ARMS-D-Request@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU (Moderator) (02/26/86)
Arms-Discussion Digest Tuesday, February 25, 1986 7:50PM
Volume 6, Issue 55
Today's Topics:
any women here?
Galileo plutonium
Advanced Light Source
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Date: Tue, 25 Feb 86 9:46:31 EST
From: Bruce Nevin <bnevin@bbncch.ARPA>
Subject: any women here?
Re: any women here?
I apologize for not requesting that answers to my question be sent to me
directly.
Three women responded to the list, one to me directly. That is a total of
four. Something less than 1%, Herb?
The ratio of women to men in our shared CS environment is lower than the
51% in the general population, but not that low. It cannot be said that
women are uninterested in issues of arms and arms control. There have to
be other reasons for this pattern in the self-selecting whereby this forum
constitutes itself.
My notion (excerpted from a note to my off-list respondant):
> Reason I asked is because I think discussion here gets oppressively
> stuck in what our culture makes predominantly `male' modes of thought
> and discourse. Women and orientals characteristically give more
> importance to relationships, while men and occidentals
> [stereo?]typically give more emphasis to the relata as isolates. There
> is generally an aching need for more relation-talk and less relata-talk
> in our world. I have learned to appreciate this from Gregory Bateson's
> ideas about cybernetics and from training in family therapy, among other
> things.
If this is totally uninteresting or outside the scope of this forum, say
so. I think it has everything to do with negotiation, arms control, etc
as distinct from throw weights, arms, etc.
Bruce
[[From the Moderator: This subject is clearly not in the domain of
technical defense issues, but the question of gender differences and
concern about issues of war and peace are relevant in my scheme of
things. I am not sure where this discussion will go in the long run,
but in the meantime, I am inclined to give it free rein for at least a
few rounds unless people object strongly.
Herb]]
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Date: Tue, 25 Feb 86 11:59:21 EST
From: Herb Lin <LIN@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Galileo plutonium
From: Paul Dietz <dietz%slb-doll.csnet at CSNET-RELAY.ARPA>
The ET went off with the force of a small atomic bomb, but even an atom
bomb doesn't necessarily destroy everything nearby.
Clearly this depends on "how near". If it's in the fireball, it's
dead no matter what it is. That's the primary difference between a
conventional explosion of 1000 tons TNT equivalent (i.e., the
Challenger) and a small nuke of 1 KT yield -- the blast equivalent may
be the same, but the temperatures involved are VERY different, since
the TIME that it takes for the nuclear explosion is much smaller.
If a 1 KT nuke had gone off underneath the Challenger (actually, on
top of it), nothing significant would be left.
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Date: Tuesday, 25 February 1986 14:44-EST
From: michael%ucbiris at BERKELEY.EDU (Tom Slone [(415)486-5954])
To: arms-d@mit-xx
Re: Advanced Light Source
From a colleague of mine, here at Lawrence Berkeley Labs:
"[The Advanced Light Source (ALS)] is a 1 GeV synchrotron, and will
produce strong coherent beams of x-rays and ultraviolet. It's of
great interest and, in my opinion, great worth, to biologists studying
living cells, makers of computer chips, and people who study
properties of the surfaces of materials. The military has a lot of
interest in a 6 GeV machine, but that is not in the works right now
because there are as yet unsolved technical difficulties in building
it (which I don't presently know anything about). That machine
wouldn't fit on our site [Lawrence Berkeley Labs], and we aren't
interested in it. They want it to study "hardening" of electronics
from the electromagnetic pulse from a nuclear bomb explosion, not as
part of SDI. They will want to use the ALS also, since it's the
closest thing to what they need, and I understand that they will be
able to use it, but will wait in line with everyone else."
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End of Arms-Discussion Digest
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