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Friday, September 20, 2019
The LANL decline continues
The new APS fellows (American Physical Society Fellows) are out for 2019.
LANL 5
LLNL 6
Sandia 2
So it is looking more and more like LLNL is going to the the science leader in the NNSA complex. I doubt that many APS fellows will be given for a production facility.
35 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Doesn’t look like OP can demonstrate any knowledge of statistics.
But is the number of APS fellows really a good measure of scientific leadership? One problem that I’ve noted is that these APS fellow awards often seem to be overly influenced by how many connections the nominee may have to high profile APS members willing to nominate and support the prospective awardee. Another problem is that the difficulty of becoming an APS fellow depends on the particular scientific field in which one is nominated, and I’ve heard of people maneuvering to get nominated in a field in which only a small fraction of their research was done simply because that particular field offered a less competitive path to becoming an APS fellow.
One of the newly named fellows I’ve recently had contact with. He’s not the sharpest guy, but he is a high level manager with a lot of funding responsibilities. I suspect that has a lot to do with it.
"One problem that I’ve noted is that these APS fellow awards often seem to be overly influenced by how many connections the nominee may have to high profile APS members willing to nominate and support the prospective awardee. "
Your experience differs from my experience. If you want some measure of the quality of the place this is a potential measure. Sure you can always say it is problematic however I would contend that it still correlated with the scientific quality, rigor and activity of an institution. LANL use to get twice the number of APS fellows as LLNL but not anymore. This must mean something. 15 years ago LANL was ranked in the top 10 of US intuitions in terms of the number of papers, now it is at 100 or even 150 depending on the metric.
I understand that you can dismiss any statistics, any measure or any evidence. Finley you can simply ask people at Universities, at the NNSA labs and other DOE labs if the quality of science at LANL has declined and you will get an overwhelming response that yes it has greatly declined. I guess in your world everyone must be wrong.
Your last paragraph reveals what you are - simply a troll who has nothing to add but your unsupported opinions. "Just ask people..."? Please. That's your data? You have no business on a board related to science and national security.
"One of the newly named fellows I’ve recently had contact with. He’s not the sharpest guy, but he is a high level manager with a lot of funding responsibilities. I suspect that has a lot to do with it.
9/21/2019 8:06 AM"
Is this a LLNL person or a LANL person? I know all the new LANL people and your description does not fit with anyone of the. I don't know the LLNL people.
I also know how APS fellows are chosen and being a NNSA manager or being responsible for money would have absolutely nothing to do with how the fellows are picked. Now it might get help in you getting nominated but it is your record that determines if you actually get the fellowship. Do you understand how these fellows are chosen from the group of nominations? I suspect you do not.
In fact all you have to do is look up the record recent fellows and you will see that you have to be at a certain level within your field to get it. I have rarely seen exceptions to this.
Bechtel seemed to do everything they could at LANL to get rid of scientists so they could concentrate on where the money was: pit production. Just one of many problems trying to make a scientific laboratory into a pit factory. LLNL seems to have escaped that fate. That is good. The country needs top notch National Laboratories. It may be too late to save LANL.
Concerning the recent post of 9:58pm, I still don’t think that the number of APS fellows is a very good measure of quality of science at an institution. In addition to the points I made, I think that the poster who wrote “He’s not the sharpest guy, but he is a high level manager with a lot of funding responsibilities. I suspect that has a lot to do with it.” had a point. Not saying that a lot of high level managers aren’t scientifically sharp. Most of them are. But I have to think that the reason that managers of big programs get awarded as APS fellows far out of proportion with their actual numbers has more to do with their visibility and their contacts with influential people than it does with their raw scientific record.
I also recall one scientist I knew at LLNL who, to my surprise, I later discovered was an APS fellow. He was a really nice guy, but not particularly remarkable as far as his scientific record. He had a long history of doing good, competent work, but nothing which really stood out compared to work by other good scientists doing similar work at LLNL. So, yes, I was very surprised to learn that he was an APS fellow.
As for using the total number of peer-reviewed papers, including high-profile papers, by an institution, I think that that is a better measure or at least a better starting point for accessing the level of scientific research done at an institution.
-Doug
(P.S.: This system of everyone being named “Anonymous” and us being only able to distinguish each other by the time stamps of the posts is really awkward. Any way that this posting system can be modified so that posters can enter a name when they post a message so that we can refer to each other by name rather than time stamp?)
