. basic research, is still not clear at this Friedmanites on the budget-cutting Stockman's rationale for this suici­ writing. Although the president de­ side, versus most of the scientific dal recommendation, which seems to controlled the price of domestic oil as community and the economic pro- ignore the President's commitment to one of his first acts in office and has growthers on the other. increase productivity in the U.S. indicated there will be regulatory The OMB Battleground economy, is that a large part of the changes to allow already commercial The split has been out in the open $30 billion in proposed federal budget technologies such as nuclear energy in the policy recommendations com­ cuts will have to come out of R&D to return to a healthy growth, the fate ing from the new head of the Office because it is a "controllable" part of of government-supported research of Management and Budget, David the budget—as opposed to Social Se­ and development efforts is still a mat­ Stockman, and the reactions his rec­ curity and other social programs that ter of speculation. ommendations have provoked. Here are mandated by law. One example of the policy standstill the Heritage Foundation and sup­ Other recent proposals along these on the executive level is the fact that porters (see article below) are pitted lines are that a 10 percent cut in the weeks after his appointment DOE against New Mexico Senator Harrison NASA budget could be achieved sim­ Secretary James B. Edwards has not Schmitt and other prominent scien­ ply by cutting out the Galileo project, filled even one appointed position in tific spokesmen. a mission to Jupiter. the DOE. No science advisor to the In a memo to Reagan in December The Heritage arguments for cutting president has been named, nor the 1980, OMB designate David Stockman government-supported research and director for the Environmental Pro­ named the National Aeronautics and development are along the lines that tection Agency, nor the Council on Space Administration (NASA) as a such work should be left up to the Environmental Quality; and a position "low-priority" agency whose budget devices of private industry—a "free

22 FUSION May 1981 Energy News/Washington enterprise" view that ignores the role directly after Milton Friedman, the of new technologies in a growing economic guru of the austerity fac­ economy. tion. Friedman's advice on R&D policy 'Agenda for Progress'? The strongest voice against this kind "must not be taken as the last word of free enterprise "meat axe" ap­ on the need for government support The Heritage View proach to the budget has been Sen­ of certain types of scientific research," ator Schmitt. Schmitt, along with his Schmitt wrote in a letter to the editor former colleague in the Senate, Adlai of Science Jan. 19. he most speciic recommendations Stevenson, an Illinois Democrat, had "Friedman's solution [to the imbal­ T for revising the fiscal year 1982 taken great pains over the past four ance in private and federal research federal budget in line with the Fried- years to explain to senators that in­ funds] would be catastrophic to the manite austerity policy perspective vestment of federal tax dollars in R&D future of the country, its economy, have come from the Heritage Foun­ is deinflationary, at the same time that and freedom itself. To advocate the dation, which in early January pub­ the Carter administration was hacking abolishment of the National Science lished a report titled Agenda for Prog­ away at NASA, the fusion program, Foundation, the National Institutes of ress, Examining Federal Spending. and advanced nuclear R&D. Health, and federal support of higher In what Heritage describes as a "I've seen statements attributed education is like treating brain tumors "market approach" to the federal to Congressman Jack Kemp and Con­ with a guillotine. budget, the foundation actually pro­ gressman Stockman and George ". . . Government must fund those poses to destroy the government's Shultz to the effect that the economy costly research and development pro­ positive policymaking role. Specifi­ needs a shock treatment, and the grams, such as in nuclear fusion, cally, Heritage advocates eliminating treatment should be administered space, defense, and global environ­ government support for the science, without discrimination, wherever ment which are obviously necessary research, and development of new there is money to be cut," Schmitt but far beyond the risk-taking poten­ technologies—the backbone for con­ told Science magazine Dec. 19. tial of the private sector. . . ." tinued growth of the civilian econ­ "I frankly think that is unnecessary The fact that the OMB's Stockman omy. and extraordinarily dangerous. You has persisted in his threat to make Although the Heritage Foundation might have a brief pulse of improve­ extreme cuts in these very areas is has tried to position itself as the "con­ ment, but the country will start going the clearest indication that Senator servative think tank" for the new ad­ downhill again very rapidly unless we Schmitt and his allies have not yet ministration, it is striking that all rejuvenate our technological base." won the fight. public policy statements from Senate The Government's Role Republican leaders and progrowth As for the government's role in en­ executive spokesmen have lambasted ergy policy, Schmitt said: "In the short the Heritage recommendations. term we have no alternative but to The major fallacy in the Heritage produce more oil and natural gas. . . . report is stated in the chapter on We can use coal in an environmen­ general science, space, and technol­ tally safe way and nuclear power. . . . ogy: "A salient feature of federal re­ In the long term there are so many search is that it is 'controllable'; it can alternatives, it is difficult to decide be adjusted from year to year with no which ones to pursue most vigor­ drastic near-term effects on the na­ ously. I believe that within 10 years tion as a whole." ... we could demonstrate the com­ Apparently the authors do not plan mercial feasibility of fusion power, to be around for long enough to miss and within 20 years we could have a the technological benefits desperately major commercial fusion plant in op­ needed in the economy. eration. ... As portable fuel we will Specific Recommendations eventually be headed toward hydro­ In terms of specific recommenda­ gen." tions, Heritage lists a "reexamination Does that mean the government's of the economics and the institutional commitment in synthetic fuels is mis­ arrangements for space transporta­ guided, Schmitt was asked. "Yes," he tion," which would include such al­ replied. "It means that the synthetic ternatives as the discontinuation of fuels industry will be controlled by the Space Shuttle program. Heritage political forces and not economics." doubts that the shuttle will prove to When the policy fight had not be an "economical" system, when all neared resolution by mid-January, Wide World the present federal R&D development Schmitt escalated his offensive going Stockman: the meat-axe approach costs are taken into account.

Energy News/Washington May 1981 FUSION 23 Energy News/Washington

If the U.S. government decides it Heritage, the "free market" can de­ names the programs it would include does want to continue the program, cide what research is in the national under this category. Heritage says, then "a longer-term interest. As for nuclear energy, the Heritage approach would be for the federal What this means concretely can be report agrees that the government government to turn the space trans­ seen in the fact that the Heritage should be involved in nuclear energy portation services over to the private report chapter on energy never men­ development, not to promote eco­ sector and to purchase space trans­ tions the word "fusion." Perhaps fu­ nomic growth but because of "the portation services as necessary for re­ sion is implied under the Heritage very real national security issues sur­ search and national defense activi­ category of "other technology." rounding nuclear technology." ties." Of course, this would require a However, how can something called The breeder, Heritage says, is prob­ complete rewriting of the legislation an Agenda for Progress ignore the ably "not an effective investment" that established NASA as primarily a only R&D program that promises to and instead a "cost-benefit analysis national resource for space science, eliminate the world's energy supply would probably show that R&D national defense, and research. Not problems? money would be better spent to de­ even OMB head Stockman has sug­ "Other technology," by the way, is velop the technology of light water gested, as Heritage has, that NASA slated by Heritage for a cut to $608 resources." What the free market will should be sold off to industry. million in fiscal year 1982, compared do when the United States runs out On the energy front, the Heritage to the current estimate of a 1982 of economically minable uranium is Foundation laments the fact that fed­ budget at $872 million. Heritage never not discussed. eral intervention into the Tennessee Valley Authority has led to a prema­ ture demise of the otherwise pros­ DOE Secretary James Edwards: perous windmill industry by introduc­ ing nuclear power into this showcase A Basically Sound Approach of American energy technology. Her­ itage's solution? Sell the TVA, the he man appointed to run the be­ wardly: "I reject the concept of con­ Bonneville Power and Authority, and T leaguered Department of Energy, servation that focuses on no-growth other national resources to "private James B. Edwards, set forward a posi­ policies. . . . The human body uses the enterprise." tive and basically sound energy ap­ least energy when it is asleep—or, in Heritage also calls for the decontrol proach at his Senate confirmation the extreme, dead. I want Americans of all domestic energy production, hearings Jan. 12: to choose their lifestyles—not have it regardless of the impact on the econ­ "In my own lifetime I have seen dictated to them. I want to see Amer­ omy, and development of future things come to pass not even imag­ ica awake, strong, and alive. I want advanced technology. According to ined in the days of my childhood. to see America employed, producing Americans are problem solvers. We and consuming—growing. I reject any should not try to regulate genius. We idea of energy conservation that should turn it loose on the next fron­ stems from fear of the future. I am tier, whether it be in the vastness of better off than my forefathers, and I space, the core of the atom, the sur­ expect Americans' children to have a face of the Moon, or the complexity better life than we do. I want to give of meeting the energy needs of a them the tools to do it with, including growing, thriving, and prosperous na­ concepts that are only gleams in the tion," Edwards said. eye inside a research laboratory to­ The hearings were a dialogue be­ day. I want to build for the future, tween Edwards and the Republican not bunker down in the foxhole of senators leading the Energy Commit­ the present." tee who attempted to lay the ground Edwards continued: "Tomorrow's rules for a sound energy production energy menu is whatever our inge­ and development policy. For many in nuity can make it. Fusion, the nuclear the hearing room, including this re­ breeder, wide scale use of renewa- porter, the Edwards testimony stood bles—each has both promise and out as the antithesis of the philos­ challenges. . . ." ophy of former DOE secretary James In a radical departure from the Schlesinger, with his harangues about previous administration's reason for the "moral equivalent of war" and establishing the DOE, Edwards con­ Edwards: "I reject the concept of con­ "sacrifice." cluded by saying: "The mission of the servation that focuses on no-growth In his opening statement to the Department of Energy is to serve the policies." committee, Edwards said straightfor­ Continued on page 59

24 FUSION May 1981 Energy News/Washington The Saturn Puzzle & the Origins Of the Solar System he November 1980 encounter with Saturn by the Voyager 1 spacecraft has provided a wealth of data on many aspects of the planet's structure T that will keep scientists busy for years to come. Some of the newly discovered features can be easily explained in terms of existing ideas and accepted theories. Others, and these are the most interesting, present a challenge to the basic concepts that have informed celes­ tial mechanics for several centuries. Newton had good reason to emphasize In many respects, Saturn can be thought of as a micro­ mathematical laws as opposed to physical cosm of the solar system. It has a large number of satellites, explanation because the central physical just as the Sun has numerous planets circling it. The ring system, as we shall see below, can be treated as a labora­ concept in his celestial mechanics was the tory for stellar formation processes that might have oc­ force of gravitation and the action of this curred, had the early Sun been slightly different. force could not be explained at all in The important questions to ask about a complex system physical terms. The concept of a gravita­ like Saturn are how did its particular features become what they are now? To deal with this kind of question, it tional force that attracted any two masses is essential to understand the evolutionary processes that to each other even when separated by brought the present complex system into existence from hundreds of millions of miles of empty a relatively homogeneous earlier state. Specifically, how could such a complex, highly organized, and—according space seemed as incredible as many of the to usual considerations—improbable structure come to qualities that the Aristotelians and medie­ exist? More precisely, what kind of universe would sup­ val scholars had invented to account for port such a structure as a stable form of matter? \t is the scientific phenomena. The concept was es­ ontological significance of Saturn that represents its inter­ est for scientific inquiry. pecially repugnant to Newton's contempo­ The problem scientists face here is like the problem raries. . . . The abandonment of physical biologists face in trying to explain the workings of a cell. mechanism in favor of mathematical de­ Many biologists would approach the cell from its com­ scription shocked even the greatest scien­ posite parts, attempting to build up the complex mecha­ nism from an accretion of random events, governed by tists. Huygens regarded the idea of gravita­ fixed chemical laws that describe how things can combine. tion as "absurd" because its action Following this approach to its final logic, the existence of through empty space precluded any a living organism becomes an event of such minute mechanism. . . . Many others including probability as to appear fortuitous. The hapless biologist is left with two choices: Either there is no rationality in Leibniz objected to the purely mathemati­ the universe and living things have come to be despite cal account of gravitation. Leibniz began the virtual impossibility that they could, or some agency his critique in 1690 after reading Newton's external to the workings of the universe has intervened to create living things. Both hypotheses amount to the same Principia and he kept it up until he died. thing. —Morris Kline, in Mathematics: The alternative to this impasse is for the biologist to The Loss of Certainty recognize that self-organizing processes are the primary substance of the universe. The particular emphemeral forms that this organization takes are the nodal points, the singularities mediating subsequent stages of self-organi­ zation on a higher developmental level. Furthermore, a lawfully determined transformation of laws governs sub­ sequent evolution. For biology, the case is sufficiently clear that at least some biologists adhere to an approximation of this per­ spective on evolution. Unfortunately, however, nearly all physicists would deny the reality of any hypothesis that remotely resembles this one, although they too are at­ tempting to explain the workings of the very same uni­ verse the biologists are looking at. Why is this the case? The essential content of Newtonian physics is deeply imbedded in the thought and practice of most physicists, despite the fact that in recent years, researchers in me-

26 FUSION May 1981 chanics have conclusively proven that Newtonian me­ for mutual gravitational attraction between Saturn and chanics, in the broadest meaning of that term, is incapable each of the moons and attraction of the moons to each of providing answers to this type of question. The three- other. In addition, all three bodies are free to move under body problem and its solution is a case in point, as Dr. these forces. To arrive at an actual solution, though, it is Steven Bardwell has shown.1 just as Ptolemy was able to necessary to use the fact that Saturn is so much larger than mirror the actions of the planets with some accuracy, by either of the moons that it remains essentially fixed in including sufficient numbers of epicycles, so Newton and space, while the moons revolve about it. his followers have been able to quite accurately describe In this way, the unsolvable three-body problem is re­ some celestial motions. But at the same time, vast areas of duced to a manageable two-body problem with the two relevant phenomena are inexplicable by Newton's approach and, worse, are ruled a priori out of bounds.

The Three-Body Problem For example, as soon as a third body is introduced to the Newtonian sys­ tem, all lawful ordering of processes goes out the window. If three bodies interact as point masses according to Newton's laws, then no matter how similar the states of each group of three particles are before collision, they can have arbitrarily large differ­ ences in position or velocity after a near-collision. To quote from Bard- well's study of the three-body prob­ lem: "The rigorous consequence of a reductionist physical law is the un­ lawfulness of the universe! . . . Since we are not in danger of being hit by flying third bodies, we must conclude that pairwise interaction of singular Voyager team members were astounded with the first pictures showing the particles cannot in principle be the highly differentiated structures within the ring system. Some of the major basis of a correct physical description features like the Cassini Division, the dark band about three-quarters of the of the world." way out from Saturn, had been explained years ago in terms of resonant As Bardwell shows, these indeter- interaction with the moon Mimas. According to the theory, there should be minacies—associated with the "infin­ no material in the division. However, there are a number of clearly visible ities" in the point-interaction descrip­ rings within it. The F ring is faintly visible in upper right corner outside the tion—must be replaced by the apparent outer boundary of the A ring. concept of physical singularities act­ The existence of such highly differentiated structure within the rings is ing within a hydrodynamical phase pointed evidence that we do not understand celestial mechanics. This structure space of complex geometry. exists even down to the smallest scale on which today's instruments are capable of resolving images of the rings. Standard gravitational theory would The Saturnian Laboratory predict smooth, monotonic behavior, not the dynamical singularities that are The Saturnian system provides a evident here. The question remains open as to what kind of field could good example of the kind of phe­ generate this kind of structure as a stable feature of the ring system. nomena that Newtonian mechanics can describe, but not explain. Two of Saturn's moons, S10 and S11, which were recently discov­ bodies moving in a central force field from Saturn in ered, engage in a complex mutual interaction brought on addition to their mutual attraction. The trailing moon, say by the fact that they share almost identical orbits. One of S11, is in a lower orbit than S10. This means that it will the moons appears to gain on the other in such a way that complete one revolution about Saturn faster than S10 at it looks as if the moons would ultimately collide. But as its higher orbit. Kepler showed this to be the case for they approach, the leading moon pulls away, avoiding the planetary motion early in the 17th century. Now, as S11 collision. begins to gain on S10, their mutual attraction becomes This motion is a classic case, known as a horseshoe orbit, stronger. The effect of this is to accelerate S11 and retard of a special form of three-body interaction that can be S10. This acceleration and retardation of the two satellites described in approximation. The three interacting bodies has the effect of a torque, increasing S11's angular mo­ are the two moons and Saturn. If the problem were solved mentum, while decreasing SIO's. Consequently, S11 must in its full form, the motion of the three bodies would move into a higher orbit and S10 into a lower one. become indeterminate. In its full form, the problem calls Now, S10 will complete a revolution more rapidly than

May 1981 FUSION 27 One of the surprising features of the Saturn ring system is the appearance of the so-called spokes. Visible here as radial dark areas within the other­ wise light ring, the spokes maintain their integrity over periods of several hours. To do this they could not be governed simply by motion that is the result of the rotation of ring material about Saturn. In that case, the inner material would revolve in a much shorter time than the outer, breaking up the structures. The spokes seem to be moving with the same period of revolution as the planet's rotation, giving rise to the hypothesis that they are an artifact of interaction of Sat­ urn's magnetic field with charged mi- croparticles in the rings.

