ArchiveDecember 2021

Messes

I’ve been quiet on this blog over the last quarter of 2021, partly with good reason. The reason: I’ve been drafting chapters that have turned into boggy messes. When I possess a coherent, plotted chapter, I know precisely what research material belongs to the book and what is left over. Some of the leftover “stuff” has inherent interest, in which case I blog it. A messy. . .

Secrecy is as secrecy does

Here’s a throwaway tiny piece of nuclear news from the February 1954 edition of Nucleonics, the world’s first nuclear trade journal, then in its infancy: India, a poor, undeveloped country, was setting up a swanky nuclear institute near Bombay. “A 1.2 Mev Cockcroft-Walton generator is operating,” the article informs us, “in temporary quarters of the Tata Institute. . .

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