DOE labs shouldn't be involved in fundamental science?
That's funny, since LLNL was founded by Teller, who strongly believed that a strong fundamental research component was essential to the vitality of the lab.
Why? Good scientists want to work on real scientific problems, not figure out the reason why some piece of plastic is degrading inside a bomb. At the same time, they must be expected to work on practical problems of importance to the mission. As in any labor market, if you want top quality staff, you need to do what you need to do to attract them. That means having some fraction of their time devoted to good, original science.
The alternative is to hire people with no ambition, content to work on whatever is handed to them, in exchange for a paycheck.
Sorry, you don't want C students in charge of nuclear weapons.
9 comments:
OP: Sorry, you don't want C students in charge of nuclear weapons.
Look no farther than the current LANS DIRS, PADS and ADS to see what happens when the C students are in charge.
OP: Sorry, you don't want C students in charge of nuclear weapons.
Look no farther than the current LANS DIRS, PADS and ADS to see what happens when the C students are in charge.
LLNL used to be hardcore science years ago. In the old physics directorate you were expected to pump out the papers. I don't know about now.
Nuclear weapons science is rich and difficult. As long a weapons exist people will study them.
Doing your job is not inconsistent with having ambition. In fact it's what you do if you want to move up to more responsible positions. Not doing your job, and spending your time on some pet science project that has nothing to do with your job, might also be consistent with having ambition if your ambition is to go work someplace else. Good scientists can do publishable related research in parallel with classified work, it's been going on for decades. Not so good scientists can't make the connections, and think true science must be esoteric and completely divorced from practical applications or drivers.
No, DOE weapons labs shouldn't be involved in fundamental science. That's what universities and the other DOE science labs are for. The weapons labs are for engineering and applied science. If you want to study solar eclipsed, sea floor vents, basic organic chemistry or photonic crystals, get a job at a university or Argonne. I'm sick of this B-rate science talent trying to divert valuable LDRD dollars to their pet projects to line their resumes, because they couldn't get tenure at Texas A&M.
No, DOE weapons labs shouldn't be involved in fundamental science. That's what universities and the other DOE science labs are for. The weapons labs are for engineering and applied science. If you want to study solar eclipsed, sea floor vents, basic organic chemistry or photonic crystals, get a job at a university or Argonne. I'm sick of this B-rate science talent trying to divert valuable LDRD dollars to their pet projects to line their resumes, because they couldn't get tenure at Texas A&M.
August 30, 2017 at 8:25 PM
Nailed it!
No, DOE weapons labs shouldn't be involved in fundamental science. That's what universities and the other DOE science labs are for. The weapons labs are for engineering and applied science. If you want to study solar eclipsed, sea floor vents, basic organic chemistry or photonic crystals, get a job at a university or Argonne. I'm sick of this B-rate science talent trying to divert valuable LDRD dollars to their pet projects to line their resumes, because they couldn't get tenure at Texas A&M.
August 30, 2017 at 8:25 PM
Translation: I am a bitter loser who has no idea of what science is, why we need it at LLNL, LANL, why LDRD is valuable, or how science has served the lab since the laboratory started. I feel intimidated by hard working talented people who remind me of how worthless I am. I cannot get LDRD money because I don't have a single idea nor do I understand how to carry out a project. I call anything I do not understand "pet projects" because I have no idea what I am talking about nor do I have the intellectual capabilities to really understand how science applied or fundamental work or how they are connected. The last thing I want are top people at the lab trying to understand organic chemistry since we don't study kitty litter. And we certainly do not need people trying to understand the fundamental science behind
materials under extreme condition, how the age, dynamic response, plasmas, shock waves, chemistry, equations of state, turbulence, atomic process, high energy physics, large scale computing. Since I have no idea what these things are so I can assume they are worthless crap. The reality is that I am a parasite that has contributed absoutly nothing and I am worried that if smart people that can contribute to the lab work at the lab I will be found out. I am a true POS that does not belong at the lab and and have no place in its legacy, but I have to attack all the is good and valuable since it is the only thing I can do. And yes I got rejected from Texas A&M when I applied to it as undergraduate and that is why I denigrate it. Also all those staff that have left the lab over the last 20 years that did get tenure at all those top schools like Stanford, Cornell, MIT, U Texas, Google, Microsoft, and Upenn. Well I will say the do not exist but actually I am extremely jealous of those people and wish they never worked at the labs. I hate anything that has value, beauty or greatness.
^^^Crazy Mr. Prove It is back.
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