S11, so it appears to pull away from the imminent collision. ing Saturn and Jupiter in this fashion has led to some Eventually it will catch up with S11, and the motion tentative explanations for many of the gross features of proceeds in the same way, returning the two moons to both planets discovered by the Pioneer 11 and Voyager their former relative positions. Seen from one of the missions. moons, the other appears to execute a horseshoe-shaped Stars form when very large gas clouds, perhaps hundreds motion. or thousands of times larger than the solar system, develop This description of the motion is all very well, but it internal instabilities and begin to contract. One hypothesis does not tell us anything new. It is a precise, mathematical for the origin of such instabilities is that a supernova way of saying that the moons are doing what they are explosion of a nearby star generates a shock wave in the doing. For one thing, this approach cannot explain how gas cloud. There seems to be some evidence that this is two satellites could come to occupy the same range of the way the Sun was formed. However, there must be orbits, a highly unlikely event. This, in fact, is a question other ways for the initial instabilities to arise, since there that some of the scientists studying Saturn are asking must have been stars before there were supernovas. themselves. As the gas cloud that became the Sun was undergoing contraction, other instabilities were created, one of which A Hydrodynamic Model led to the formation of Jupiter, another, Saturn. The Recently there have been some promising attempts to reason for these instabilities is not yet known, and is an answer this kind of question. A group of theoretical important question that must be dealt with to develop the physicists headed by James B. Pollack of Ames Research causal connection within the solar system's history. Center has been working on a hydrodynamic model of However, taking the beginning of this contraction as both Jupiter and Saturn's evolution throughout the life­ given, the complex evolutionary process that leads to the time of the solar system—about 4.5 billion years.2 current state of Saturn can be discerned. At the center of One of the first things to notice about both planets is the contracting gas cloud, more and more heat builds up that they are composed largely of hydrogen and helium, as the contraction progresses. Eventually, the temperature the same elements that are dominant in the Sun and other becomes high enough for hydrogen molecules to disso­ stars. Furthermore, both planets have been found to ciate into atomic hydrogen and even to ionize. Extensive radiate more energy from their surfaces than they receive zones of hydrogen in these two phases develop within the from the Sun. This observation led Pollack's group to seek region near the center of the gas cloud. This condition an internal energy source in the planets to account for induces hydrodynamic instability and the cloud undergoes this excess energy radiation. a very rapid collapse that ends only when it is several The idea they struck upon was to treat the planets as if times the current size of the planet. This collapse, which they had evolved from gas clouds in the same way that a starts when the cloud is some hundreds of times the small star might have evolved. This is not to say that Saturn current diameter of the planet, lasts only about one year. and Jupiter are stars undergoing thermonuclear fusion in After this period, contraction proceeds much more their centers. They are too small to achieve the pressure slowly, and the heat built up in the interior during the and temperature conditions for that. Nevertheless, treat­ prior phase is slowly dissipated. One of the early successes

28 FUSION May 1981 The F ring, shown on the top, appears to be constructed from at least two or three braided rings. Explaining this structure provides a significant chal­ lenge to accepted ideas in celestial mechanics. Below is a telling photo­ graph from experiments performed by Anatol Roshko, C. L. Brown, and M. Rebollo at the California Institute of Technology. The experiments were to observe the patterns of vortices produced when two different gases streamed past each other at different speeds. In this figure, which corre­ sponds to a relatively high difference in the gas speeds, the vortices appear to be taking on a three-dimensional twisted shape. Perhaps something of this hydrodynamic nature is occurring in the F ring.

of Pollack's group was to account for the observed excess beneath it, leaving it in orbit around the planet. heat from Jupiter using this model. The group has subse­ This seems to be the mechanism to explain how the quently found that the Saturn situation is not as well "irregular moons" of both Jupiter and Saturn came to be described. The problem is that the model predicts only in their present orbits. Their irregularity is a result of the about one-third as much heat being radiated today as is fact that their orbits are much more elliptical than those observed for Saturn. of the regular moons. Furthermore, some revolve in the The discrepancy may be because the equations of state opposite direction to the rotation of the planet. {the equations that describe the detailed behavior of a Formation of Regular Moons material) for hydrogen and helium are not very well At the end of the collapse phase, a disk of material, gas known in the density and pressure ranges encountered in and dust, rotating with the planet is left behind. This Saturn's interior. Both above and below the range en­ serves as the source material for the regular moons that countered inside Saturn, 0.1 to 1.0 g/cm3 and about 3 form in this region. During this early period in the planet's Mbars (1 megabar is a unit of pressure equal to 105 life, the excess heat being radiated would be many times newtons per square meter), the equations of state are what it is now, so that it would dominate the temperature much better known from terrestrial experiments. Much conditions in the disk where the moons were forming. By of the information has been developed in conjunction carrying out detailed calculations of the temperature with work on hydrogen bomb design and inertial fusion across the disk, Pollack's group has determined that it research. would have been too hot for water vapor to condense in One other possible source for the discrepancy is that the region where the two inner Jovian moons, lo and below about 10,000 degrees Kelvin and at pressures Europa, were formed. In the case of the next two, Callisto around 3 Mbars, hydrogen is in the metallic phase. Under and Ganymede, water vapor could condense. These results these conditions, helium may become immiscible in the are indirectly confirmed by measurements of the densities hydrogen and sink below it toward the center of the of these two moons. It turns out that Callisto and Gany­ planet. This process would generate additional heat be­ mede are less dense than lo and Europa, a fact that could yond that already projected. It would take about 30 be accounted for by the presence of ice in the makeup of percent of the helium going through this process to make the former, but not of the latter. up the additional heat necessary to account for Saturn's Since Saturn is less massive than Jupiter, its excess heat present rate of heat radiation. production would have been a factor of 10 lower. This Although the gas cloud is still fairly extensive, objects means that objects could collect ice at closer distances. floating through it may become trapped because of fac­ Then, the inner moons of Saturn should have ice as a tional drag. They would then start to spiral into the center, significant part of their composition. From the Voyager building up a core of solid material in addition to the measurements of the size of these moons, their densities gaseous mixture of mostly hydrogen and helium. This have been found to agree with this projection. process can continue right up to the point when the cloud Another expectation from the model is that ammonia rapidly contracts. If an object is trapped only a short while and methane would be able to condense in the region of before the contraction sets in, the cloud will collapse the outer moons of Saturn, since the temperature there

FUSION May 1981 29 Saturn (left), just like Jupiter (center), has a highly organized atmosphere v/ith long-lived vortical structures and bands flowing at different speeds. The planets should provide insights into the complex evolutionary characters of hydrodynamic systems. Saturn's largest moon, Titan (right), has a dense, layered atmosphere of nitrogen, with significant amounts of hydrocarbons. Scientists hope to learn something about the early chemical evolution of Earth's atmosphere from Titan.

would have been lower than it was closer to Saturn, where Another important question, and one with implications water vapor could condense. This seems to account for for the process of planet formation, is how do the regular the composition of Titan's atmosphere. It has been con­ moons form in the planetary disk? firmed that Titan, Saturn's largest moon, has an atmos­ The standard Newtonian approach to this problem has phere composed largely of nitrogen, with some methane been to assume that if chunks of matter bounce around and ammonia in it. The preponderance of nitrogen can long enough, some of them will begin to stick together, be explained if the atmosphere was originally largely gradually building up to planetary size. To say the least, ammonia. Since ammonia readily decomposes into hydro­ this mechanism is highly fortuitous. No doubt, enough gen and nitrogen in sunlight, the hydrogen could escape monkeys playing with typewriters long enough could the moon's atmosphere, leaving the nitrogen behind. If produce Shakespeare's works. But just as Shakespeare did Jupiter's four inner moons, which are about the same size not produce Hamlet fortuitously, the universal self-evo­ as Titan, had formed farther from the planet where am­ lutionary processes that produced Shakespeare were monia and methane could have condensed, they too themselves more organized than the random bumping would have developed atmospheres. around this model of planetary accretion implies. Similarly, with less excess heat production, Jupiter could The place to begin looking for a viable mechanism is in have formed a ring system like Saturn's. Within a certain the production of hydrodynamic singularities in the star- distance from a planet, it becomes impossible for a large forming medium that became the Sun. The kinds of body to withstand the tidal forces, similar to those that gravitational instabilities that initiated the formation of the produce tides on Earth's oceans. The closest approach to Sun, and, according to Pollack's model Jupiter and Saturn, a planet that a large moon could make without being appear to have universal significance for generating the destroyed by tidal forces is called the Roche limit. Fur­ conditions under which diffuse gas bodies can become thermore, material distributed inside the Roche limit can­ entities capable of highly organized evolutionary differ­ not form into a large body. The disk surrounding Saturn entiation. was cool enough at an early date that water vapor could For example, can the Sun be treated in a full plasma condense into ice. So, the rings did form around Saturn, and hydrodynamic model, including rotational effects? composed largely of ice, while it was too hot for conden­ Under these circumstances, is it possible to follow the sation to occur near Jupiter. course of differentiation of materials so that the dense rocky planets are formed closer to the Sun, while the Challenge to Celestial Mechanics giant, largely gaseous ones like Jupiter and Saturn form From this account, it is clear that some of the features farther out? Important questions to determine include associated with the birth and evolution of the two largest whether shock waves could form resulting from the dy­ planets in the solar system can be at least partially ex­ namical features of the early Sun's evolution, and whether plained using the model of the behavior to be expected they could provide mechanisms for generating gravita­ from a small star's formation. There are many questions tional instabilities that could cause the planets to form. yet to investigate, perhaps by successfully refining this Or, perhaps in a complex system such as the presolar model. The most visually spectacular question to be an­ gas cloud, it is possible to generate another type of swered is why are Saturn's rings so intricately differen­ hydrodynamic singularity, such as a train of vortices that tiated? How can a rotating hydrodynamic system produce propagates outward from the center of the cloud, creating the observed separations of different-sized particles that regions in which planets could condense. give the rings the appearance of a phonograph record? Such a theory should account for, among other things,

30 FUSION May 1981 the empirical relation known as the Titius-Bode Law. This law states that the distances of the planets from the Sun in multiples of the Earth's distance form a simple series approximately given by the relation The Three-Body Problem a = 0.4 + 0.3 X 2". "The final goal of Celestial Mechanics is to resolve The significance of this relationship is compounded by the great problem of determining if Newton's law the fact that it also holds for the regular satellites of both alone explains all astronomical phenomena. . . . The Jupiter and Saturn. Although the relationship is not exact, Three-Body Problem is of such importance in as­ it does hint that there is an order, determined by a lawful tronomy, and is at the same time so difficult, that all process, to the spacing of the planets themselves, and the efforts of geometers have long been directed to­ satellites of these two large planets. The existence of the wards it." Titius-Bode Law is an indication that the process leading Henri Poincare, in this description of the three- to the formation of the large planets could be significantly body problem, highlights one of the most difficult similar to that for the Sun. unsolved problems of mathematical physics, which Recent discoveries in turbulence theory by G. L. Brown is also the simplest nontrivial application of Newton's and A. Roshko indicate that large-scale structure is super­ law of gravitational attraction: how do three point imposed on the apparent randomness usually associated masses interact gravitationally? with the development of turbulence in fluid media.3 In The problem of the interaction of two bodies the accompanying photograph, the vortical pattern seems under the influence of a pairwise attractive force to have achieved a three-dimensional braided structure as like gravity has long been considered to be solved. it has evolved through a number of reorganizations of the But as soon as more than two particles affect each vortices, and the F ring of Saturn seems to be doing other's motion, an important theoretical assumption something very similar. To account for the more and more is made: these three particles can only interact by large-scale reorganization observed in turbulence studies means of the forces between each pair of them— means to abandon the notion that order is dissipated into there are no higher-order interactions possible disorder, and to replace it with the idea that apparent within Newton's law. randomness is merely the appearance of disorder on a Attempts to solve the three-body problem in this scale where the subsuming order is not perceived. But the form have reached a surprising conclusion: if parti­ complex organization of the solar system and its Saturnian cles interacted this way in reality, the universe would subsystem provide eloquent testimony to the primary not be causal. The work of R. McGehee and J. ordering principle in the universe. Waldvogel proves that (1) the three-body problem For too long, many scientists have attempted to under­ cannot be solved deterministically; and (2) no com­ stand the universe by building up the omnipresent stable, plete description of possible orbits for three bodies complex structures from more elementary particulars. It after a near collision has been found because there is time that that compulsive irrationality stops. The primary are a large number of trajectories in which one of substance of the universe is its stably evolving highly the particles leaves the near collision with arbitrarily ordered states becoming more highly ordered. Scientists large velocity. Thus, if the underlying assumptions must start from this perspective and work down to locate of Newtonian mechanics were true, particles could the significance of the particulars embedded in order. assume arbitrarily large velocities; their orbits could Saturn is a spectacular laboratory in which to study this be infinitely sensitive to small perturbations; and quality, for it offers the critical experiment to show that their motion would contain a kernel of inherent two-body interaction is not the foundation of dynamics, unpredictability. Since the universe is causal, these and that the self-ordering, dynamical, geometrical quality mathematical results show quite conclusively that is primary. something is wrong with Newton, not the universe. The Saturn data provide important evidence con­ Dr. John Schoonover, physics and astronomy editor of cerning the actual processes dominant in celestial Fusion, is working on a more detailed article on the many- mechanics. From this evidence and the internal body problem in astronomy showing the relative contri­ contradictions in Newtonian mechanics, it seems butions of the Newton-Maxwell and the Riemannian that not only has the three-body problem not been schools. solved, the two-body problem has not been solved! (Or, if it is considered solved, it was the wrong problem!) The evidence from Voyager 1 proves very directly 1. Steven Bardwell, "Solving the Three-Body Problem," Fusion, June 1978. p. 21. that the universe does not work as a collection of 2. James B. Pollack. Allen S. Grossman, Ronald Moore, and Harold C. self-evident particles interacting as pairs—the fun­ Graboske, Jr.. "The Formation ot Saturn's Satellites and Rings, As Influenced by Saturn's Contraction History." Icarus 29 (1976). p. 35; "A damental assumption for all of Newtonian mechan­ Calculation of Saturn's Gravitational Contraction History," Icarus 30 ics. Rather, the fundamental nature of the universe (1977), p. 111. is self-ordering phenomena subsuming the motions 3. The Brown and Roshko work is described in detail in "The Beginnings of a Deterministic Theory of Turbulence." Dr. Steven Bardwell. Interna­ of individual particles. tional Journal of Fusion Energy, Vol. 2, No. 4 (1981).

May 1981 FUSION 31 Far from being a competent educator or child psychologist, lean Piaget was part of a project to contain the development of science. Piaget's Role in Wrecking U.S. by Mary Gilbertson

IN SEPTEMBER 1980, the world-famed child psychologist explanation of knowledge," Piaget states in his autobiog­ Jean Piaget died in Switzerland at age 84. Newspapers raphy. quickly filled up with obituaries, features, and tributes to This explanation takes shape in The Origins of Intelli­ Piaget and his influence. And indeed, his influence was gence in Children (1930), where Piaget writes: extensive. Do you wonder why Johnnie can't read, why Johnnie Verbal or cognitive intelligence is based on practi­ hates math, why Johnnie and his friends are so susceptible cal, sensorimotor intelligence, which in turn depends to the appeal of rock and drugs? The answer, in large part, on acquired and recombined habits and associations is Jean Piaget. . . . the relationship of thought to things. Piaget shaped much of what currently passes as school curricula in America. His works are at the core of almost In Genetic Epistemology, written in the 1940s, he repeats all teacher-training courses. Piaget's own classroom the same theory that learning and thinking are just human methods are widely applied, while his theories are the versions of training circus animals: basis for many other methods that differ only in emphasis and shape educational practice at all levels. He was re­ Our hypothesis is that the roots of logical thought sponsible for such innovations as "the open classroom," . . . are to be found more generally in the coordina­ "the discovery method," "affective education," "indivi­ tion of actions, which are the basis of reflective dualized learning," "personalized education," and so abstraction. forth—all of which stifle real intellectual development in children. Incredibly, this totally sensory approach to learning that Perhaps the most notorious product of Piaget's work is permeates all of Piaget's pedagogy became known as the often not associated with his name: "New Math." In 1958, cognitive school, despite the fact that his entire pedagogi­ the National Science Foundation began spending millions cal perspective has nothing to do with the development of dollars developing New Math curricula, effecting a of mind. broad revision in the subject matter by 1972. At present, The reader may believe that children have "souls," or, the National Science Foundation, through Curriculum more specifically, a cognitive power that cannot be re­ Development Associates, is developing a "New New duced to a mere biofeedback system. Piaget says they do Math" curriculum, again stressing Piaget's learning theory. not: The human mind does not possess any creative At the root of that theory is Piaget's assertion that qualities that could arrive at a conceptual solution to a mental powers of cognition are of no higher order than problem that is beyond the ken of logical, deductive the "artificial intelligence" imputed to the action of a procedures and experience. sophisticated computer. The child, according to Piaget, is In the classroom that follows the Piaget pedagogy, like a computer, a "knowing system" that starts with children are to be treated as "soulless." Young children, certain initial properties—a "program"—and is fed infor­ according to Piaget, can learn only what they can see, mation that it orders according to the structure of its touch, feel, and manipulate. Learning, like a rock concert, program. The child's initial program or "structures" for is a process of immediate, sensual gratification. receipt of information, as well as his later development, This is translated into "stages" in the school curriculum, are ultimately biological The child acts on the world, conforming to the "stages" biologically delimiting a child's receiving sensory information, and the result is an "idea," learning ability. which is the "structure" filled with sensory information From birth through age 11, Piaget's stages restrict the called "experience." child to "sensorimotor" activity and "concrete opera­ The ideas achievable and the information that can be tions"; the teacher may introduce only those ideas that assimilated by the underlying biological structures, ac­ "classify" or categorize the objects and play in which the cording to Piaget, are strictly delimited by the "stage" of child is engaged. After age 12, the "formal operations biological growth. Only at a certain age, for example, do stage" begins, a stage that lasts to senility. The adolescent the structures become truly logical categories. and adult classify and categorize objects in the world for Piaget calls this model of learning "action-oriented themselves, on the basis of logical manipulation that is structuralism"; his theory he dubs "genetic epistemol- merely the internalized expression of the "sensorimotor" ogy." "I decided to consecrate my life to the biological manipulation of childhood stages.

12 FUSION May 1981 Education

In schools run according to Piaget's doctrine, children and adolescents wander to and fro—"the open class­ room"—going from "dress-up corners" to "activity tables" engaged in "fantasy play." Play with other children is considered irrelevant ("social"). What matters is play with objects, which is "biological": Learning comes "from the subject's own activity." All knowledge develops "from the body."

