Western Michigan University - The Continuing Risk of Nuclear War
2024-03-18 16:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York)
Abstract
With the end of the Cold War and the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the public, including most physicists, and Congress, assumed, the danger of a nuclear war had ended as well.Unfortunately, that has not been the case. Indeed, the danger of accidental nuclear war may be increasing. US and Russian strategic missiles remain in a launch-on-warning posture in an era when hackers have penetrated some of our supposedly most secure computer systems and China appears to be moving toward a similar posture. Both Russia and the United States have committed to hugely costly programs to replace their nuclear weapons with new systems designed to maintain that status quo for the remainder of the century. Meanwhile, an offense-defense nuclear arms race is developing between the US and China, which is building up the number of its nuclear weapons that can reach the US as the US increases the number of its ballistic missile interceptors – nominally to defend against North Korea.
In the past, independent physicists have played leading roles in informing Congress and the world about the dangers and offering ideas for how to reduce them – both unilaterally and through agreements with our adversaries. The American Physical Society has supported the Physicists Coalition for Nuclear Threat Reduction during its first two years to help renew the engagement of physicists and other physical scientists and engineers with Congress and the public on nuclear-weapons issues.
Following the colloquium, there will be a discussion of opportunities to contribute to this effort.
About the Speaker
Dr. Frank N. von Hippel, a theoretical particle physicist by training, is a Senior Research Physicist and Professor of Public and International Affairs emeritus at Princeton University. He co-founded Princeton’s Program on Science and Global Security, the International Panel on Fissile Materials, and the Physicist’s Coalition for Nuclear Threat Reduction. During the 1980s, he worked with Soviet physicists advising Mikhail Gorbachev on initiatives to end the nuclear arms race and the Cold War. During 1993-4, he worked in the White House Office of Science and Technology on nuclear policy issues including improving the security of Russia’s fissile materials, partnering with Russia on a global effort to convert research reactors from weapon-grade to low-enriched uranium fuel, and disposing of the plutonium from excess Cold War warheads.

Uppsala University - Reducing the Risks of Nuclear Weapons
2024-03-26 17:00 - 18:00 (Europe/Paris)
Abstract

After a long period of post-Cold War stability, the risks posed by nuclear weapons are increasing sharply. This is marked by the invasion of Ukraine, a nuclear generation of Russian nuclear weapons, expansion of China’s nuclear arsenal and tensions over Taiwan, missile testing by North Korea and uranium enrichment by Iran, and a major nuclear modernization program in the United States, with calls for substantial increases to respond to Russia and China. Physicists played an important role in nuclear debates during the Cold War; they can play an important role again in this new period of increased nuclear risk.

About the Speaker

Steve Fetter is a senior visiting fellow in the Center for Security Studies at ETH Zurich, on sabbatical leave from the University of Maryland, where he is professor in the School of Public Policy and former dean. He led the national security division in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy during the Obama administration and served in the Department of Defense in the Clinton administration. He received an S.B. in physics from MIT and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.

Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility - Oppenheimer and the Legacy of the Manhattan Project: Current Challenges in Nuclear Arms Control
2024-03-27
Abstract
80 years ago, Robert Oppenheimer led an industrial scale effort with more than 130,000 employees to create the nuclear fission weapons used to end World War II. With the United States and its allies facing totalitarian aggressors in the European and Pacific theaters, many elite scientists, engineers, and technicians supported the Manhattan Project through their scientific and technological innovations. Today, nine countries possess nuclear weapons. Nuclear non-proliferation diplomacy is increasingly difficult. Important arms control treaties have been terminated: The Intermediate Nuclear Force Treaty, the Iran Nuclear Deal and the Open Skies Treaty. Most recently, Russia has paused its participation in the inspection regime of the New START treaty. The colloquium will review consequences of nuclear war and nuclear terrorism and explain the system of arms control treaties that have been put into place to contain this threat. We will then review the challenges different arms control agreements have been facing.

About the Speaker
Dr. Matthias Grosse Perdekamp is a nuclear physicist at the University of Illinois. He serves as head of the Department of Physics and as director of the UIUC Program for Arms Control and Domestic and International Security, ACDIS. He explores the Physics of nuclear forces and the structure of the fundamental building blocks of nuclear matter through accelerator-based experiments at European Laboratory for Nuclear and Particle Physics, CERN, in Geneva Switzerland. His laboratory is developing advanced instrumentation for the detection of ionizing radiation. He teaches a longstanding course on Nuclear War and Arms Control as part of the ACDIS security certificate for undergraduate students at UIUC.

