The Good Servant: Making Peace with the Bomb at Los Alamos

Since the end of U.S. and Soviet nuclear weapons testing in 1992 and the subsequent reduction in nuclear warheads, scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico have modestly branched out into nonmilitary research, turning swords into plowshares. Bailey, who lives in New Mexico and writes about science for the Los Angeles Times, interviewed Los Alamos physicists for this report. Materials scientist Dave Cuchane is conducting a geothermal energy project for tapping heat from Earth's interior. A Los Alamos team is using superconducting sensors to construct a multidimensional model of human brain activity. Bailey also visited Neutrino Village in the Soviet Caucasus, where Los Alamos scientists have collaborated with Russian physicists on an underground telescope that examines subatomic particles to prove that the supposedly massless neutrino has mass. Interviews with weapon scientists, bomb designers and testers round out a sobering, hopeful appraisal of America's post-Cold War nuclear weapons program. (Sept.)