Cognitive Development Prior to the impact of Piaget's innovations, American education tended to represent a mix of two otherwise irreconcilable approaches to the mind of the student. One, broadly termed classical or Neoplatonic, emphasized the child's cognitive development. According to this out­ look, the goal of education is not mere learning, but the enhancement of the child's creative powers for task-ori­ ented problem-solving in general. Education begins pre­ cisely at those junctures in which the learning associated with past experience and mere logical, deductive proce­ dures fails to produce any satisfactory solution. The "breakthrough" to a solution demanded of the child at such a juncture requires what is loosely termed creative insight. At issue is not only the solution, but the powers of cognition—the development of creative powers that re­ peated breakthroughs push forward. The primacy of powers of "insight" in mental activities was proven experimentally during this century by gestalt psychologist Wolfgang Kohler and his Teneriff chimpan­ zees. Focusing on the discrepancy between the human mind and ape mind, Kohler presented his chimps with problems that he or a human child could readily have solved, but that chimpanzees could not solve in the same way. By eliminating problems that his chimpanzees might have learned to solve through previous experience or imitation—thereby eliminating the possibility of learned or deductive logical procedures—Kohler predetermined that the solutions to problems achieved by the chimps were creatively synthesized {gestalt). Since even chimpan­ zees could repeatedly develop discoveries of such solu­ tions—representing the chimp analogue of a human sci­ entific discovery or a student's breakthrough—Kohler conclusively proved that those creative qualities of men­ tation are fundamental for mental activity as a whole. Thus, it is proven that "insight" is a deliberative feature of mental processes that can be prompted to produce any valid solution that exists for a well-defined problem, if the potential ingredients of such a solution are present.1 Therefore, the proper focus of education in general is amoral outlook and psychological damage represented in the enhancement of this fundamental feature of mental an entire generation's susceptibility to the organized deg­ life: cognitive or conceptual development. radation of the rock-drug counterculture. One of the most important examples of how this actually In one of his essays, Piaget himself writes of "the functions in children is their demonstrated ability to rap­ Dionysian excitement that ends in intellectual activity." idly master ever more complex musical forms as well as This is a description of a writer of 20th century porno­ new languages. It is precisely within this notion of new graphic literature, the exact opposite of the fundamental knowledge involved in gestalt processes that Piaget emotions that generate knowledge and learning. chooses to make his attack. To Piaget, all knowledge tends toward what he calls "equilibration," states of equilibrium The Source of Piaget's Success that are the opposite of gestalt processes. In the mid-1930s, British writer and intelligence chief In the United States, the classical influence in education H.G. Wells initiated a special project called the World has had to contend with a second, prevalent approach Encyclopedia or World Brain. Jean Piaget's theories of that emphasizes the child's imbibing and regurgitating learning and education were an official element in Wells's answers. In this approach, which can be termed Aristote­ World Brain project, with the purpose of revising Ameri­ lian, education is mere learning and the recall of experi­ can education. ence, on the basis of the logical deductive manipulation Because of powerful opposition to the project, ranging of data or the titles attached to objects and objectlike from Henry Ford (who denounced it as subversive) to images. President Franklin Roosevelt, Wells's efforts to conduct it From 1939 on, Piaget repeatedly attacked the gestalt through existing institutional channels failed. psychology that had destroyed his "genetic epistemology" During his 1937 trip to the United States on behalf of in a series of unassailable experiments. In the same period, the World Brain project, Wells reported back: he attacked the healthy side of U.S. education: "The American disease is the rush to cognition," Piaget wrote. ... I have been giving a lecture in a number of The spread of Piaget's influence meant the banishment great cities about various possible educational expan­ of cognitive development from the American curriculum. sions. I have been trying to interest people in schemes Instead, Piaget's methods defined school children as little for knowledge organization and I have been talking bundles of biological impulses. Today, this is lawfully to teachers, professors and educationalists in consid­ associated with the spread among American youth of the erable profusion.

But, as Wells also reported, Americans at the top were suspicious or unresponsive. For example, he wrote:

I did not think him [President Roosevelt] oblivious to the reality that America has to reconstruct its social life and cannot do so without a modernization of education from top to bottom, but I got a very clear impression that he did not feel in the least responsi­ ble.

The project leaders eventually resorted to the creation of a special government institution. Among others, the noted physicist Leo Szilard, a close associate of Wells in the World Brain project, lent his public support to the effort. The outcome was the creation of a Piaget faction within the new National Science Foundation. Aside from some positive functions in funding basic research, the National Science Foundation became the World Brain's vehicle by which Piaget and related methods Wide World were inserted into the American educational system. /( is no coincidence that U.S. verbal and math SAT At the time he joined World Brain, Piaget was already scores declined at a rate proportional to the growing a prominent figure in the network of ideological institu­ pervasiveness of Piaget's ''child-centered," "fantasy- tions and circles that Bertrand Lord Russell, a leader of oriented" methods of pedagogy. Teachers polled in England's Aristotle Society, had worked to foster interna­ a 1977 Report of the Advisory Panel on the Scholastic tionally. Born in Switzerland in 1896, Piaget was trained in Aptitude Test Score Decline, sponsored by the Col­ zoology, obtaining a doctorate in 1918 with a thesis on lege Board, listed both the New Math and the open mollusks. In 1921 he became director of the Institut J.J. classroom as reasons for declining scores. Back­ Rousseau in Geneva, and "obtained permission to work ground photograph is an open classroom scene in with the abnormal children of Salpetre," his first experi­ Concord, N.H. ence with pedagogy. (It is noteworthy that Rousseau's theory and practice of education were the most extreme

34 FUSION May 1981 forms of mind-deadening "free school" methods ever devised.) Piaget was subsequently given credentials as a psychol­ ogist, and in 1939, he was made a professor of sociology at the University of Geneva. In 1940, Piaget became director of the Swiss Society of Psychology and he used this prestigious position to launch his attacks on Kohler's gestalt psychology. Equally relevant to his World Brain involvement was his appointment by Julian Huxley as director of the Interna­ tional Bureau of Education within UNESCO during the late 1940s. Huxley's UNESCO and Wells's World Brain both sought to totally control the scientific content of popular education, for reasons that have been extensively documented.2

Piaget, Russell, and "New Math" Jean Piaget's assignment within World Brain included not only work on the general method outlined in his stages theory, but also the development of a mathematics curriculum corresponding to the project's goals. Piaget consciously based this New Math wholly on Bertrand Russell's calculated misinterpretation of the work of the great Neoplatonic mathematician, Georg Cantor.3 Espe­ cially useful to Piaget was the attack on Cantor's transfinite conception of number and set theory contained in Russell and Whitehead's 1902 book, Principia Mathematics. In one revealing passage, Piaget used Russell to attack H.G. Wells in the United States in 1937 to promote his both the creative insight Cantor consciously brought to World Brain project to revise American education. bear on the foundations of mathematics, and the break­ through in the concept of number Cantor achieved. Piaget brings to mind immediately Russell and Whitehead's states: work in Principia Mathematica, where they define a number as the class of equivalent classes—equivalent The Platonist doctrines which Cantor persisted in in the sense of numerical equivalence established mixing with his mathematical theories did not please through one-to-one correspondence. . . . This view of everyone. . . . From a psychological point of view it the basis of the idea of number does seem to be would be especially interesting to have more precise justified . . . since in fact the number seems to be knowledge about the intuitive vision claimed by Can­ derived from one-to-one correspondence. . . . Russell tor. ... It is very plausible that the development of and Whitehead's famous examples of equivalent set theory should have been stimulated by appropri­ classes makes a correspondence between the months ate images, but it is difficult to believe in a more or of the year, Napoleon's marshals, the 12 apostles, and less adequate intuitive vision of the totality of entities the signs of the zodiac. whose existence this theory requires; and if Cantor thought he had such a vision, he was probably the This has absolutely nothing to do with Cantor's concep­ victim of an illusion. tion that the number system is hierarchically ordered, —Mathematical Epistemology and reflecting the evolving, cognitive development of mathe­ Psychology, 1966 matical concepts. The higher orders of number have been generated from infinities in lower orders, in respect to Here is the crux of Piaget's fraud; for Cantor, in fact, which the higher orders are transfinite. Cantor thus iden­ described precisely the motivating concept behind his tified the concept of number with a "generative principle" work, as is documented in the accompanying article on of development in the structure of mathematics. the New Math. One example can be seen in the requirement for Instead, Piaget proposes to the credulous that Cantor's making curved lines or surfaces subject to mathematical method of proof, which involves demonstrating that a description. The geometric process is to proceed from the one-to-one correspondence between the integers and ordinary equilateral polygons to the infinitely sided poly­ more general types of numbers does not exist, shows that gon that asymptotically converges on becoming a circle. such a correspondence does exist! At that point, the number system that was adequate to describe the polygons reaches a singularity, the transfinite I have referred to the operation used by Cantor in n (pi). Pi is a qualitatively new number. It arises from the construction of transfinite numbers, namely, the cognitive operations on a lower-order number set. But it operation of one-to-one correspondence. . . . This cannot be formally reduced to the lower order of number.

May 1981 FUSION 35 Pi is also the basis for a whole new class of mathematical In general Piaget laid out four principles when he began functions, the circular, or trigonometric functions. to develop the New Math: In the same way, Cantor rigorously demonstrated that (1) Eliminate the use of mathematical training for the the structure and laws of mathematics mirror the universe child's cognitive development in general; and the human mind itself. Russell, on the other hand, (2) Teach math as pure formal logic; sought to generalize the Aristotelian misinterpretation of (3) Base the child's appreciation of mathematical concepts mathematical discoveries into a form more appropriate to wholly on physical sensations; and the description of Cantor's accomplishment. Piaget, in (4) Closely monitor the psychological effects of curricu­ turn, sought to adapt Russell's perversion of Cantor for lum. specific application to educational curricula along with His principles proposed to substitute a "psychomathe- adaptations of other structuralists of the Bourbaki school. matical," totally sensuous process for the teaching of The result was the New Math. mathematics. In Piaget's method, children count physical As the accompanying essay explains in detail, the es­ objects of different types and find that the property of sence of New Math is the formal reduction of qualitatively number is independent of the kind of object. Or, in his higher-order mathematical operations like division to sim­ most famous example, Piaget proposes to have the child ple lower-order addition and subtraction. In the process, arrange pebbles in a circle, walk around the circle, and the distinction between the new kind of number pro­ count the pebbles. duced by division, a fraction, and the simple whole num­ bers of addition and subtraction is destroyed. \n the The child went around the circle the other way and classroom, however, addition and subtraction can be the got 10 again. And no matter how he put the pebbles, subject of physical manipulations—but not the concept of when he counted them, they came to 10. . . . Com- rational number. So Piaget's "New Math" simply banishes mutativity . . . the sum is independent of the order. that concept. The knowledge that this future mathematician discov­ ered that day was not drawn, then, from the physical properties of the pebbles, but from the actions he carried out on them. ... In this sense, the abstraction is a reflection from the level of action to the intellec­ tual level of operation.

In a similar "concrete operation," the child arranges and rearranges a set of pebbles, counting them each time. The rearrangements, like the order, do not make any differ­ ence to the number: the property of number is invariant under the transformations of order and displacement. The "psychomathematicai process" accompanying these trivial operations was described by Dr. Wilson of the University of Georgia, an expert in the development of New Math curricula:

The New Math puts emphasis on structure—with associative, commutative, and manipulative opera­ YOU CAN'T SQUARE THE CIRCLE tions. It turned to animation and gadgetry. Problem- Various polygons can be inscribed inside or circum­ solving did not get attached to New Math. scribed around a circle in order to give an approxi­ mation of the circle's area and, therefore, the value He might have added that mathematics or the relation­ of pi. These areas are related to the area of the ship between geometry and physics did not get attached simplest polygon, which is the triangle. It has been to New Math either. proven mathematically that the value for the area of the circle will always deviate slightly from the area Saving Education of any of these figures, no matter how many sides Only one month after the death of Jean Piaget, a fusion the figure has. This is because although the area has energy development bill was enacted into law that com­ a definite value, it cannot be expressed in terms of mits this nation to achieving fusion power within the next the rational numbers. The number pi, which ex­ two decades. That will require a mobilization of industrial presses the relationship between the radius and the and educational resources that makes even the high points circle's area and the radius and the circumference of the NASA space program's effort pale by comparison. is a qualitatively distinct number from the simple America must produce tens of thousands of gifted integers and rationals. This is a simple example of scientists and mathematicians. These scientists and math­ how both number and geometry involve an ordering ematicians must be trained in the conceptual approach to of conception rather than any one set of axioms or science taken by the school of Riemann and Cantor, a logics. method already demonstrated in fusion laboratories to be uniquely appropriate to the analysis of the complex, self-

36 FUSION May 1981 of the same epistemological school. at language requires teacher-train­ They are; in fact, Chomsky has ees to think that the significance of done to language what Piaget has the English language is that you fit done to math. words into patterns like Piaget Vs. Chomsky: Piaget went so far as to insist that A Phony Debate the development of language is the uggle wags a diggle. "structuraT'and has little to do with Much has been made of the "de­ the mind but develops from body This is used by the Chomsky school bate" between Noam Chomsky and activity, which he called "semiotic to prove that "arrangements of Jean Piaget at the Abbaye de Roy- functions." These, he said, are "all blocks of prose structure character­ aumont near Paris in October 1975. of a piece with acquisitions made at ize English." All official accounts of the debate the level of sensorimotor intelli­ In sum, the content of thought is hold that the essential disagree­ gence." removed just as much from Chom­ ment between them is over Chomsky also divorces language sky's structural linguistics as it is whether language is "innate" from mind. The inventor of "artifi­ from Piaget's structuralist math (Chomsky) or "constructed" cial intelligence" schemes, "trans­ where an "example of equivalent through "inborn processes" in the formational grammar," and "struc­ classes makes a correspondence young child and "the actual char­ tural linguistics," Chomsky treats between the months of the year, acteristics of physical objects and language exactly as Piaget treats Napoleon's marshals, the 12 apos­ events" (Piaget). mathematics—a complex set of tles, and the signs of the Zodiac." Although some at the debate, like mere mechanisms or axioms that Piaget and Chomsky are indeed Jacques Mehler, a psycholinguist are "manipulated." Chomsky's em­ of the same epistemological school. and colleague of both Piaget and phasis in language is the structur­ Their historic debate centered on Chomsky, tried to say that there alist notion of grammar where lan­ an issue (Is language innate?) that were points of convergence be­ guage is seen as "blocks of structure obfuscates the fact that they both tween the two views, no one has within which words are relatively agree in principle that cognitive de­ noted that Piaget and Chomsky are incidental." This method of looking velopment is not important.

ordering behavior of fusion plasmas. The nation, there­ Ages Conspiracy by Carol White (New York: The New Benjamin Franklin House, 1980). fore, requires both a vast expansion and a qualitative 3. For specific discussions of Neoplatonic approaches to mathematics upgrading in the cognitive content of its scientific edu­ see especially the remarkable 8th chapter in Book II of St. Augustine's cation at all levels. Fortunately, there are many useful On Free Choice of the Will, titled "The Order of Numbers, Known as One and Unchangeable, Is Not Known by the Bodily Senses." The precedents to refer to and the Fusion Energy Foundation Neoplatonic notion of math is directly stated, as can be seen from the has already conducted a number of successful pedagogical excerpt of Augustine's dialogue with Evodius: experiments.4 "A. If someone were to say to you that numbers were impressed upon our spirit not as a result of their own nature, but as a result of From this standpoint, it is clear that Jean Piaget's inno­ those objects which we experience with the bodily senses, what answer vations in American education now stand as a major would you make? Or do you agree with this? "E. No, I do not. Even if I did perceive numbers with the bodily obstacle to a program that could determine whether this senses, I would not be able to perceive with the bodily senses the and other nations survive through the coming century.5 It meaning of division and addition. It is with the light of the mind that I is an urgent task to dump Piaget's discredited methods would prove wrong the man who makes an error in addition or subtraction. . . . and put our nation's best minds to work recreating cur­ "A. I do not disagree with your answer, for you spoke truly and ricula at all levels of mathematics and science that permit clearly. But you will easily see that numbers themselves are not drawn from the bodily senses, if you realize how any number you please our children to properly grow into the full creative use of multiplied by one is that number. . . . Anyone who really thinks about their minds. the number one realizes that he cannot perceive it though the bodily senses, for whatever we experience through a sense is proven to be many, not one. . . . The order and truth of number have nothing to do Mary Gilbertson, a Fusion Energy Foundation staff mem­ with the bodily senses . . . Scientia, knowledge cannot be confused with ber, was a high school teacher for TO years. Part one of experientia. experience" [emphasis in original]. her article, "The National Science Foundation: Taking the For succinct discussions of how Plato approaches mathematical ideas, in contrast to Piaget. see Plato's Meno (for a discussion of the Science Out of Education," appeared in Fusion Feb. 1980, fact that an understanding of geometrical and numerical relations p. 53. Reprints are available at $1.25 postpaid. stems from the mind): Parmenides (for a discussion of the notion of the one and the many); and Timaeus (for a discussion of the Pythagorean number scheme, intervals in a series leading to harmonic and arith­ Notes metic means, and the laws of proportion). In this last work, especially, the notion of ambiguity is important. For a discussion of gestalt theory, see Lyndon H. LaRouche*s "What Is 4. See, for example. "Teaching Geometry to Develop the Mind," an a Humanist Academy," in The Campaigner. Sept.-Oct. 1978. especially interview with FEF director of research Uwe Parpart, Fusion, Feb. 1980, the section on ambiguity in poetry and music. Piaget never mentions p. 61. the notion of ambiguity in terms of intellectual development. His inability to do so may clarify why he could never grasp Cantor's notion of 5. The critical books to read in relation to this article are The Develop­ increasing orders of internal differentiation that stems from Cantor's ment of Thought, Equilibration of Cognitive Structures, Piaget; The notion of power sets. Origins of Intelligence in Children. Piaget; Mathematical Epistemology The full story of H.G. Wells. Bertrand Russell. Huxley, and their plans to & Psychology, Beth-Piaget; and Readings in Applied English Linguistics, contain scientific development is developed in detail in The New Dark edited by Harold Allen.