College of William and Mary - The Continuing Risk of Nuclear War
2024-03-29

Reforming nuclear weapons policy, plutonium problems, and how physicists can help - Portland State University
2024-05-20
Abstract
Physicists invented nuclear weapons over seventy-five years ago. Today, they still threaten humanity with catastrophe and, recently, this risk has been increasing. The US has over 1,500 deployed nuclear weapons plus thousands more inactive or retired. Current policy calls for maintaining and “modernizing” about 4,000 nuclear warheads and their delivery vehicles, at the cost of several tens of billions of dollars per year and significant risks to the environment and public health. Physicists can play an important role in providing scientific oversight and advocating for reform. I will discuss issues associated with plutonium pit production as a case study. Further details on the plutonium pit issue: Modern thermonuclear weapons contain plutonium pits, which are hollow spherical shells of plutonium metal, as part of their fission triggers. These pits are inherently difficult, costly and hazardous to produce. The Rocky Flats pit production plant, near Denver, Colorado, was closed because of environmental infractions in 1992. Since then, pit production expertise has been maintained at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Current US policy calls for the production of 80 pits per year by 2030, despite the National Nuclear Security Administration (within the Department of Energy) acknowledging that this is unachievable. Furthermore, the justification for this production goal is controversial, as is the construction of a new production facility at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, which is to cost over ten billion dollars and will pose significant risks to the surrounding community. The public deserves better and more transparent study of the policy options.
About the Speaker
Curtis T. Asplund is an assistant professor in the Physics & Astronomy Department at San José State University. Prior to this, he was a visiting faculty member at Franklin & Marshall College, and earlier was a high school teacher for several years near Washington, D.C. He completed his postdoctoral studies at Columbia University and KU Leuven, and he earned his Ph.D. from UC Santa Barbara, where he studied theoretical aspects of black holes and entanglement in quantum field theory. His interests in ethics, public policy, and the role of scientists in society emerged in his original stomping grounds of Southern California and were developed further in the liberal arts climate of his undergraduate alma mater, Oberlin College. His perspective on American military power is informed by growing up on and around U.S. military bases and having close family serving in the Marine Corps. Recently, he has studied nuclear weapons policy as a Next- Generation Fellow with the Physicists Coalition for Nuclear Threat Reduction.

Oppenheimer and the Legacy of the Manhattan Project: Current Challenges in Nuclear Arms Control | University of Toronto
2024-09-19 15:00 - 16:30 (America/Toronto)
Abstract
Eighty years ago, Robert Oppenheimer led an industrial-scale effort with more than 130,000 employees to create the nuclear fission weapons used to end World War II. With the United States and its allies facing totalitarian aggressors in the European and Pacific theaters, many elite scientists, engineers and technicians supported the Manhattan Project through their scientific and technological innovations.
Today, nine countries possess nuclear weapons. Nuclear non-proliferation diplomacy is increasingly difficult. Important arms control treaties have been terminated: The Intermediate Nuclear Force Treaty, the Iran Nuclear Deal and the Open Skies Treaty. Most recently, Russia has paused its participation in the inspection regime of the New START treaty.
The colloquium will review consequences of nuclear war and nuclear terrorism and explain the system of arms control treaties that have been put into place to contain this threat. We will then review the challenges different arms control agreements have been facing.
Speaker: Dr. Matthias Grosse Perdekamp

Reforming Nuclear Weapons policy, Plutonium Problems, and How Physicists Can Help | Simon Fraser University
2024-10-04
Colloquium Abstract: Physicists invented nuclear weapons over seventy-five years ago. Today, they still threaten humanity with catastrophe and, recently, this risk has been increasing. The US has over 1,500 deployed nuclear weapons plus thousands more inactive or retired. Current policy calls for maintaining and “modernizing” about 4,000 nuclear warheads and their delivery vehicles, at the cost of several tens of billions of dollars per year and significant risks to the environment and public health. Physicists can play an important role in providing scientific oversight and advocating for reform. I will discuss issues associated with plutonium pit production as a case study.
Further details on the plutonium pit issue: Modern thermonuclear weapons contain plutonium pits, which are hollow spherical shells of plutonium metal, as part of their fission triggers. These pits are inherently difficult, costly and hazardous to produce. The Rocky Flats pit production plant, near Denver, Colorado, was closed because of environmental infractions in 1992. Since then, pit production expertise has been maintained at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Current US policy calls for the production of 80 pits per year by 2030, despite the National Nuclear Security Administration (within the Department of Energy) acknowledging that this is unachievable. Furthermore, the justification for this production goal is controversial, as is the construction of a new production facility at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, which is to cost over ten billion dollars and will pose significant risks to the surrounding community. The public deserves better and more transparent study of the policy options.
Speaker: Dr. Curtis Asplund