May 1981 FUSION 37 Johnny and jane can't add The clearest statement of the Platonic view is perhaps because Jean Piaget's New Math given in a paper by Georg Cantor, the founder of the real prevents them from thinking. theory of sets, not the so-called set theory in the New Math:

We can speak of the reality or the existence of the whole numbers, both the finite and the infinite ones in two senses; however, these are the same two ways, to be sure in which any concepts or ideas can be considered. On the one hand we may regard the whole numbers as real insofar as they take up a very definite place in our mind on the basis of definitions, become clearly differentiated from all the other com­ ponents of our thinking, stand in definite relations to them and thus modify the substance of mind in a The New Math definite way. Let me call this type of reality of numbers their intrasubjective or immanent reality. Then again we can ascribe reality to numbers insofar as they must Destroying be regarded as an expression or image of occurrences and relationships in the external world confronting the intellect. This second type of reality I call the Cognitive Developmenttrans-subjectiv e or transient reality of the whole num­ bers. . . . There is no doubt in my mind that these two types of reality will always be found together, in the sense that a concept to be regarded as existent in the first by Dr. Steven Bardwell respect will always in certain, even in infinitely many ways, possess a transient reality as well. . . . THE MULTITUDES OF AMERICAN parents who have felt This coherence of the two realities has its true frustration and rage at what passes for mathematics in foundation in the unity of the all, to which we today's schools, whether they knew it or not, belong to a ourselves belong as well. long line of mathematical thought stretching from the —Georg Cantor, Foundations of a mathematicians of Plato's Academy and Archimedes, General Theory of Manifolds, 1883 through Cusa and Leibniz, to the great 19th-century school of German and French mathematicians. This tradition is This view of mathematics and science is what the New outstanding for two reasons: First, its members are re­ Math is designed to destroy. The Platonists have main­ sponsible for every essential mathematical discovery in tained that mathematics is an empirical science whose the last 2,000 years; second, since its inception it has been subject (like that of any science) is what Plato called the pitted against a contrary tradition in mathematical think­ "hypothesis of the higher hypothesis" and Cantor called ing, that associated with Aristotle. the "Principle of Generation," both descriptions of the The problem with the New Math goes far beyond why self-developing evolution of the universe. Johnny can't add or subtract. Indeed, the method of the The Aristotelian opposition has counterposed the view New Math ensures that U.S. schoolchildren will be less that mathematics (along with the other sciences) is a able to understand or perform fruitful scientific work in logical structure, lacking any essential connection to real­ general. ity. To the Aristotelians, mathematics is merely a product The New Math is not really new, any more than the of the human mind, a mind which, in their view, itself has inspiration for its method is new. Bertrand Russell and no essential connection to reality. (This psychology is Jean Piaget, the modern progenitors of the New Math's obviously self-validating, as the insanity of many of the ideas, both are quite explicit that their aim is to establish most illustrious in the latest generation of mathematicians a non-Platonic mathematics based on the methods of is testimony.) Aristotle. Both make it unmistakably clear that the fun­ The fight between these two views in the 20th century damental issue concerns how men think: has taken place over the basic concepts of arithmetic: numbers and arithmetic operations. The biggest guns of The "rational nature" of man is only a derivative. the Aristotelian faction, in fact, have been aimed at over­ The subject and object of knowledge are separate. turning the explicitly Platonic significance of the concept . . . On this point as on many others, Aristotelian of number developed, as both sides recognize, by the physics marks a return to ordinary thought rather discoverer of set theory, Georg Cantor. Bertrand Russell than a continuation of the aspirations of Platonist spent 10 years of his life producing a three-volume book, mathematics. Principia Mathematica, which he hoped would show that —Jean Piaget, Mathematical mathematics could be reduced to logic through the use Epistemology and Psychology, 1966 of set theory. He failed, but his book became the model

38 FUSION May 1981 for three generations of formal logical mathematics to be used against Platonic methods in mathematics. On the pedagogical side, Jean Piaget took Russell's work and developed a theory of number and a concept of number that he claimed purifies Cantor of his Platonic excesses! The New Math is the fruition of the Piaget-Russell attack on Platonic mathematics. Its incoherence, self-evident sterility, and destructive effect on children's minds are not accidental. This is the essence of the Aristotelian theory of mind, and hence of mathematics.

Two Examples Athough there have been many attacks on the New Math, its epistemological significance remains largely un­ known. The destructiveness of the New Math can be seen in the two examples from the New Math curriculum that I shall discuss here. Both examples have escaped the notice of those who have criticized the New Math from conventional or practical standpoints. The first of these is the concept of an algorithm, which is used as the basis for teaching arithmetic operations; the second is the New Math concept of the structure of the number system. An algorithm is a set of rules, usually recursive, for performing some task and for testing for the completion of the task. The concept of an algorithm was a product of the development of machines that had to be programmed with instructions for the actions required of the machine. The punched cards that controlled early spinning and knitting machines are classic examples of an algorithm— move needle A to position 1, needle B to position 2, move the red thread over needle 1, and so on. Obviously, an algorithm is a powerful tool if certain conditions are satisfied: (1) The problem to be solved or task to be performed is completely posed beforehand; (2) the problem can be solved in a finite number of Figure 1 steps; DIVISION AS REPEATED SUBTRACTION (3) the quality of solution does not depend on factors This illustration from a fourth-grade math text shows known only after the algorithm is begun (for example, the impracticality and inaccuracy of the algorithmic singularities are excluded); and approach to arithmetic. The diagram is an attempt (4) the rules for performing the algorithm are fixed or to show how long division can be done by counting drawn from a fixed group. the number of subtractions of the divisor from the These assumptions are fine for a machine or a computer, dividend. but they are all violated by the simplest task required of human mentation. No algorithm could be written for something as simple as getting out of bed in the morning Long division, long the terror of elementary school (or getting the children off to school in the morning). students, provided fertile ground for the New Math's Despite this obvious fact, the algorithm has been taken algorithmic theory of arithmetic. Presented with the prob­ as a prototype of mathematical thinking by the Aristote­ lem of dividing 90 by 8, the New Math teacher will tell us lians and incorporated in the New Math as the way of the following (of course, the New Mathematicians prob­ teaching arithmetic operations like addition and subtrac­ ably will not do the division this way, but this is what the tion. From a psychological and pedagogical standpoint teacher says to the classroom): this is absurd. People are not machines; they perform tasks differently and they learn them differently. Step 7: Is 8 larger than 90? If yes, then the quotient In the same way, this method is absurd mathematically; is 0. Otherwise go to Step 2. arithmetic operations are only formally reducible to al­ Step 2: Subtract 8 from the dividend. Add 1 to the gorithmic techniques. They are actually synthetic con­ quotient. cepts, higher-order concepts; when reduced to their al­ Step 3: If 8 is larger than the dividend, then end; gorithmic counterpart, they cease to be mathematics. otherwise, go to Step 2.

May 1981 FUSION 39 The problem of long division raises a more fundamental problem in arithmetic concerning the structure of the number system. The New Mathematician, of course, would deny this. In reply to my objection that the algo­ rithm for long division could not generate fractions (be­ cause subtraction of whole numbers can generate only whole numbers) the New Mathematicians would say: We Figure 2 can provide you with an algorithm to calculate any division THE NUMBER LINE problem; you picked an algorithm that is too simple, but Contrary to the implication of the New Math, the just because subtraction doesn't give you fractions, doesn't number line (the continuum) has a subtle and im­ mean that there is no algorithm for doing so. portant structure. All numbers on the number line The real argument here is not over an algorithm for are not the same, and, as Cantor stressed, the gen­ long division, but rather, over the significance of the new eration of one kind of number from a simpler kind numbers that division generates. Any qualitative signifi­ is a prototype not only for all mathematical reason­ cance of division comes from its ability to generate these ing but also for the evolution of the universe. new numbers—fractions. The Platonic approach to math­ ematics has maintained, as Cantor and Dedekind were the The algorithm proposed here counts the number of first to show, that fractions (rational numbers) are a qual­ times that the divisor (8) can be subtracted from the itatively different kind of number than whole numbers. dividend (90); this number of times is the quotient (11). In In addition, Cantor showed that the number system is, actuality, such a method is used only by the crudest of in fact, a nested hierarchy of different kinds of numbers, mechanical calculators; even computers have better ways each of which is generated from the preceding by inher­ of dividing. ently nonalgorithmic processes like limits of infinite series. Is this algorithm even division? Let's try it on the prob­ To get irrational numbers from rational ones, for example, lem of 4 divided by 12. The answer, according to one New requires a complicated geometrical argument that de­ Math student, is -8. mands new mathematical rules for new numbers. This is certainly not the case. From a mathematical As Cantor pointed out, the significance of this hierar­ standpoint, division is qualitatively different from subtrac­ chical structure of the number system transcends its math­ tion; it is not compounded subtraction, unless, of course, ematical applications. It is parallel to—and a model of— you are a mechanical calculator. Subtraction of whole the similarly nested, hierarchical structure of the physical numbers, no matter how many times it is performed, universe. Further, Cantor showed that the fundamental always produces whole numbers; but division takes whole feature of this hierarchy was not its structure at any one numbers and produces a new kind of number—a rational instant, but rather what he called the Principle of Gener­ number, or fraction. One can never get fractions from ation, which creates a new level of hierarchy out of its subtraction of whole numbers. predecessor. This transition from one level to the next (such as the transition from the whole numbers to the More Than a Mathematical Travesty rational numbers) is lawful, but there is nothing in the This reduction of division to an algorithm involving lower level that determines beforehand its successor. The repeated subtraction is not merely a mathematical travesty. Principle of Generation in mathematics has been called The subject of mathematics, as all great mathematicians negentropy in physics, but the concept is the same. have known, is not numbers and their manipulation; it is Using algorithms, bastardized set theory, and the like, the human mind as a mirror of the universe. the New Mathematicians deny the qualitative structure of Mathematics as a product of the human mind both the number system. The crux of the Aristotelian New reflects and modifies the structure and evolution of the Math approach is that the Platonic hierarchy does not universe. Cantor says that this connection—the "unity of exist. Russell's book was an attempt to prove the qualita­ the all"—is mathematics. Since neither the human mind tive homogeneity of mathematics—to prove that it was nor the universe satisfies any of the four prerequisites for reducible in toto to a fixed set of logical axioms. If Russell the applicability of an algorithm, to teach algorithmic had been successful, it would have been possible to build thinking as if it were mathematics is to systematically a computer that could prove every existing theorem in distort both reality and human mentation. mathematics and every theorem ever provable. He was No wonder children hate the New Math; to understand not successful, but not because he didn't try; Russell failed it, they must deny the fundamental characteristic of their because he and his New Math disciples are wrong. ability to think! The facts are that the world and the human mind are Let there be no mistake; the Aristotelian faction of not fixed; the subject of mathematics is not logical de­ mathematics agrees about the implications of algorithmic duction. The New Math is not just a new gimmick to teach thinking. They disagree only about the inapplicability of math. It is a deliberate attempt to teach children that their algorithmic methods to the mind and the universe. Their minds and, indeed, the world are not capable of creative premise is that the laws governing both human thought change. and the universe are fixed. Of course, they say, algorithms work precisely because human beings and the universe Dr. Steven Bardwell is the director of plasma physics for are machinelike. the Fusion Energy Foundation.

40 FUSION May 1981 Fusion Report

by Republican leaders in the Senate, and Secretary of Energy Edwards has stated his support both in public and Fusion Budget in private for the fusion effort. There­ fore, the appointments made for the Caught in Policy Fight remaining top-level DOE posts will indicate whether the budget slashers The delay in making key appoint­ 1982 from Carter's DOE of $525 mil­ or the promoters of economic and ments in the new Department of En­ lion would merely have brought the scientific growth will determine fu­ ergy and the continuing economic program back up to its 1977 funding sion and all energy R&D policy. fights around budget cuts within the level of $316.3 million in real dollars, In a presentation on the magnetic Reagan administration have left the allowing for a modest 8 percent an­ fusion program to the Reagan admin­ fusion community with only guesses nual inflation rate since 1977. The sug­ istration's DOE transition team on as to the future of the program. Al­ gested cut to $476 million would have Dec. 2, 1980, Edwin Kintner, director though the Magnetic Fusion Energy the effect of slashing the budget to of the DOE's Office of Fusion Energy, Engineering Act of 1980 mandates an $286 million in 1977 dollars, and some pointed out that in addition to main­ increase in the budget for magnetic Washington sources report that the taining U.S. world leadership in this fusion of $100 million in the next two administration may cut it even fur­ advanced technological field, fusion fiscal years, President Reagan's budg­ ther. Scientists fear that such a cut research is "a mechanism for advanc­ etary advisors are now suggesting in­ would prevent the 1980 fusion legis­ ing a number of technologies beyond stead that the fiscal year 1982 budget lation from being carried out. their present state" and "a means to for magnetic fusion be cut. Criticisms of a "meat axe" approach strengthen U.S. industrial innova­ The budget request for fiscal year to the budget have been expressed tion."

THE MAGNETIC FUSION BUDGET IN CONSTANT 1977 DOLLARS It is an astonishing and little known fact that the magnetic fusion budget has actually suffered a decline in real dollars since the advent of the Carter administration. This is demonstrated using a rather conservative estimate of an 8 percent annual inflation rate. The Office of Fusion Energy estimates that in order to return the program to a budget level comparable to the $316.3 million appropriated in 1977, the fiscal year 1982 appropriation would have to be $525 million. After reestablishing that funding level, a real budget of 0.5 billion dollars would be necessary by the mid-1980s.

Fusion Report May 1981 FUSION 41 Fusion Report

Kintner reminded the team that the Magnetic Fusion Energy Engineering Act of 1980 is in agreement with the recommendations of three indepen­ dent reviews of the magnetic fusion program made in 1980. The law man­ dates the demonstration of fusion's engineering feasibility in the early 1990s and the operation of a demon­ stration fusion power plant by the year 2000. The Necessary Funding Describing the present fusion pro­ gram plan as "the birth of an energy technology," Kintner made clear the necessary funding profile to accom­ plish the tasks mandated by the law. The projected fusion budget cuts would delay the ongoing programs at As the accompanying chart illus­ national laboratories. Here, the Alcator, a small pace-setting tokamak at the trates, the magnetic fusion budget has Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which has achieved reactor-level den­ suffered an actual decline in real dol­ sity and confinement times. lars during the Carter years, using the conservative estimate of an 8 percent annual inflation rate. The requested 28 percent increase to $525 million will ensure the budget level to en­ FPCC Meeting Plans Fusion Course hance the program by restoring the contraction from the four previous The Fusion Power Coordinating further study is being made on how years. Committee, an advisory group to the international collaboration should be DOE fusion director that includes enlisted for the development of this As fusion scientists have pointed representatives of the Department of new, crucial fusion facility. Alternate out, the $60 million cut from President Energy, the national fusion laborato­ designs for the CFE should be com­ Ford's recommended fusion budget ries, and industry, met Dec. 9-11 in pleted within one year, with an in­ for fiscal year 1978 when Carter took Oak Ridge, Tenn., to discuss the cur­ dustrial contractor chosen within the over has had a long-term negative rent status of the U.S. magnetic fusion months following design acceptance. effect. The fusion community had program and how the Magnetic Fu­ Planning the FED hoped that the fusion law would en­ sion Energy Engineering Act of 1980 sure that this be reversed, and are The Center for Fusion Engineering should be implemented. watching the DOE appointments and will have as a primary objective the budget battles with close attention. Representatives of the DOE's Office construction of the McCormack bill's —Marsha Freeman of Fusion Energy presented detailed mandated Fusion Engineering Device plans for the program required to (FED) by 1990. Dr. John F. Clarke of fulfill the mandate of the McCormack the Office of Fusion Energy reported fusion bill, which has as its goal the on progress in planning this facility. Lubin Moves to Sohio construction of a prototype fusion The initial design has begun, and a electric power plant by the year 2000. final design concept will be chosen Dr. Moshe Lubin, a pioneer in laser Dr. Michael Roberts, director of by the fall of this year. fusion and director of the University planning and projects for the Office Clarke discussed in detail the goals of Rochester's Laboratory for Laser of Fusion Energy, laid out the sched­ of the FED and how they would be Energetics, has been appointed vice ule for the Center for Fusion Engi­ reached. The FED will be constructed president of Standard Oil of Ohio neering (CFE) mandated in the law. to achieve a reliable, sustained level (Sohio). Lubin will direct Sohio's re­ He discussed the details of how the of energy production and extraction, search and development projects. cooperation among industry, univer­ on the basis of an integrated set of Dr. Jay M. Eastman, Lubin's deputy sities, the national laboratories, and engineering systems that can be ex­ director at Rochester, will be taking the DOE necessary to plan and build trapolated to a fusion demonstration over as acting director of the Labo­ the CFE would be coordinated, with plant. ratory for Laser Energetics. The labo­ near-, mid-, and long-term program In addition, supplementary engi­ ratory, which is the only major U.S. strategy planning. neering demonstrations will be per­ fusion facility not located at a national A manpower requirement study for formed, as required by the problems laboratory, had been directed by Lu­ the CFE is now underway and should encountered in achieving sustained bin since its inception in 1974. be completed by the end of 1981. A energy levels. These will include stud-

42 FUSION May 1981 Fusion Report ies of the materials and blankets full 20-beam Nova will increase this ditions have caused pessimism over needed to withstand the high neutron 10-fold to 300 trillion watts! At such Intor's future, the project has re­ flux of the FED, long-term fatigue power levels, Nova will demonstrate mained active and is proceeding on tests, and special technologies the scientific feasibility of producing schedule in the planning stage. required for nontokamak plasma laser fusion energy sometime in the There are also indications that So­ diverters. late 1980s. viet opposition to building the Intor The FED parameters currently pro­ in West Germany—the most feasible jected are an operating temperature location outside the Soviet Union in of 110 million degrees Celsius (10 terms of technical resources—has be­ keV), a density of 78 trillion ions per U.S. Committed to gun to dissolve. cubic centimeter, and a confinement Intor's Next Stage Dr. Melvin Gottlieb, who recently time of 1.4 seconds. retired as director of the Princeton Plasma currents up to 6.3 million The United States has committed Plasma Physics Laboratory, noted in a amperes with average plasma betas of itself to negotiations for the next Feb. 6 press conference at Fusion En­ 6 percent (beta is the ratio of the detailed planning stage of Intor, ergy Foundation headquarters that all plasma pressure to the strength of the the prototype tokamak fusion reactor the Intor participants—the United confining magnetic pressure) are also of the International Atomic Energy States, the Soviet Union, the European planned. Agency, according to DOE sources. Community, and Japan—had "gained Other sessions at the FPCC meeting The same sources report that the So­ mightily from this international co­ reviewed the experimental and the­ viet Union has also indicated its will­ operative effort" and "had learned oretical fusion programs of Oak Ridge ingness to discuss the next step. from one another." National Laboratory and the present Intor was originally proposed by "The international group," Gottlieb status of the tokamak in the overall the Soviet Union as a huge, reactor- said, "was not sure the United States national fusion effort. scale tokamak to be built as an inter­ would go ahead with a vigorous fu­ Oak Ridge reported that work on national project under the auspices sion program." But if we would, he the Elmo Bumpy Torus, an alternative of the International Atomic Energy continued, "we'd be a big jump magnetic confinement device, is pro­ Agency. Although international con- ahead." ceeding on schedule. McDonnell Douglas Corporation was awarded the DOE contract to design and construct a proof-of-principle Elmo Bumpy Torus in Sept. 1980, and the device is planned for a 1985 comple­ tion date.

LLNL to Replace Argus with Novette

The Laser' Program of Lawrence Livermore Natioal Laboratory in Cal­ ifornia has begun to replace its Argus laser system with Novette, a full-scale mockup for Nova. The Argus laser system, which was the two-beam model for the existing 20-beam Shiva laser fusion facility, has been the TFTR Generator Damaged workhorse for LLNL's basic experi­ mental physics program. A large flywheel-motor generator to be used in the second power Besides demonstrating the laser supply unit of Princeton Plasma "Physics Laboratory's Tokamak Fusion technology for Nova, the more ad­ Test Reactor was damaged in January when.a crane moving it into place vanced laser fusion research facility failed and dropped the assembly. The Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor has now under construction, Novette will been nearing completion, which is scheduled for early 1982. Since the continue the important basic physics schedule did not call for utilization of the second power supply until work of Argus, particularly with 1984, this accident need not delay theactual TFTR plans if sufficient shorter-wavelength light. funds are made available to initiate repair and replacement immediately. Whereas Shiva now attains bursts of Shown here is the construction site in Feb. 1980. laser output at 30 trillion watts, the

Fusion Report May 1981 FUSION 43 Science Update/Physics

can be built up to form octahedral crystals. New Evidence That Nuclei The packing in this arrangement coheres with a property of nuclei Have Crystalline Structures known as magic numbers. It was dis­ covered many years ago that isotopes A research team in Alma Ata, the that would be expected from nuclei that contained certain numbers (2, capital of Kazakstan, has reported ex­ that had no internal structure. When 8, 20, 50, 82, and 126) of neutrons perimental evidence that atomic nu­ the Soviet group did the same exper­ or protons were particularly tightly clei have crystalline structure.1 If their iment on nuclei that were not polar­ bound compared to other nuclei near findings are borne out, it may be ized, the structure information was them. In the crystalline model, these necessary to reevaluate the basic con­ absent, as would be expected. numbers correspond to crystals that cepts behind the current understand­ The Uncertainty Principle are perfectly octahedral, with no ex­ ing of nuclear structure. Probably the most startling result of cess or shortage of nucleons. With the exception of several dis­ this experiment is that it may point to Since nuclear fission was discovered tinctly minority speculations in recent the breakdown of one of the funda­ in 1939, the dominant model to de­ years, most scientific opinion holds mental laws of quantum mechanics. scribe it has involved a picture of that nuclei are spherical or sphe­ According to Heisenberg's uncer­ the nucleus as a droplet of liquid, roidal. All theories of nuclear struc­ tainty principle, the greater the de­ with the nucleons taking the part of ture start from this premise, drawing gree to which an object is localized molecules moving freely through the heavily on it to reach conclusions in space, the greater is the range of droplet. A neutron is supposed to about the measured properties of nu­ the uncertainty with which its mo­ enter the droplet, exciting vibrations clei as small as deuterium and as large mentum can be specified. For locali­ in it and sometimes causing it to de­ as the transuranic isotopes. zation of protons and neutrons in a form sufficiently that its surface ten­ The Alma Ata results are experi­ nuclear crystal lattice, the uncertainty sion is no longer able to keep it from mentally equivalent to X-ray crystal­ in their momentum implies that they splitting. According to this model, the lography. In the X-ray experiments, should be able to break free from the droplet should break into two pieces crystals are bombarded with X-rays of force binding them in the nucleus. In of nearly the same size. Real nuclei, known wavelengths. The scattered X- fact, they should be able to attain however, tend to fission into two rays fall on a photographic plate or energies nearly 10 times the energy pieces of substantially different size. other appropriate detector. The ex­ that binds them. If both the uncer­ If the nuclei are, in fact, crystalline, perimenter analyzes the distribution tainty principle and these experimen­ this could be more easily understood. of X-rays scattered at different angles tal results were true, there could not The incident neutron's role is not to and from this information infers the be any stable nuclei. excite vibrations in a droplet, then, shape of the crystal lattice and the If the crystalline model were taken but to cleave a crystal along a plane. spacing between atoms. X-rays are seriously, but naively, one would More often than not, this could lead used for this because their wave­ imagine the different nuclear isotopes to unequal sizes for the fission prod­ lengths are comparable to the spacing to be constructed simply by piling up ucts, since relatively few cleavage between atoms in a crystal and can neutrons and protons in a lattice ar­ planes halve a crystal. thus resolve some of the detail of that ray. Such a conception, however, ig­ The new experimental evidence in­ structure. Visible light is unsuitable nores the fact that the protons and dicating the crystalline structure of because its wavelengths are thou­ neutrons are themselves modified as nuclei raises some interesting ques­ sands of times the atomic dimensions. they become part of a nucleus. tions for future exploration as well as To perform a similar experiment to The clearest evidence for this is that for the reinterpretation of known re­ detect nuclear crystalline structure re­ the mass of a nucleus is measurably sults. For example, what are the kinds quires that the particles bombarding less than that of the nucleons (protons of phase transitions that can occur in the nuclei have wavelengths compa­ and neutrons) that go into its con­ nuclei? We know that crystalline car­ rable to nuclear crystalline dimen­ struction. On the other hand, there is bon in the form of graphite changes sions, about Wn meters. Alpha par­ evidence that some properties of the its crystal structure and becomes dia­ ticles in the 30 to 50 MeV (million nucleons—e.g., the charge of the pro­ mond under the right temperature electron volt) energy range, available tons—are preserved to a high degree and pressure conditions. Can similar from the particle accelerator in Alma when they are bound in nuclei. transitions be found in nuclei? Ata, meet this requirement. A recent theoretical paper by Nor­ —Dr. John Schoonover By careful measurement of the al­ man D. Cook on crystalline nuclei pha particle scattering from nuclei leads to some intriguing predictions 1. N. N. Pavlova, A. M. Ivanov, A. V. Yushkov, and K. A. Toktorov. 1979. Bulletin of the that were polarized by the scattering that concur with observed nuclear 2 USSR Academy ot Sciences, 43, p. 2317. process, Pavlova et a/, detected sig­ properties. Cook proposes that alter­ 2. Norman D. Cook. 1976. Atomkernenergie, 28, nificant deviations from the pattern nating layers of neutrons and protons pp. 195-199.

44 FUSION May 1981 Science Update/Physics process of heat transfer can be meas­ ured. In the simplest of these experi­ ments, a single crystal of germanium is cooled to near absolute zero, where the background thermal (vibratory) motion of the crystal lattice is very small. Using very delicate tempera­ ture-measuring devices, the reaction of the crystal to a small heat pulse is measured. Contrary to intuition, the crystal does not heat up uniformly. Instead, the heat travels through the crystal in an ordered pattern, very similar to that of a light beam in an optical medium. The heat beam can be fo­ cused, diffracted, and reflected just like a beam of light! Pictures of this heat beam propagation have been taken that show the energy bouncing back and forth through the crystal like light in a box of mirrors. The mathematical analysis of this unexpected beam propagation phe­ nomenon has raised fundamental questions about what a crystal is really Heat energy propagating like a beam of light from a point on the back surface made of. If the crystal is mathemati­ of a 1.9-K, 1-cm3 germanium crystal. cally described as an interconnected set of springs and balls (a linear har­ monic oscillator connected in a three- dimensional lattice), many of these The Dynamics of Heat Conduction phenomena can be described. The mathematical methods used A New Look at the Crystal Lattice point to a much more fundamental feature of the system: Namely, the Crystalline systems, with their high in the crystal lattice were random, crystal is really made up of a set of degree of symmetry and seemingly thermal vibrations. This theoretical successive levels of singularities that restricted set of interactions, have al­ view was sufficient to describe in are, in fact, responsible for the exist­ ways been considered the simplest quantitative terms the conduction of ence of the crystal in the form of a examples of continuum dynamics for heat, the properties of a collection of lattice of particles. sound waves, heat propagation, elec­ random acoustic waves, and the gross In other words, heat propagates trical conduction, and the like. properties of crystalline energy con­ along optical paths because of singu­ Over the last 15 years, however, tainment. larities in the function that describes some extraordinarily beautiful new However, in 1964 at the IBM Labo­ the elastic response of the crystal. experimental results (summarized iii ratory in Yorktown Heights, N.Y. and Precisely at the infinities of this func­ the Dec. 1980 issue of Physics Today) shortly thereafter at laboratories at a tion, the heat is concentrated. show that even in this simplest of number of universities, it was discov­ The usual interpretation of this fact, systems, the primary feature is not the ered that the actual dynamics of heat however, misses the basic point: particles that make up the crystal, or conduction (energy transfer) in crys­ These singularities are what is pri­ even their low-energy interactions. talline structures are neither random, mary; the^singularities make a crystal Rather, the primary feature is a thermal, nor, in fact, even a smooth, what it is, not the collection of atoms higher-order geometry of the crystal continuous process. whose configuration results as well that defines an increasingly complex These experimental results, which from these singularities. This succes­ set of singularities as the crystal in­ have caught the interest of a large sion of singularities prescribes the ex­ creases its energy density. number of physicists and engineers, istence, form, and stability of the lat­ Traditional wisdom had held that show that under carefully controlled tices that can exist. the energy exchanges between atoms conditions, the actual "microscopic" —Dr. Steven Bardwell

Science Update/Physics May 1981 FUSION 45 Science Update/Biology

insulin manufactured by bacteria ge­ netically engineered with recombi­ nant DNA techniques to the com­ Industrially Caused mercial insulin obtained from swine Cancers 'Exaggerated' or cattle, using a group of 17 healthy males. Dr. Michael B. Shimkin, professor As reported in the medical journal of oncology and community medicine Lancet, "The experiments described at the University of California-San in this paper report, not only the first Diego, stated at an international can­ use of human insulin produced by cer symposium that "studies on the recombinant DNA, but also, to our incidence and mortality in human knowledge, the first use of any re­ populations do not support an im­ combinant DNA product in man. . . . portant role for industrial carcinogens In neither this nor our subsequent in the total cancer occurrence." experiments were there any indica­ Shimkin singled out tobacco use as tions of short-term adverse effects. the most important cause of cancer in Longer term studies, particularly in the United States and estimated that respect of immune responses, are the elimination of smoking would di­ clearly of major importance and are minish the number of cancer cases by in progress." more than 100,000 annually. Among times as likely to get lung cancer as other suggestions to lessen the inci­ the wives of nonsmokers and that the dence of cancer, Shimkin cited not increased risk to the "passive" smoker drinking excess amounts of alcohol, is directly related to the extent of Gene Transplant in Mice following a prudent diet, avoiding un­ smoking by the spouse. The potential for profound ad­ necessary X-rays, avoiding excessive vances in basic research in the area of sun exposure, and avoiding inappro­ genetics has been significantly ad­ priate drugs. vanced by the successes in the labo­ Another study on the relationship Insulin Found Safe ratory of Dr. Francis Ruddle of Vale of smoking to cancer strongly sug­ In Human Tests University. gests that the effects of smoking are Ruddle and his colleagues, Doctors not limited to smokers alone, but are Results from tests on volunteers in­ Gordon and Scangos, announced at highly deleterious to nonsmokers as dicate that the products of genetic a meeting in West Berlin that they well. The study, conducted by the engineering are safe and effective for have been able to inject foreign National Cancer Center Research In­ humans. genes—in this case those of a genet­ stitute in Tokyo, Japan, showed that Medical researchers at Guy's Hos­ ically engineered hybrid virus—into the wives of smokers were up to two pital in London, England compared a newly fertilized mouse egg (or zyg­ ote) and implant this zygote into a recipient female (mother-to-be). They then determined that the cells of the Report Finds Lower Risk from Radiation developed organism had incorpo­ A report released by the National Research Council Committee on rated the virus's genetic material into the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation (BEIR) substantially reduces their own. the estimates of the human cancer risks from radiation exposure. The Among the immediate possibilities report projects rates approximately one-half those estimated eight years for further research are insights into

ago in its last report. The new study was conducted in response to an the factors Nthat control the function­ Environmental Protection Agency request to evaluate health effects on ing and modifications of the genetic human populations from radiation exposure. material, the locations of various The basis of the lowered estimates lies in the increased capability of genes that are incorporated by the researchers to use dose-response models with which to calculate the host animal, and the factors that con­ greatly increased scientific information available, particularly human trol this incorporation. In the longer epidemiological studies and radiobiologic knowledge. The committee term, this technique holds potential considered the linear-quadratic dose-response model the most practical; for the deliberate intervention into this model gives results for low levels of radiation (the usual situation) to the abnormal functioning that occurs be much lower than would be expected if one were to linearly extrap­ in genetic diseases and the alteration olate the experimentally obtained cancers resulting from high-dose of an animal's fundmental genetic radiation exposures. composition for improved species for plant and livestock production.

46 FUSION May 1981 Science Update/Biology FEF News

ing upon a new struggle to obtain recognition of the importance of full FEF Tribute to Gottlieb: funding for the program. "Any suggestion that the federal budget be cut below $525 million for 'An Authentic American Hero' fiscal 1982 must be met with over­ whelming pressure from all walks of More than 350 fusion supporters fight over the years to ensure the American life, with the result that the gathered at a banquet sponsored by benefits of fusion power by the 21st administration and the Congress will the Fusion Energy Foundation Feb. 6 century, it was made clear that this acknowledge the broad base of public at New York's Hotel Biltmore to fight is far from over. Rep. Mike support for moving forward aggres­ honor Dr. Melvin B. Gottlieb, who McCormack, the man who initiated sively with our magnetic fusion engi­ recently retired as the director of the the 1980 fusion legislation, put it this neering and development program Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. way in his written tribute to Gottlieb: and with the political necessity of The program, titled "Fusion: 50 "Even as you read this, we are enter­ funding it at appropriate levels." Years of Progress," paid tribute to Gottlieb's 25 years in fusion and his leadership of the nation's pace-setting tokamak program at Princeton. On hand to recount the history of the fusion program and Gottlieb's pi­ oneer role were three generations of fusion scientists—including Gottlieb's college physics teacher, Dr. Robert Moon, professor emeritus of physics at the University of Chicago, and one of Gottlieb's former graduate stuf dents, Dr. William Ellis, director of the Mirror Systems Division at the De­ partment of Energy Office of Fusion Energy. Other speakers were Leonard F.C. Reichle, executive vice president of Ebasco Services, Inc., the engineering firm that is constructing the TFTR tok­ amak at Princeton, and Boris Kouv- shinnikov, the representative in New York of the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Reichle, one of the members of the FEF banquet committee, made the surprise announcement that Ebasco had just established a $10,000 schol­ arship in Gottlieb's name at the Poly­ technic Institute of New York. Dr. Morris Levitt, executive director of the Fusion Energy Foundation and master of ceremonies, also read sev­ eral messages from well-wishers who were unable to attend—New Jersey legislators and congressmen, Rep. McCormack, and several leading sci­ entists, including the heads of three fusion programs at national laboratories. Stuart Lewis/NSIPS The Fusion Budget Fight "Fusion: 50 Years of Progress." Above: Dr. Mel Gottlieb at the podium; to his As the speakers lauded Gottlieb's left are FEF research director Uwe Parpart, Mrs. Parpart, and Dr. Robert Moon. efforts in the scientific and political Below: Leonard F.C. Reichle (left) and Dr. Morris Levitt.

FEF News May 1981 FUSION 47 FEF News

Platonic Humanist Academy, who then played Mozart's Adagio and Fugue. "Mel Gottlieb is an authentic American hero," Levitt said in his opening remarks. "He's a person whose life's work demonstrates that there is a solution to the energy crisis if we permit scientific effort and in­ genuity to flourish." "Although the fusion program is not as well known to the public as the Manhattan Project or the Apollo pro­ gram," Levitt said, "it is certainly the most important scientific and tech­ nological endeavor the country has ever made and it is enormously suc­ cessful in the face of adversity. . . . Dr. William Ellis: "Mel, thank you for helping us plant a tree." Mel Gottlieb typifies those scientists who have worked quietly and persist­ ently to bring us to the goal of achiev­ As Gottlieb later noted, the 350 per­ The program honoring Gottlieb was ing this abundant energy source." sons attending the dinner were testi­ planned as a celebration of American Dr. Moon spoke next, relating vig­ mony to the ability of the FEF to science. "Since great music and great nettes of Gottlieb's work on the Uni­ organize just that kind of broadbased science have always gone hand in versity of Chicago's first cyclotron support for the fusion program. "This hand in uplifting populations," Levitt during the 1930s, when they couldn't banquet is but a small part of what said, "it is appropriate to start the afford $2,000 to put the magnet to­ the FEF has done," Gottlieb said. "The evening with some great music." He gether and had to do it by hand. FEF did a simply magnificent job pro­ introduced a string quartet from the Moon, who is a founding member of viding support to get Congress to act [to pass the fusion legislation]. The FEF has provided real leadership in edu­ cating the public, Congress, and sci­ entists in other disciplines about fu­ sion." Gottlieb called the Magnetic Fusion Energy Engineering Act of 1980 "the turning point in the history of fusion. At last fusion is recognized as something with real promise—an en­ ergy option instead of just a research program." For the FEF, the event was also a turning point: it marked the first time that individual Fusion readers and FEF members were joined at a major event in support of the fusion pro­ gram by official representatives of the nuclear industry, the Princeton fusion program, labor unions, the Depart­ ment of Energy, the IAEA, local leg­ islators, and several high-technology companies. "This is the kind of political muscle we need," Levitt said, "to ensure that we turn the mandate of the 1980 fu­ sion legislation—a prototype fusion Bon's Kouvshinnikov (left): "Mel has the thanks of the international scientific reactor by the year 2000—into a community for his work." Dr. Robert Moon: "Mel has demonstrated that reality." we're ready for fusion energy."