The Growing Danger of Nuclear Weapons (and What Physicists Can do About it) | University of Manitoba
2024-10-04
Colloquium Abstract
The world is in a precarious place right now and nuclear risk is higher than it has been in decades. The war in Ukraine has brought latent fears about nuclear war back to the surface. In recent years, the US has withdrawn from several arms control agreements that constrained US and Russian arsenals, and the last remaining treaty with Russia expires in 2026. Both the US and Russia are engaged in building a new generation of nuclear weapons. Physicists were, and still are, key actors in the nuclear weapons enterprise. From the very beginning of the nuclear weapons story, physicists have engaged policymakers about nuclear dangers and advocated for policies to reduce them. Given the growing risks, physicists need to renew their role in educating the public and policymakers.

Speaker
Tara Drozdenko

U.S. Missile Defense Programs | Illinois State University
2024-10-08
Title: U.S. Missile Defense Programs: A Case Study in the Interaction of Science, Technology, and Public Policy

Abstract
During the past 70 years, the United States has spent $400 billion on ballistic missile defense, mostly on systems intended to intercept nuclear-armed intercontinental-range missiles that might be launched against the United States. But would these systems be able to defend effectively against an attack by such missiles? As I will describe, despite decades of effort, no missile defense system thus far developed has been shown to be effective against realistic ICBM threats. (ICBMs are ballistic missiles with a range of more than 3,500 nautical miles.) In particular, the capabilities of the current U.S. systems intended to defend against the nuclear-armed ICBMs that North Korea has deployed are relatively low, and are likely to remain low for at least the next 15 years. The ability of these systems to defend against the ICBMs deployed by Russia and China is even less. Despite the ineffectiveness of these systems, their existence—and proposals for new defensive systems—have spurred the deployment by U.S. adversaries of new nuclear weapons designed to overcome them. I will discuss how scientists and the general public can help address this danger.

About the speaker

Frederick Lamb is a Research Professor of Physics and of Astronomy, the Brand and Monica Fortner Chair of Theoretical Astrophysics Emeritus, and a core faculty member in the Arms Control and Domestic & International Security Program at the University of Illinois. An expert on space policy, ballistic missiles and missile defenses, and the technical aspects of nuclear test bans, he has been a consultant to the Defense Department, national laboratories, and Congressional committees. He co-chaired the American Physical Society’s 2003 study of boost-phase missile defense and is chairing its current study of missile defenses. The current focus of his scientific research is high-energy and relativistic astrophysics and dense matter. He is a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Fellow of the APS. He shared the 2005 Leo Szilard Award of the APS for his leadership of the 2003 study of missile defense and received the 2021 APS Five Sigma Physicist Award for his leadership of the current study. He shared the 2022 Bruno Rossi Prize of the American Astronomical Society for his contributions to the success of NASA’s NICER X-ray astronomy mission.

For more biographical information, see https://physics.illinois.edu/people/directory/profile/fkl

Nuclear Fusion | Colloquium at Illinois State University
2024-10-22
Speaker: Dr. Stewart Prager
This talk is part of the Twelve Thousand Bombs seminar series.
The series on nuclear weapons included four eminent scholars and public figures speaking at ISU. The series, sponsored by the Office of Research and Graduate Studies, was inaugurated in 2023 and aims to raise awareness of nuclear weapons issues in the Bloomington-Normal community.
“Nuclear weapons will be on everyone’s radar this election cycle as Americans assess the fitness of the candidates to exercise the president’s nuclear authority,” according to Dr. Matt Caplan, the series organizer and professor in the Department of Physics. “With the U.S. preparing to spend $1.5 trillion modernizing its arsenal, nuclear weapons policy may be a defining feature of the next president’s administration. This is not an issue that can be overlooked this election.”