48 FUSION May 1981 FEF News the Fusion Energy Foundation, also sures [to cut] are also working, and in it would delay the program and dis­ described his ideas about fusion in the opposite direction." sipate the necessary skilled labor the late 1920s. "The journals of the Asked by the New York Times sci­ force. time," he said, "were already lament­ ence editor Walter Sullivan whether Excerpts from Dr. Gottlieb's re­ ing that by the end of the century the the fusion program could sustain a 10 marks appear in the Viewpoint sec­ U.S. would run out of liquid fuel and percent cut, Gottlieb called such a cut tion of this issue. wondering what to do about it." "a serious error" and explained how —Marjorie Hecht Moon's first choice for a doctoral the­ sis was the topic fusion. "There are two different kinds of time," Moon said in conclusion, Kepler Vs. Newton: "chronos, which is clock time, and kyrios, which is God's time. The time FEF Tour Stirs W. German Universities in both senses has come. Mel has demonstrated that we're ready for fu­ "The pictures of Saturn disprove claiming that nuclear energy is fascist, sion energy. ... In heating a plasma schoolbook physics: Kepler was right; and they pressured the university to to millions of degrees, he asked na­ Newton was wrong. . . ." cancel the forum. ture what it would do. ... It set the With agitational handbills heralding Thanks to the publicity, it had to be world on fire, and. gave us a great his arrival, Dr. Jonathan Tennenbaum, rescheduled at a larger lecture hall. hope." director of the Fusion Energy Forum At the University of Munster, the Dr. William Ellis, who spoke next, of West Germany, drew audiences head of the astronomy department, a noted that his fusion career started 20 averaging 200 persons in 10 cities Professor Setter, peremptorily can­ years ago when he took a graduate across Germany in January to his slide celed the scheduled forum, and the course in plasma physics with Got­ show and lecture on the challenge of 150 students who arrived to hear Ten­ tlieb. "To give you an idea of how the Saturn results. nenbaum found the door to the lec­ long ago that was," Ellis said, "Mel Among the stops on Tennenbaum's ture room locked. The FEF countered could teach a whole semester on tour were: Munich, where he lec­ by issuing a leaflet on the treatment plasma physics without ever mention­ tured at the Deutsche Museum, the of Galileo by the Jesuit Counterrefor- ing the word tokamak." world-renowned science museum; mation and people who look through Ellis then discussed the recent his­ Karlsruhe, site of a major nuclear re­ the wrong end of telescopes. tory of the fusion program and "Mel's search facility; the university town Two days later Professor Setter was work in the trenches," his "vision" in of Stuttgart; Mainz; DLisseldorf; forced to give her own lecture on understanding what his work meant Aachen; MLinster; and Duisburg. man's exploration of space, which was for the future, and his "political will" Tennenbaum's lectures focused on attended by only 40 persons. The to get the job done. the fact that the phenomena observed theme of the lecture was "the great­ Ellis told the story of Gen. de by NASA's Voyager 1, such as the ness of man is to have realized how Gaulle's gardener who hesitated in braided F ring, could not be explained small he is." planting a tree that would take 100 by existing theories of Newtonian ce­ years to grow to maturity. " 'Start lestial mechanics and rightly chal­ planting,' de Gaulle said, 'because in lenge science to adopt a theoretical that case, we haven't a moment to framework that views Saturn and Bienvenue! lose.' " other planetary systems as part of a "Mel, thank you for helping us self-developing, negentropic uni­ Fusion in French plant a tree," Ellis concluded. verse. Tennenbaum's insistence that Policy Questions Newton and the Second Law of Ther­ February marked the debut of the Earlier the same day at FEF head­ modynamics have to be overthrown FEF's first French language publica­ quarters, Gottlieb gave a press con­ in order to account for the celestial tion, La Lettre de la Fusion, an eight- ference on the future of the fusion phenomena transmitted by Voyager page, monthly newsletter, which program and the budget decisions generated lively controversy at the plans to expand into a major maga­ facing the new Reagan administra­ forums. zine as soon as sufficient funds and tion. "When one looks for portents, The 'Small' Opposition collaborators are secured. the only thing I think one can say The FEF lecture tour is also serving In a page-one editorial, "In defense is that the administration has been to flush out the opponents of scien­ of science and progress," editor-in- speaking favorably about the impor­ tific progress in West Germany in the chief Laurent Rosenfeld explained the tance of research and applied re* universities, as well as in the environ­ reasons for launching the publication search. From that policy standpoint mentalist movement. In the city of at this time, in a country with the one would expect to emerge a favor­ Duisburg, Greenies put out a leaflet most ambitious nuclear program in able view. Of course the budget pres­ denouncing the Fusion Energy Forum, the West. Despite the majority senti-

FEF News May 1981 FUSION 49 FEF News

ments in France in favor of nuclear energy and scientific development, Rosenfeld wrote, the campaigns of FEF's Pollak Routs the environmentalists have not been without their effects; France's science Environmentalists in Mexico magazines have become a curious mixture of scientific and antiprogress "I try to teach my students that statements. "In launching La Lettre de human beings are qualitatively differ­ la Fusion, we intend to revive the love ent from animals, but they seem un­ of science and to promote scientific able to comprehend this. I felt I was research and technological develop­ alone until I heard your talk." ment," Rosenfeld stated This remark from a college instruc­ The first issue features articles on tor at Mexico's Polytechnique Insti­ the significant advances in inertial tute to Dr. Richard Pollak, Fusion's confinement laser fusion coming out biology editor, summed up the pro­ of the Ecole Polytechnique Laborato­ found impact of the FEF and AMEF ries in Palaiseau near Paris, the pas­ (Mexican Association for Fusion En­ sage of the McCormack fusion bill in ergy) presence at the institute's Dec. the United States and its potential for 8-12 conference on "Problems of the enhancing European fusion research, Environment Under Man's Control." and the revolution in scientific think­ The Mexico City conference was ing demanded by the Saturn results. an international event, attended by Pollak teaching recombinant DNA to The English language Fusion maga­ about 400 Polytechnique students and conference participants. zine has enjoyed a very strong follow­ faculty members and addressed by ing among French government, busi­ speakers from government ministries ness, and scientific circles during the and industry, as well as professors and question each individual in society last several years. The decisions to graduate students of the institute. The must answer: that of one's self-con­ launch the French publication and to AMEF was invited in response to its ception. Did they identify themselves hold a series of national conferences growing visibility as a force for science as creative individuals who must de­ over the next year were taken to in­ and technology within Mexico. velop the political and scientific-tech­ crease the FEF's institutional presence Although the stated purpose of the nological solutions to the problems in France. conference was to explore the envi­ of maximizing development, and ronmental problems facing Mexico, thereby solve the true environmental it was clear from the agenda that some problems associated with insufficient conference planners hoped to con­ creation of societal wealth? Or did vince the audience that Mexico's they see themselves as "one-with-na- strong commitment to development ture" beasts, the identity put forward through science and technology by the zero-growthers? should be abandoned. Abreu's provocative talk was fol­ Had it not been for the presence of lowed by Mrs. Delia Araujo from Pollak and two members of AMEF, AMEF, who analyzed the energetics Dr. Luis Abreu and Mrs. Delia Araujo, of agricultural production in Mexico. the neo-Malthusians would have en­ Demonstrating empirically that the joyed considerable success in their truly energy-conserving methods in efforts to recruit students and faculty agriculture are those that maximize into Mexico's fledgling environmen­ energy throughput, she proved that talist movement. But the FEF-AMEF the most energy-intensive methods presence was felt throughout the involving capital-intensive mechani­ conference. By the time Pollak spoke zation, irrigation, and fertilization on the next to last day of the confer­ techniques are the most efficient and ence, he already enjoyed considera­ valuable for the Mexican economy ble notoriety based on his polemical and environment. refutation of a leading professor's at­ Pollak's speech on Dec. 11 was one tack on the supposed dangers of DDT. of the best attended conference ses­ Self-Identity sions, with more than 200 present. In his presentation on the second Emphasizing that the universe is fun­ La Lettre de la Fusion: "We intend to day of the conference, Dr. Luis Abreu damentally negentropic, Pollak used revive the love of science." from AMEF posed for the students the biological examples to show how

50 FUSION May 1981 FEF News continued qualitative and quantitative experiment with a drop of oil opens increases in energy throughput are up the science of hydrodynamics in apparent in the continued self-devel­ Coming in the Experiments section, and a ge­ opment of the biosphere. This is sci­ netic engineer talks about her work entifically coherent with a concept of The Young Scientist in biology in the Interview. negentropy that defines energy as in­ In Tales of Science, Samuel Morse put being self-organized into higher The Fusion Energy Foundation's finishes his story of the Morse code states of quality of energy input, em­ new children's science magazine, The and the Atlantic Cable, while cartoon bodying an image of self-transforma­ Young Scientist, has expanded to 26 character Pete Progress uses his page tion of energetic processes. pages in the Feb./March 1981 issue. to help a friend cope with the trials Using this principle as the scientific Spectacular color photos of Saturn of the simple life. basis for evaluating environmental accompany an exciting analysis of the Subscription Information problems, Pollak told the audience: 1980 Voyager 1 exploration of Saturn, If you haven't subscribed to The "The true dangers to the environment teaching how the scientific method of Young Scientist yet, send $8 for five lie in the proliferation of drugs, rock Kepler is needed to analyze the data issues to the Fusion Energy Founda­ music, and environmentalism. . . . provided on the complex Saturnian tion, or join the Young Scientist Club Each of these negates the true quality system. for $25. Information on the corporate of humanity—the creativity of mind— The feature article by Dr. Richard sponsorship program and bulk sub­ and it is this creativity that is respon­ Pollak then takes the reader on a tour scriptions is available upon request. sible for the continued development of genetic engineering, starting with of the universe." the ABCs of genes and DNA, to give Man or Beast? a full understanding of how this new 100 FEF Members The question period and the round science will cure disease and make table discussion following it were pre­ barren planets earthlike. View Saturn Slides dictably stormy. Most of the questions Other articles include the latest sci­ At Boston Event were addressed to Abreu and Pollak, entific news on superconductors, ra­ with audience comments ranging dio telescopes, the decline in science Members at a Fusion Energy Foun­ from attacks on Pollak's criticism of education, the Soviet record of six dation dinner in Newton, Mass. Jan. Darwin to a defense of China as the months in space, and a new vaccine 27 viewed the spectacular photo­ model Mexico should follow for de­ for hepatitis, with enough explanation graphs of Saturn sent back by Voyager velopment. for the beginning scientist to consider 1 and listened to a moving presenta­ It became clear that the audience the important questions raised. tion by FEF research director Uwe was emphatically polarized. About In the regular departments, Profes­ Parpart on the possibilities before one-third agreed with the environ­ sor Von Puzzle describes a very man of colonizing the galaxy and "fill­ mentalist professors, who at this point strange ant race (and gives the an­ ing the universe with human intelli­ modified their initial rabid neo-Mal- swers to the last issue's puzzles), while gence." Parpart described the excite­ thusian position to approve of "ap­ the world of robotics is explored in ment of being alive and of being a propriate technology"—calling for Science on Tour. A deceptively simple scientist at this particular juncture in native and thus "appropriate" tech­ history, when we stand on the thresh­ nology to foe implemented at minimal old of so many scientific and social rates. The majority, however, op­ breakthroughs. posed the unscientific position of the The dinner, held in this center of environmentalists, and many at­ the electronics and aerospace indus­ tended a biology seminar given by try near Boston, drew an audience of Pollak the day after the conference 100, which included area engineers, ended. corporate executives, military person­ The next major AMEF event will nel, physicians, and other profession­ present the alternative to Malthusian als. A local metallurgist provided gifts economics for Mexico. On Feb. 19 for all—coffee mugs decorated with and 20, AMEF and the FEF will hold a a green heart with "Seabrook" and seminar on economic planning in "Nuclear Power for New England" Mexico between now and the year written across them. 2000 at the prestigious Mexican Petro­ A Young Scientist display, where leum Institute in Mexico City. The two young scientists conducted soap centerpiece will be the unveiling of bubble experiments, was a center of AMEF's development program for attraction at the dinner. New Eng­ Mexico, using the LaRouche-Rie- land's thriving Young Scientist Club mann econometric model. was launched last Christmas with a

FEF News May 1981 FUSION 51 FEF News

tour of the Alcator tokamak at the Massachusetts Institute of Technol­ FEF in the News ogy. The group of 15 youngsters and 10 adults were taken on a VIP tour of the facility by Dr. Bruce Montgomery, Grants [N.M.] Daily Beacon, Nov. 13 a leader of the program. "Pro-Nuke Silent Majority Organizing" by Melanie J. Majors Fusion Energy Foundation, the group known through their distinctive Future tours are planned for Sea- bumper stickers, "Feed Jane Fonda to the Whales, and Chappaquidick brook, N.H. and Connecticut nuclear 1, Three Mile Island 0," brought their slogans, magazines and high plants, and the Foxborough Com­ powered pronuclear pitch to the area on a campaign stop at the Grants pany, a manufacturer of instrumen­ post office Wednesday. "Our goal is the production of 2,500 power tation panels used in nuclear plants. plants in the next 25 years," said Joe Billington, a member of the FEF. Participation is open to young scien­ "All over the country we are organizing the silent majority. . . . We are tists of all ages. setting legislation and programs we want Congress to act on."

The Smithsonian, Dec. 1980 "An Earthly Furnace Fueled by Fusion Nears a Crucial Test" by Philip Space Center Boffey Offers Fusion Bonus . . . Enthusiasts almost always describe fusion as a potential dream source of energy—safe, clean, cheap and inexhaustible. . . . The Fusion The Alabama Space and Rocket Energy Foundation calls it "the gateway to a new world of abundance" Center in Huntsville, Ala. is offering in which there will be no technological obstacles to conquering poverty, its members a special Fusion bonus: hunger and disease. a one-year subscription to Fusion magazine ("fantastic coverage of the Weekly Moultrie [Ga.] Observer, Dec. 18 frontiers of science") for a reduced "Food-People Conflict Hinges on Technology" by Dr. Broadus Brown, rate of $14 a year, or a combination Ga. Agricultural Experiment Stations subscription to Fusion and The Young [The Global 2000 Report] paints a rather grim picture about people and Scientist for $20 instead of $28 a year. food and about the total well-being of the human race generally. . . . For information about the space It is reported in an article in Fusion . . . that the Global 2000 Report center's educational museum and projections were based on the technology for food production in use in "Explorer" membership program, 1975. If that is the case it is no wonder the projections are so dismal. . . . write the Membership Office, Ala­ In the same Nov. 1980 issue ... is a whole section entitled Science versus bama Space and Rocket Center, Tran­ Scarcity with the subtitle High Technology Agriculture Can Feed the quility Base, Huntsville, Ala. 35807, or World. It is a refreshing contrast to the reports from the gloom and call (800) 633-7280. doomers we have been seeing.

The Ann Arbor News, Jan. 16 "Nuclear Fusion 'Ready' for Development by Industry," UPI release by FEF Testifies at Hearings LeRoy Pope The time has come to turn much of the fusion energy engineering Marsha Freeman, FEF Washington program over to industry, says Leonard F. Reichle, an Ebasco Services Representative, testified before the vice-president. ... He says in the February edition of Fusion magazine Senate Committee on Agriculture Jan. that the scientific program now is so far advanced that a Center for 6 to support the confirmation of John Fusion Engineering ought to be created to coordinate and expedite the Block for Secretary of Agriculture. ultimate development of commercial electric power by means of fusion. The FEF testimony stressed the nec­ essary scientific frontiers in agricul­ Independent School, Quarterly of the National Association of Indepen­ tural research for the next decade. dent Schools (Boston), February Freeman also testified at the confir­ "The Wave of the Future?" mation hearings of James Watt for Sensing the American public's growing interest in science, both Time Secretary of the Interior before the and Newsweek began publishing science magazines last year. To satisfy Senate Committee on Energy and the curiosity of a younger readership, the Fusion Energy Foundation Natural Resources Jan. 8. Two of the started to publish The Young Scientist in December. Designed for middle western states senators present at the school students, the first issue of the magazine contained articles on hearings, Senators Wallop (R-Wy.) space museums, NASA's solar polar exploratory mission, a fusion power and Domenici (R-N.M.), were excited experiment at Princeton, and an interview with scientist Steve Dean. . . . by the water development plan pro­ posed in the FEF statement.

52 FUSION May 1981 FEF News Science Press Review

selected high-risk efforts. It is, of likely to commit crimes in the work­ course, desirable to have the kind of place than subjects in the Low En­ funding that will make this possible. dorsement Group. . . . These findings The fusion program will not meet suggest that psychological tests such the goal spelled out in the Magnetic as the PSI [Personnel Selection Inven­ Fusion Energy Engineering Act of tory] can be used to screen out job 1980—a demonstration commerciai applicants who both endorse and reactor by the year 2000—unless the have a high probability of committing current program is fully funded at employee crime and misconduct in $525 million and its leadership is sup­ nuclear facilities." ported. (For a review of some specific OMNI'S CONFUSION In another recent study Jones also scientific questions raised in the Omni The Jan. 1981 issue of Omni features stated, "High endorsers of nuclear articles, see the Letters section.) fusion energy in a way that probably crime (a) held more favorable atti­ left many Fusion readers puzzled. tudes/cognitions toward theft and il­ Aside from a lead article that fairly licit drug use and (b) they were more and excitedly portrayed the promise emotionally unstable and prone to of fusion for the 21st century, the lose impulse control and behave ag­ overall effect of the Omni coverage gressively than low endorsers." was an attack on the leadership of the The authors go on to recommend magnetic fusion energy program. further testing and development/ research but believe eventually that What the Omni coverage conveys these techniques can lead to a useful is that the alternate proposals for fu­ screening tool for nuclear utility com­ sion have gone unfunded because the panies. national laboratories and their asso­ ciated industrial contractors are work­ ing with the fusion officials in the DOE to fund the mainline tokamak program. At a time when the axe is IDENTIFYING POTENTIAL poised over the fusion budget and, in NUCLEAR SABOTEURS fact, over the present leadership of The results of a recent psychologi­ the Office of Fusion Energy, the effect cal study performed by the London of Omni is to support the budget House Management Consultants of cutters and those who would dump Park Ridge, III. suggest that it may be the very leadership that has built the possible to prevent nuclear crime or successful fusion program. sabotage from occurring in nuclear It is a tribute to the DOE Office of facilities by using appropriately de­ Fusion Energy as well as to the leaders signed employee screening tests. of the national laboratories that the After completing two series of tests fusion program did not dissolve under using 45 and 74 anonymous subjects SCIENCE EDITORIAL pressure from former energy secre­ and examining various data correla­ ATTACKS DEVELOPMENT tary James Schlesinger, who tried to tions, the experimenters concluded Science magazine departed Jan. 30 pit one program against another in that it is possible to identify those from a months-long series of edito­ his budget cutting. individuals most likely to commit acts rials calling for industrial expansion, To guarantee the success of any of nuclear sabotage and, therefore, expanded science educaton, and, in particular approach, a broad-based reject them during preemployment general, for a U.S. scientific renais­ fusion effort is essential. The various screening and clearance processes. sance to run an attack on "the mod­ fusion experiments are not unrelated In a recent paper on the subject ern ethic of development." The edi­ and, in fact, the tremendous success titled "Psychologically Profiling En­ torial column that day was given over achieved over the past decade is pri­ dorsers of Nuclear Crime and Sabo­ to Kingsley Davis from the Center for marily the result of the interaction of tage" by John Jones and Daniel Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sci­ seemingly widely diverse experi­ Scruggs, the authors comment: "High ences, who starts with the headline ments. The first thing is to demon­ endorsers of nuclear crime engaged "It Is People Who Use Energy" and strate that we can achieve fusion with in significantly more: (a) types of ma­ goes on from there to prove that we the most developed system. Alternate jor crimes and (b) types of violent can solve the energy crisis by elimi­ proposals, such as the one discussed crimes during the past two years com­ nating people. in the Omni interview with Robert pared to low endorsers of nuclear "It follows that stopping or revers­ Bussard, are possible only when there crime. Thus subjects in the High En­ ing population growth could play a is sufficient elbow room to fund a few dorsement Croup were reliably more major role in solving the energy prob-

Science Press Review May 1981 FUSION 53 Science Press Review Energy News/International

lem," Davis tells the readership of the because it means general indiscipline: magazine of the American Associa­ There are no sanctions, no limits built tion for the Advancement of Science. Poniatowski into the system. We hope that Science readers notice Continued from page 76 With a system based only on gold, that without people, there also would Question: Isn't England also suffering you run the risk of an international not be any advancement of science— from the monetarist economic poli­ commercial and economic crisis, and that they find out why it was felt cies of Milton Friedman and Fried- since such a system would reduce the that this zero-growth viewpoint de­ rich von Hayek? volume of trade. However, if you have served editorial space. In monetary matters, I am very em­ a currency that is completely de­ piricist; I avoid having theories. tached from any discipline—gold is not significant as gold; it's the disci­ Question: But you have proposed the pline of gold—then you fall into the creation of a monetary system based opposite risk, the risk of inflation and on gold.... related problems. N.Y. TIMES ATTACK ON LIVERMORE Not based on gold alone. If you So I think we must look for a solu­ TOPS KGB SLANDER create a system based on gold, you tion that has all the flexibility of an A Jan. 18 article on Lawrence Liver- will kill your international exchanges, international monetary system based more National Laboratory in the New because gold production will never on exchanges and credit lines, with York Times Magazine, titled "New follow the evolution of world ex­ certain sanctions when a specified Life for Nuclear City," tops a KGB- changes. A strictly gold-based system percentage of balance of payments authored slander called "Livermore, would be an extremely dangerous deficit is reached. City of Death" that appeared several thing. years ago in the Soviet Literary Ga­ Question: A question of interest for zette. The Times article, written by Question: Then what system do you our American readers: What are the Stewart McBride of the Christian Sci­ envision? possibilities for cooperation between ence Monitor, purports to show that I think that we should have a system France and the United States under with defense-oriented Ronald Reagan of reciprocal credits. That is to say, the new Reagan administration? in office "Livermore's controversial there comes a time when you have to When you have a new partner, you weapons designers will come back pay your debts in gold. I think that have to get to know him. You must into the national spotlight again—to the normal system of international have contact that will permit you to the satisfaction of those who believe exchanges requires large amounts of get to know the man opposite you, the new Administration should and credits between the different federal what he wants, where he wants to go, will 'carry a bigger nuclear stick'; and and national banks. how he wants to get there, and with to the dismay of those who worry However, beyond a certain deficit, whom. about the . . . hazards of radiation which should be agreed upon inter­ near development or testing sites." nationally, the settlements should in­ Question: Do you have a special mes­ However, its main point is to support clude a fraction of payments in gold, sage for our American readers? California Governor Brown and the so that there is some discipline, some Yes. The problem of developing nu­ environmentalist groups trying to shut will to redress a situation if it becomes clear energy is a considerable one, the laboratory down because it has abnormal. because it means moving forward the something to do with radiation. frontiers of energy. We have reached Livermore, a major U.S. weapons Question: As you know, there is a a roadblock with the traditional oil- development laboratory—no war­ group of individuals around the new and coal-based energy systems, and heads are manufactured there—and administration, including Jack Kemp, nuclear energy will remove this road­ one of the top international labs Art Laffer, and others, who are more block. working on the development of mag­ or less "goldists." Do you think that However, it is not entirely in this netic and inertial fusion energy for^ the new administration will have a way that I would characterize the civ­ electric power production, is respon­ different position on gold from its ilization that we are entering, which sible for keeping the United States at predecessor? is a scientific civilization. I think that the forefront of scientific and tech­ You are in a better position than I this civilization will be characterized nological research. am to answer this question. But I do by computers and telematique [com­ How does the Times article portray think there will be some thinking on puter applications in the consumer the most advanced fusion laser in the this problem. What I think is that as sector]—that is to say, not by the mul­ world? "Whether the Livermore laser, much as a narrow, strict monetary tiplication of man's muscular power, named Shiva, after the Hindu god of policy based on gold is terribly dan­ which is characteristic of the machine destruction, ... is creating miniature gerous, I also think that the other and of the industrial cycle, but by the stars or testing tiny H-bombs depends extreme of a system that is totally multiplication of man's capability for on one's perspective." detached from gold is also dangerous, memory and his intelligence.

54 FUSION May 1981 Energy News/International Books

manistic Studies. Aspen prides itself on originally creating the antinuclear Making Antiscience Popular movement and devising the Malthu- sian "environmentalist" belief system, The Cosmos series was funded that science and technology are in­ Cosmos through a grant to the Public Broad­ trinsically evils inflicted by man on Carl Sagan casting Service of more than $1 mil­ nature. 13-part television series, Public lion from the Atlantic Richfield Com­ Where does the Cosmos philoso­ Broadcasting Service, Carl Sagan pany (ARCO). The policymakers at phy miss the boat on real science? Productions, Inc., 1980 ARCO, chairman Robert O. Anderson The essence of science is not existing New York: Random House, and president Thornton Bradshaw, 1980, $19.95 scientific information, nor is it scien­ are among the most prominent and tific artifacts such as pictures of Mars, Throughout the fall of 1980, U.S. influential American opponents of telescopes, or test tubes. All existing television audiences were treated to scientific, technological, and cultural scientific knowledge is subject to the spectacularly popular PBS series progress, committed to the success of being superseded by new discoveries, Cosmos. Hosted by NASA consultant what insiders term the Aquarian con­ and the artifacts are still more ephem­ and astrophysicist Carl Sagan, the 13- spiracy. eral. What is real, what is permanent part series promised to take its view­ 'Grassroots' Zero Growth and essential about science, is not ers on a "tour of the cosmos," Anderson personally funded the specific discoveries, but the method providing an exciting popular science first Earth Day in 1971 and gave by which discoveries are made and education along the way, with topics $200,000 to create the Friends of the can continue to be made. This crea­ ranging from the history of science to Earth organizatiolr* as a "grassroots" tive, scientific method was summa­ modern theories about planets, stars, opposition to technological progress. rized in its most elaborated and and galaxies. Both Anderson and Bradshaw are explicit form in Plato's Timaeus Yet somehow, along the way, the members of the zero-growth Club of as the "hypothesis of the higher fascinating predicates of science were Rome and the Aspen Institute for Hu­ hypothesis." turned into lists of facts, with the underlying lawfulness of the universe replaced by unknowable infinities of worlds within worlds. By ignoring the important questions of science, Sagan led his generally proscience audience, who agreed with him on the particu­ lar scientific facts, to conclude that Amerindian legends, Hindu mysti­ cism, and environmentalist philoso­ phy can tell us more about the uni­ verse than can science. Since man is merely a "mote upon the cosmic shore," he has much to learn from his "cousins, the oak tree and the intel­ ligent blue whale," who have found their own ways to answer the cosmic riddle. An examination of the content of the series will convince you that Cos­ mos is aimed at destroying compre­ hension of and trust in science and technology among the broadest pos­ sible layer of the U.S. population. In place of real science—which has always been an expression of man­ kind's moral commitment to human progress through mastery of the nat­ ural universe—Cosmos proposes an "Aquarian" version of science based on environmentalist irrationalism and a touchy-feely "consciousness." Sagan: Man is merely a "mote upon the cosmic shore."

Books May 1981 FUSION 55 Books

The core of this method is the belief where out in this vastness there exists time continuum or "black holes," Sa­ that the evolving laws of the universe other life, superior civilizations who gan's conclusion is that here science are coherent with the human mind's can solve all our problems. must leave off and black magic take own notion of lawfulness, so that the Sagan's fascination with infinite col­ over. truth of the universe is fundamentally lections of things—aided by the large Wormholes and Sleeping Gods knowable to man. The universe, as scale of astrophysical phenomena and For instance, Sagan presents a con­ Kepler correctly realized, is a contin­ the use of psychedelic images—belies ventional account of British scholar uing creation, the unfolding of a Edwin Abbott's book Flatland, a two- continuously efficient, continuously dimensional world plane inhabitated creative principle. As Kepler put it, "Sagan presents genetics by little triangles and squares, "Geometry is one and eternal, a re­ and evolution with a strict to whom our three-dimensional uni­ flection out of the mind of Cod. That 'survival of the fittest' per­ verse would be totally unknowable. mankind shares in it is one reason to He then says that the cosmos may call man an image of God." The hu­ spective, ignoring the evi­ be four-dimensional in nature, and man mind, reflecting on the ordering dence for global, macro­ we merely three-dimensional "flat- principle of man's successive scien­ scopic ordering principles. landers": "If a fourth-dimensional tific-technological masteries of na­ creature existed it could . . . appear ture, is capable of understanding the Everything from genes to the and dematerialize at will, change plan ordering the heavens. human mind is described in shape remarkably, pluck us out of This is why Kepler's method of sci­ terms of computer bits." locked rooms and make us appear entific hypothesis, of seeking the from nowhere. It could also turn us overall origins of the solar system and inside out!" the global lawfulness involved to ex­ the deeper scientific fallacy that Sa­ "We can imagine . . . wormholes plain the orbits of particular bodies, gan's nightmare embodies. Sagan is [through black holes] as tubes running is equally valid today in hypothesizing terrified of nature because he cannot through the fourth physical dimen­ about the Voyager data on Saturn. grasp the self-ordering processes gov­ sion. We do not know that such Any Newtonian attempt to explain erning its development. What Sagan wormholes exist. But if they do, must the Saturnian system comes up against cannot understand, he asserts, must they always hook up with another the insoluble "three-body problem." have no explanation—except perhaps place in our universe? Or is it possible Sagan, however, dismisses Kepler's if you accept extraterrestrial superbe- that wormholes connect with other method as mysticism: the "Pythago­ ings or Zen Buddhist ramblings as universes?" rean idea of a perfect and mystical scientific hypotheses. "What would those other universes world . . . was an integral component Sagan is not the first "scientist" to be like?" asks Sagan. "Would they be of Kepler's early training," and claims suffer from this problem. Isaac New­ built on different laws of physics? . . . that "All three of Kepler's laws of ton, who denied man's powers of To enter them, we would somehow planetary motion can be derived from mind in his famous refusal to "frame have to penetrate a fourth physical Newtonian principles. Kepler's laws hypotheses," spent his life plagiariz­ dimension. . . . Poised at the edge of were empirical, . . . Newton's laws ing and banalizing the original work forever, we would jump off. . . ." In were theoretical." of Kepler and Leibniz, since he could other words, to explore other uni­ On the contrary, as any competent not share in their method of creative verses, try some LSD. mathematical analysis demonstrates, discovery. Newton engaged in black- Or, if this does not work, there is Newton's "laws" were merely partic­ magic cult practices during the very always Hinduism: ular cases, frozen in time, of the period of his life he supposedly de­ "There is [also] the deep and ap­ evolving laws discovered by Kepler. voted to science. But then, according pealing [Hindu] notion that the uni­ The Cosmos Method to Sagan, Kepler was also a supersti­ verse is but the dream of a god who In Cosmos, Sagan adopts a consist­ tious fool outside his narrow area of . . . dissolved himself in a dreamless ent form of distortion in order to scientific expertise—a view totally at sleep. The universe dissolves with him focus audience attention away from odds with the abundant documenta­ until ... he stirs . . . and begins again the coherence of man's mind with the tion of Kepler's training, writings, and to dream the great cosmic dream." astrophysical phenomena being pre­ method. "It is by no means clear that the sented. For all man's science, he is Just such hostility to a universe cosmos will continue to expand for­ but a speck of dust in the vastness of knowable by human reason runs ever. . . . The universe may hold to­ the cosmos, proclaims Sagan, while a through Sagan's discussions of mod­ gether gravitationally and partake of psychedelic artist's conception of gal­ a very Indian succession of cycles, ern astrophysics—particularly where axies without end swirls by on the expansion followed by contraction, the phenomena in question cannot screen. Suddenly, we see Sagan sailing universe upon universe, cosmos with­ through space in a flying saucer, his be comprehended in Newtonian out end." hypnotic voice assuring us that some- terms as collections of isolated things. Rejecting the method of hypothe- In discussing questions like the space- 56 FUSION May 1981 Books sis, Sagan presents the history of sci­ "Earth is a tiny and fragile world. It entific development with the aim of needs to be cherished." obliterating the Platonic tradition: "In Sagan is no stranger to the Aquarian the suppression of facts, the sense conspiracy. He was on Carter's Presi­ that science should be kept for a small dent's Commission for an Agenda for elite, the distaste for experiment, the the 1980s, whose first report was the embrace of mysticism, and the easy leading factional document in favor acceptance of slave societies, [Plato of dismantling heavy industry and de­ and Pythagoras] set back the human populating America's leading urban enterprise." centers. A deeper look at the mem­ As for Kepler, Sagan actually goes bership of his Planetary Society shows so far as to assert that Kepler made an overlapping of names with those his discoveries by rejecting the Pla­ of the Aquarian conspiracy and envi­ tonic tradition in favor of the empi­ ronmentalist movement. ricism of Francis Bacon and Newton: Planetary Antiscience "Kepler was shaken at being com­ Supposedly committed to an ag­ pelled to abandon his faith in the gressive national space program, the Divine Geometer. . . . The Earth, Planetary Society has drawn in many wracked by wars, pestilence, famine serious advocates of high-technology and unhappiness, fell short of perfec­ space exploration. But the society's tion. ... If the planets were imperfect, program is actually along the lines of why not their orbits as well? He tried Sagan's statement, "The cost of major various ovallike curves, calculated ventures into space ... is so large that away, . . . and months later in some they will not, I think, be mustered in desperation tried the formula for an the very near future. . . . Even then ellipse." there are probably more pressing Thus Sagan stands Kepler on his needs here on Earth." head. In the same vein he dismisses In place of fusion-powered rockets for interplanetary travel, the society calls for the development of a "solar "In Cosmos, Sagan adopts a sail"; in place of manned expeditions consistent form of distortion to the planets and asteroids to set up colonies and mine their wealth, the in order to focus audience INVESTIGATIVE society calls for robot probes to ex­ attention away from the co­ plore the solar system, at present lev­ !•••••• For investigative herence of man's mind with els of technology; in place of an • •I iW purposes only the astrophysical phenom­ aggressive R&D program to improve man's ability to master the solar sys­ Socialist International Conference ena being presented." tem, the society calls for a vast radio- Plans International Terrorism telescope search for extraterrestrial intelligence, undermining man's faith It Takes Intelligence Archimedes, ibn Sina, Nicholas of in his ability to control his destiny. Cusa, Leibniz, Gauss, and Bernhard Sagan goes so far as to object to to Fight Drugs Riemann—that is, every Platonist radio because "uncontrolled growth whose scientific contribution laid the of terrestrial radio technology may Drug trafficking is at an all time high. groundwork for modern civilization. prevent us from ready communica­ Our nation's drug enforcement and in­ telligence capacities have been crippled. In like manner, Sagan presents ge­ tion with intelligent beings in distant IL provides law enforcement, in­ netics and evolution with a strict worlds." But then, he also objects to telligence agencies and other drug "survival of the fittest" perspective, steamboats because their propeller fighters with crucial evaluative in­ ignoring the evidence for global, noise pollution has destroyed the telligence on all criminal activities. macroscopic ordering principles, global transoceanic communication Everything from genes to the human grid used by "intelligent" whales! SUBSCRIBE NOW! mind is described in terms of com­ It's a sad reflection on our society Receive Investigative Leads' 12 page newsletter puter bits. And in his discussions of that parents wishing their children to twice monthly for $50 per year. Make check or the future of our "speck in the cos­ acquire a scientific education must let money order payable to Investigative Leads, 304 W. 58th St., 5th floor, New York N.Y., mos," he predicts a fate similar to that them be subjected to Sagan's brand 10019. For more information call 212-247-5190. of Venus, the "incarnation of hell," of "antiscience" science. unless we curb our technology: —Robert Zubrin

Books May 1981 FUSION 57 "The environmentalist-terrorist groups are merely infantry divisions deployed by some of the most powerful political forces in the United States." Robert Greenberg Editor, Investigative Leads

Over the last decade, the United States and other industrialized countries have been under all-out attack'by the forces of the so-called environmentalist movement. Radicalized youth, "social-acti­ vist" lawyers of the Ralph Nader variety, and "expert studies" have all been combined to convince many that growth and prosperity are things of the past. Now, Executive Intelligence Review is making available a comprehensive study on the environ­ mentalist movement, showing how the movement is controlled from top to bottom by some of the most prestigious power centers in the United States: New York-based foundations and law firms, and federal agencies, under the umbrella of the Council on Foreign Relations. Who Controls Environmentalism? A special report prepared by Investigative Leads, a research arm of Executive Intelligence Review. Available December 1, 1980. $50. For ongoing domestic and international intelligence, subscribe to the 64-page weekly journal, the EIR. For ongoing intelligence on the environmentalist movement, subscribe to EIR's bi-weekly newsletter, Investigative Leads.