Actionable Ideas for Nuclear Threat Reduction | University of Alabama
2024-10-23
Abstract
In this talk, I will give a brief overview of the resurgent role of nuclear weapons in national security strategies, the threat that they pose to the public, and potential risk mitigation approaches. Recent events, including the U.S. withdrawal from arms control treaties and the pursuit of new nuclear weapons capabilities in the nine nuclear weapons states, suggest we may be facing a revived nuclear arms race with its dangerous consequences. In this context, during the past three years, a group of US physical scientists has held more than 100 colloquia on nuclear weapons, reaching more than 4,000 attendees, and recruited over 850 scientists to the Physicists Coalition for Nuclear Threat Reduction through which scientists educate themselves and then help educate Congress about the renewed risks of nuclear war and the possibilities for reducing those risks. Members have engaged in several advocacy campaigns aimed at reducing the threat of nuclear weapons by preventing the resumption of explosive nuclear testing, extending the New START treaty, and promoting the adoption of a no-first-use policy.
Speaker: Dr. Angela Di Fulvio

Auburn University
2024-11-08
Speaker:
Dr. Stewart Prager
More information will be available closer to the event.

How to Avert the Coming Arms Race | University of Saskatchewan
2024-12-03 03:30 - 04:30 (America/New_York) | Virtual
Abstract
China, Russia, and the United States are ramping up their nuclear weapons capabilities in a replay of the Cold War. We survived the nuclear confrontation between the U.S. and the Soviet Union largely by luck. The close calls of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 and the War Scare of 1983 frightened leaders in both countries, and led to landmark arms control and arms reduction agreements. Intervention by scientists and the public played a major role. Triggered by the U.S. withdrawal from the Nixon-era Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty, Russia and China are deploying new weapons to circumvent U.S. ABM capabilities, while the U.S. is modernizing its land, sea, and air-based nuclear weapons. Here I describe four major elements of a possible initiative to turn around this situation and assure strategic stability, while reducing nuclear arsenals. 1) Limit Ballistic Missile Defenses, 2) Eliminate silo-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, 3) Ban sub-strategic nuclear arms in Europe, and 4) Ban nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missiles. This talk was sponsored by the Physicists Coalition for Nuclear Threat Reduction, https://physicistscoalition.org/. We invite all scientists to join us.
About the Speaker
Robert J. Goldston is a Professor of Astrophysics at Princeton University. He received his B.A. in Physics from Harvard University, and his Ph.D. in Astrophysics from Princeton University. He was director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), 1997 – 2009. He is Associated Faculty with the Program on Science and Global Security, and was acting director in Spring 2015. Goldston won the American Physical Society “Excellence in Plasma Physics” award in 1988 and chaired the American Physical Society Physics Policy Committee 2007–2009. He won the Fusion Power Associates Leadership Award in 2001, the Nuclear Fusion “Most Outstanding Paper” prize for 2012, and was named a “Leading Global Thinker” by Foreign Policy Magazine in 2014. He is a long-time U.S. representative on the ITER Science and Technology Advisory Committee. He serves on the board of the Council for a Livable World.
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University of Alberta | Oppenheimer and the Legacy of the Manhattan Project: Current Challenges in Nuclear Arms Control
2025-01-24 15:00 - 17:00 (Asia/Krasnoyarsk)
Abstract
Eighty years ago, Robert Oppenheimer led an industrial-scale effort with more than 130,000 employees
to create the nuclear fission weapons used to end World War II. With the United States and its allies facing
totalitarian aggressors in the European and Pacific theaters, many elite scientists, engineers and technicians
supported the Manhattan Project through their scientific and technological innovations.
Today, nine countries possess nuclear weapons. Nuclear non-proliferation diplomacy is increasingly difficult.
Important arms control treaties have been terminated: The Intermediate Nuclear Force Treaty, the Iran
Nuclear Deal and the Open Skies Treaty. Most recently, Russia has paused its participation in the inspection
regime of the New START treaty.
The colloquium will review consequences of nuclear war and nuclear terrorism and explain the system of
arms control treaties that have been put into place to contain this threat. We will then review the challenges
different arms control agreements have been facing.
Speaker
Dr. Matthias Grosse Perdekamp