You can't make decisions if you don't have intelligence. EIR Executive Intelligence Review Energy News/Washington

Edwards: Senator, it depends on what 1981 budget for R&D [in the DOE] you Edwards you call subsidies, really. If we hadn't don't have any quarrel with that? Continued from page 24 subsidized nuclear energy for defense Edwards: I don't know whether we president, Congress, and the nation, and the nuclear energy program, can spend that much efficiently, Sen­ to assure reliable supplies of reason­ which originated in the defense of ator, . . . but I have no quarrel with ably priced energy. . . . Our economy, America, we would probably all be in spending money for that develop­ the productive machine, which makes Siberia now rather than in the free ment. our way of life possible through world. A Holding Pattern meaningful jobs, is dependent on en­ Bumpers: Isn't that effective subsidy In his opening statement as the ergy. We must manage the system of industry? For example, we are chairman of the Senate Energy Com­ effectively now, and plan wisely for spending roughly $400 million a year mittee, Jim McClure, a Republican the future." on fusion research right now. And in from Idaho, reviewed the dismal past The Dialogue my opinion, by the year 2000, we will four years of Carter energy policy. He What about the "free market" in probably spend close to $10, $20 bil­ then said he was confident that in energy R&D? lion in today's dollars; and yet when working with the new Republican Senator Dale Bumpers questioned that becomes a perfected technology, leadership in the Senate, Edwards Edwards as follows: industry will get the benefit of it as would be successful in turning the Bumpers: In your statement, you they have all the money we have situation around. stated that we needed to develop our spent on nuclear research. Is that not "During the past four years, the own energy resources and that it the same thing as a subsidy? Carter administration has placed this ought to be done by the private sec­ Edwards: Senator, in a way it is, yes. nation's nuclear industry in a virtual tor. And in the Columbia Record on Bumpers: You have no quarrel with holding pattern. We must now re­ Feb. 3, 1976, you said that we favored that? sume our development of nuclear en­ subsidies for the nuclear industry. Edwards: No quarrel with that. ergy as a major component of our Which is it? Bumpers: Under the $4 billion in the domestic energy supply. That can be accomplished if the new administra­ tion takes initiatives in a number of areas ... in the area of nuclear waste policy . . . spent fuel storage ... re­ On Edwards's Qualifications moval of the current impediments to international nuclear commerce, and At the Senate confirmation hearings for Energy Secretary Jim Edwards improved procedures for the siting of Jan. 12, the charge was made that Edwards did not come out of the nuclear power plants and waste facil­ energy industry and therefore might lack necessary experience. To that ities. ... I fully expect that the new charge Senator Malcolm Wallop (R-Wy.) remarked: "It would be unlikely Secretary of Energy will be at the in the present climate of Washington that we would ever get somebody center of these initiatives." to be the nominee for secretary of energy if he came from the energy Many senators expressed their con­ world," so ready would critics be to charge the nominee with repre­ cern that the secretary himself, not senting "special interests." the OMB, Treasury Department, or Dr. James Burrows Edwards has, in fact, had extensive experience in Secretary of State Alexander Haig, be the field of energy, in public policymaking, and in management. responsible for formulating energy Before becoming the first Republican governor of South Carolina in policy for the administration, and Ed­ more than 100 years in 1975, Edwards was a state senator, while he wards pledged he would take that carried on private practice as an oral surgeon. In the state senate, responsibility. Edwards was a member of the nuclear energy committee, and later, after Edwards can expect support from becoming governor, he chaired the new nuclear energy subcommittee McClure and majority committee of the Committee for Natural Resources and Environmental Management member Pete Domenici, a New Mex­ of the National Governors Association. ico Republican, who is also the new Governor Edwards also served as chairman of the Southern Governors chairman of the important Senate Conference and directed its activities through the Southern States Energy Budget Committee. Board. Edwards stated at his confirmation hearings that he would have "no Coming in the intellectual difficulty" in consulting experts in the scientific and energy fields to help him formulate DOE policy. With this attitude, competent next issue of advice, Senate and House backup, and executive support, the new Fusion secretary can play an important role in restoring energy growth and the Special report on the economic health of the country. science and technology budget

Energy News/Washington May 1981 FUSION 59 Energy News/Washington

effect of introducing new technolo­ board percentage [cut] is indeed appli­ gies into the economy. . . . The key cable, principally in the energy field. program in that respect ... is the From this senator's standpoint it is FEF Testifies implementation of the Magnetic Fu­ totally inappropriate. It must be selec­ sion Energy Engineering Act of 1980." tive and I certainly agree that if we For Fusion Disturbed by reports of possible are going to be successful, we cannot cuts in the magnetic fusion program, refuse to fund those technologies that estifying at the confirmation hear­ Senator Domenici, chairing the hear­ have promise, and that are in the T ings for the new energy secretary, ings for Senator McClure, replied to future. We cannot solely rely on a Fusion Energy Foundation executive Kokinda: "I think your observation of very short-term kind of R&D or ex­ director Dr. Morris Levitt stressed that a meat-axe [approach to budget cuts] penditures of money on short-term it is only "the most rapid possible as inappropriate or an across-the- projects." application of inventions and break­ throughs in technology and science that can provide us with the optimal Congressional Line-up economic/strategic mix of energy resources." New Prospects for High Technology Levitt, one of the five public wit­ nesses given the opportunity to tes­ tify, expressed the FEF's concern that he presence of the new Republi­ Mike McCormack. such scientific criteria were not being T can majority in the Senate and the The chairman of the full House employed. According to reports from selection of new subcommittee chair­ Committee on Science and Technol­ the scientific community, Levitt said, men in key committees of the House ogy remains Don Fuqua (D-Fla.). He the OMB transition team had rec­ should change the prospects for ad­ also now heads the Subcommittee on ommended that approximately $50 vanced nuclear, breeder, and fusion Energy Development and Applica­ million could be cut from the DOE's authorizations in the 97th Congress. tions. The Space Science and Appli­ fiscal year 1982 request for the mag­ The most important new assign­ cations Subcommittee, formerly netic fusion program. If this were ments include: headed by Fuqua, is now chaired by done, Levitt pointed out, we would Senator James McClure (R-ldaho)— Rep. Ronnie Flippo (D-Ala.). repeat the blunders of the Carter ad­ chairman, Senate Committee on En­ Representative Tom Bevill (D-Ala.) ministration, which chopped $60 mil­ ergy and Natural Resources. remains chairman of the Subcommit­ lion from the Ford administration's Senator Pete Domenici (R-N.M.)— tee for Energy and Water of the House fusion budget request. chairman, Budget Committee, and Appropriations Committee. These cuts led to a cutback in vital chairman, Subcommittee on Research programs in fusion from which the and Development of the Senate En­ program has still yet to recover, Levitt ergy Committee. stressed. Supporting the Edwards As leading members of the Senate nomination, Levitt said that he hoped Energy Committee in the last Con­ the policy issues he raised would be gress, both McClure and Domenici given close attention by both Edwards were proponents of high technology and the Senate Energy Committee. and nuclear development. Testifying along similar lines, Susan Senator Mark Hatfield (R-Ore.)— Kokinda of the National Democratic chairman of the Senate Committee Policy Committee stressed that the on Appropriations. federal government has a crucial role As ranking Republican on the En­ to play in the area of advanced ergy Committee in the last Congress, research and development. "Over- Hatfield supported fusion develop­ zealous budget-balancing mentality, ment but not nuclear energy. applied to the wrong areas of R&D," Representative Marilyn Bouquard (D- she said, could be devastating to the Tenn.)—chairman of the Subcommit­ possibilities of actual economic re­ tee for Energy Research and Produc­ covery." tion of the House Committee on Sci­ Kokinda explained that "Economic ence and Technology. growth will be restored and inflation Rep. Bouquard has been an brought under control, not merely by outspoken supporter of both the cutting taxes and certainly not by an breeder and fusion; she assumes the indiscriminate meat-axe approach to chairmanship of the subcommittee McC/ure (left) and Domenici: both the budget, but by the 'shock-wave' formerly chaired by Congressman pronuclear and profusion.

60 FUSION May 1981 Energy News/Washington space technology to problems on Earth," Frosch said. Carter Bans Many However, he warned that the bud­ Chemical Exports get is "not as good as it should be if we are to revitalize NASA as the cut­ A last-minute executive order ting edge of our scientific and tech­ signed by former President Jimmy nological progress." Carter Jan. 15, "On Federal Policy Now, NASA sources report, the Of­ Regarding the Export of Banned or fice of Management and Budget of Significantly Restricted Substances," the new Reagan administration has was the Carter administration's most proposed to cut $629 million out of far-reaching attack on the chemical the budget request—a 9 percent cut. industry and chemical use. The OMB recommends that the The order calls on the U.S. State cuts come primarily in the space sci­ Department to notify recipient coun­ ence programs, including cancella­ tries of restrictions or bans that have tion of the Galileo mission to Jupiter been placed on chemical products and the Venus Orbiting Imaging Ra­ they import from the United States; dar mission, in addition to a delay of it requires that these proscriptions be NASA Budget the fourth orbiter vehicle for the published annually with all U.S. agen­ Under the Axe Space Shuttle. When the shuttle pro­ cies; it instructs U.S. agencies to en­ gram was authorized in 1972, it was courage international cooperation on Outgoing NASA administrator Dr. supposed to have five reusable vehi­ all aspects of the environmental con­ Robert Frosch released the Carter ad­ cles for space transportation. siderations; and, lastly, the order gives ministration's fiscal year 1982 budget Scientists at the Jet Propulsion Lab­ a government task force the authority request for the space agency to the oratory in California are most con­ to ban "a very small number of es­ press in mid-January, calling for a 21 cerned about the possible cuts. JPL pecially hazardous substances." percent increase over the previous manages all of NASA's planetary pro­ The executive order took the year's budget. Taking into account grams and with the cutbacks and de­ chemical industry by surprise, be­ inflation, the budget request of $6.7 lays of the past four years, JPL has cause the administration had prom­ billion is an approximate 10 percent already been forced to take on De­ ised up until the last minute that Car­ real raise in the agency's spending partment of Energy work that is not ter would not sign the order and capability. related to space to keep from laying because the final version of the order "This is a good budget which moves off scientists. is more damaging to the industry than us forward toward a new era of space Senator Harrison Schmitt (R-N.M.), the original version. transportation with the space shuttle an outspoken advocate of the space The order will have a potentially and provides for continued progress effort, will hold a special Washington devastating impact on Third World in the areas of aeronautics, space sci­ briefing Feb. 23 to state his views on countries, in advertising that the gov­ ence and the practical applications of the NASA programs. ernment is importing chemicals con­ sidered dangerous by some, even though the chemical—DDT or 2,4,5- world order based on environmental- T, for example—might be necessary Global 2000 ism." This group, consisting of Trila­ for the population's well-being. Fur­ Continued from page 18 teral Commission members, is aug­ thermore, the order adds to the mo­ the government in turn maps onto an mented by former secretary of state mentum for an international environ­ outside operation composed of some Muskie, one of the founders of the mental policing agency—an very powerful former administration Earth Day celebrations. international Environmental Protec­ officials. A few months ago, the Com­ Below this elite corps of environ­ tion Agency—that will stand in the mittee for the Year 2000 was formed, mentalists is the Citizens Committee way of Third World development. whose specific goal is to implement for Global 2000, the Audubon Society, The order sets another dangerous the Global 2000 Report. The key in­ and other environmentalist sectlets. precedent in placing trade policy in dividuals involved in the group are These groups are turning their atten­ the hands of the State Department, Russell Train; Robert O. Anderson, tion from protecting endangered an­ where it can be used as a foreign chairman of the board of ARCO and imal populations to reducing the hu­ policy tool. And it will discourage the head of the environmentalist Aspen man population. development of new chemicals by the Institute; former ambassador Elliot industry, because they might one day Richardson; and former secretary of This article was written by Lydia be declared "hazardous" and banned state Cyrus Vance, who according to Schulman and researched by L. Wolfe from the market. close associates "seeks to create a of the Executive Intelligence Review.

Energy News/Washington May 1981 FUSION 61 est lands east of the 100th meridian We are not disheartened by the Letters ... for review as to suitability or non- sentiments expressed in the memo­ Continued from page 8 suitability for preservation. . . ." randum cited in the Fusion article. the secretary of agriculture, has the Congress clearly intended just that. We see some promise in the fact that authority even to propose areas for It was concerned about bureaucrats those who will be responsible for set­ wilderness designation." And he goes withdrawing national forest lands ting public policy in the coming years on to cite Jack Brettler's contention from harvesting, grazing, and other have shown an awareness of the need that the Wilderness Act of 1964 was uses, and didn't want protracted "wil­ to reevaluate government regulatory not supposed to go into effect until derness studies" to be a subterfuge to programs. Hopefully, with the sup­ 1984. Mr. Engdahl, and perhaps Mr. take forest lands out of production. port and encouragement of inter­ Brettler, should reread these laws. The outcome of the North Carolina ested citizens like you, government Section 4 of the Eastern Wilderness trial will be an important indication of policies will be developed to enhance Act designates several areas, including whether environmentalist barriers can rather than impede the steel indus­ "certain lands on the Pisgah National be reversed through the courts. try's revitalization... . Forest, North Carolina," for wilder­ William Engdahl David Roderick ness study, to determine their suita­ Contributing Editor U.S. Steel Corporation bility or nonsuitability for wilderness, Pittsburgh, Pa. and directs that the secretary of agri­ U.S. Steel on EPA culture report his findings to the Pres­ 'We Are Not ident who is to recommend to the The Space Shuttle Congress whether these areas should Disheartened' be designated for wilderness or non- To the Editor: wilderness use. That's directly oppo­ Upon reading about an in-house I would really like to thank you for site from Mr. Engdahl's contention. memorandum of the Environmental your cover story in the January issue Douglas R. Leisz Protection Agency advocating the about the space program. Very few Associate Chief gradual phase-out of the American people are aware of the huge eco­ USDA Forest Service steel industry, Fusion reader George nomic benefits we received from it. Washington, D.C. Stafford brought the matter to the As the Space Shuttle nears its first attention of U.S. Steel chairman David launch into orbit, people need to The Editor Replies •Roderick. Here is Mr. Stafford's letter know how this program can greatly The case of the Southern Appala­ and excerpts from Mr. Roderick's help us in the future. Please keep up chian Multiple Use Council et a/, v. response. the good work. Bergland, Secretary of Agriculture, Ted Apelt went to trial in Asheville, N.C. in Jan­ Dear Sir: Miami, Fla. uary. Initiated by geologist Jack B. Having a wife who has owned U.S. Brettler and joined by representatives Steel stock for many years and being a patriotic citizen, I was shocked upon of the forest products industry, the The Editor Replies American and North Carolina Farm reading an article in the Jan. 1981 The latest results on the progress of Bureau, and conservationist groups, issue of Fusion magazine titled the Space Shuttle will be covered in the suit is the major challenge in the "Secret EPA Memo Plans End to U.S. an upcoming issue. A timely letter to courts to the Roadless Area Review Steel Industry." President Reagan to express your sup­ Evaluation (RARE II) initiated by for­ There is no question but that you port for an expanded NASA space mer Agriculture Secretary Bergland, are well aware of the EPA's strangling program might be in order, since pro­ under which millions of acres of po­ regulations, but were you aware of posals to slash the NASA budget are tentially mineral-rich land have been this plan to destroy our most basic being considered now. locked up pending possible wilder­ industry? ness designation. George F. Stafford At the trial Hamilton C. Horton, Jr., St. Petersburg, Fla. principal attorney for the Multiple In Appreciation Use Council, argued for a mandatory injunction to stop the illegal govern­ Dear Mr. Stafford: To the Editor: ment lockup, declaring that Congress Thank you for your letter. . . . The Fusion is a fantastic magazine. We had explicitly reserved to itself the thrust of the memorandum to which have a son who is on ... a fast attack authority to designate what should or you refer is to deny the need for nuclear submarine. He read Fusion should not become wilderness under regulatory relief which we consider while home on leave and found it the Eastern Wilderness Act of 1975. to be an important measure the gov­ quite interesting. It also relieved The act in fact reads: "Congress ernment must implement in order for some of my feelings about nuclear may, upon recommendation of the the steel industry to surmount our exposure. Secretary of Agriculture or otherwise, present difficulties and emerge strong Barbara Vernon designate as study areas national for­ and competitive. . . . Vallejo, Calif.

62 FUSION May 1981 THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL Advanced of Technology FUSION ENERGY Materials for Coming in the next issue Nuclear Radiation Shielding Thermonuclear Ignition by Means of Compact Devices B. Coppi, R. Pozzoli, E. Sindoni, and A. Taroni Bulk Masonry Magnetic confinement fusion in small, economically feasible devices is Construction investigated. Pothole Repair The Beginnings of a Deterministic Theory of Turbulence (Asphalt or Concrete) S. Bardwell Masonry Maintenance The amazing results of experiments and examination of the Voyager data on Jupiter imply that coherent structures are the rule, not the exception. Wm. Cornelius Hall, Managing Director Metallic Mortars International, Ltd. 10 Lower Abbey Street The IJFE, the theoretical publication of the Fusion Energy Foundation, will Dublin, 1 Ireland expand to a larger, semiannual journal in 1981. Subscriptions are $50 per volume. Tel. (01)74-28-26 For more information, contact Dr. John Schoonover, Fusion Energy Foundation, Suite 2404, 888 Seventh Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10019. (212) 265-3749.

Bring the space age home. Eight stunning NASA photographs, color enhanced by a special process, are now available from FEF. You'll want several of these classic space- age photographs for yourself and for gifts. These unique photographs are printed on Kodak paper by Maxtron Industries, and each photo is fer- rotyped to give it a brilliant glossy surface. The photographs can be purchas­ ed unmounted, with bevel-cut mat- board, or matted and framed in silver anodized section frame.

Each issue of The Young Scientist magazine tells readers about the scientists, exper­ iments, and discoveries on the frontiers of science today—and yesterday.

Why are the Saturn results important? How does genetic engineering work? Why are soap bubbles shaped like spheres?

The Young Scientist answers questions like this in every issue—and has puzzles and experiments, interviews, news, and photo­ graphic tours of the nation's leading scientific labs, museums, and high- technology industries. Published bimonthly by the Fusion Energy Foundation, The Young Scientist is part of a nationwide cam­ paign to reverse the collapse of American science education.

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Fill out the insert card opposite this paqe. In This Issue

FEF BANQUET HONORS DR. GOTTLIEB Dr. Melvin Gottlieb, who recently retired as director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, was the guest of honor at a banquet ponsored by the FEF Feb. 6 at New York's Hotel Eiltmore, where 350 fusion supporters paid tribute to his 25-year fusion career. "Mel is an authentic American hero/' said Dr. Morris Levitt, executive director of the FEF. The program included three generations of fusion scientists.

SOLVING THE SATURN PUZZLE The spectacular views of the Saturnian system brought to us by Voyager 1 are not an unsolvable puzzle, as many have claimed. Although the new data challenge the basic concepts of Newtonian physics, Dr. John Schoonover shows how seemingly inexplicable phe- 1 nomena not only can be explained, but also can teach us much about the evolution of the universe.

BEHIND THE DECLINE IN U.S. EDUCATION The facts and figures of the decline in U.S. education are plain enough to most Americans. Not so well recognized is the role of leading educator Jean Piaget in causing the down- slide. Mary Gilbertson assesses the damage wrought by Piaget's theories and Dr. Steven Bardwell examines how the New Math is neither new nor mathematics.

The Cover. Above: Dr. Gottlieb addressing the banquet audience and Gott­ lieb and Levitt at a press conference at FEF headquarters, Carlos de Hoyos; Voyager's view of Saturn and its rings at 3.3 million miles, NASA; Jean Piaget from an illustration by Etienne Delessert in a book written by Piaget for young children, How the Mouse Was Hit on the Head by a Stone and So Discovered the World, © 1971 by Etienne Delessert, published by Doubleday & Company, Inc. Front cover: Photographs of children learning about science by Virginia Baier, Carlos de Hoyos, Philip Ulanowsky, Carlos Wesley, and USDA. Cover design by Christopher Sloan.