"Your last paragraph reveals what you are - simply a troll who has nothing to add but your unsupported opinions. "Just ask people..."? Please. That's your data? You have no business on a board related to science and national security.
9/21/2019 6:50 PM"
Data has been provided for you. The last part about asking people is also data if you ask enough people especially people that may have access to other numbers. Suppose you ask about 10-20 people and get a consistent answer, that is telling you something. You than combine that with other data that is out there. To be honest it is you that seem too have have no clue about how science is conducted.
10:03, your sentiment is correct. However, while LANL’s scientific capabilities have been plummeting since the mid 1990s, Livermore has been bouncing off the bottom in the meantime. Ironically, the production plants, particularly Oak Ridge and PNNL have picked up their scientific pace. In no case are any of those Labs up to snuff in terms of meeting the threats that face us. One thing Nanos said that was absolutely correct is that science+politics=politics. This country will continue to become 2nd and 3rd rate. It is a sad thing to watch, particularly for those of us who helped US astronauts play golf on the moon.
Bechtel is gone. Convenient excuses left at the feet of a company who had minority control and no management over Any of the science divisions. NNSA decides where the money goes for science and they have continued to vote for LLNL.
Bechtel is still at LLNL and science thrives as the NNSA money for science keeps flowing. Make all the excuses you want but the bottom line is no one wants to go to LANL.
The country doesn’t need national labs anymore. The military (for instance) relies on contractors like Raytheon, General Atomics, Aerojet, Boeing, etc. The military doesn’t even want to talk to the Jasons anymore (hint: 90-year olds don’t give good technical advice). The overhead of national labs is a killer too. They’ll still be funded permanently though, especially the NM labs.
I agree with some of what you are saying. One of your point: "As for using the total number of peer-reviewed papers, including high-profile papers, by an institution, I think that that is a better measure or at least a better starting point for accessing the level of scientific research done at an institution."
Has actually been addressed there was a couple of studies on this which showed how much LANL has fallen over the last 15 years. This put on the blog a few times. In 2004 LANL had the most papers of any DOE lab, the next three where LBNL, ANL, ORNL. Now LANL lags behind all three of these.
I don't not have the data for this but I would take as a very safe bet that as basic science has fallen at the labs that the quality of the weapons science has also fallen and probably fallen at a faster rate.
One thing I do have numbers on is where the PhD's at least at LANL come from: in 2001 you had something like 25% from the top 5-10 universities like MIT, Princeton, Harvard, Caltech, Stanford, Yale and so on. Now it is closer to 2-3%, or a 10 -7 fold decrease. LANL also had something like 30% postdocs form the UC campuses, now it is less than 10% since the quality of the UC systems is rather high.
I think the weapons work can be collapsed into one dedicated lab like a previous poster said. A lot of what the national labs do is not weapons related. There are 1000 people working on NIF. Sandia has job postings for experts in solar cells. I recently met someone from a national lab who is an economist. He said his group of economists is expanding and he is having trouble finding new hires. The country needs to maintain the stockpile but with a much smaller contingent of workers and managers. They need to go back to a small group of talented and motivated people, like Johnny Foster had in the early 60’s at LLNL. Those guys singlehandedly invented the modern stockpile, putting a warhead on a submarine launched missile, as LASL watched.
I can’t imagine LANL getting any UC graduates. Those people are in high demand for startups and places like google and Facebook. Showing up at work and listening to an abusive baby boomer manager is not something young people are interested in. I think they’ve done a study that said young people out of college are discouraged from going to the labs because they don’t want to work for the elderly. It was different years ago when there was no tech industry. Getting a job at a national lab was great.
"Because they like living in NM, hate CA, and won't move?
9/23/2019 5:29 PM"
First of all how many people are in the talent pool that really matter at LANL, that would that be, 1000 at most. I think at least half would move to California voluntarily and 85% would move if just closed LANL down.
By the way 9/23/2019 9:48 AM is absolutely right that the modern stockpile was completely created by LLNL, so there are many people at LANL who would love to go to LLNL in any case.
LANL gets converted to a production facility, LLNL goes full science and the whole thing works.
"Oh really? B61, W76, W88?? Designed by LLNL? HaHaHaHa!
9/24/2019 5:13 PM"
Excuse me but one of the other posters said this:
"They need to go back to a small group of talented and motivated people, like Johnny Foster had in the early 60’s at LLNL. Those guys singlehandedly invented the modern stockpile, putting a warhead on a submarine launched missile, as LASL watched."
Ok what part of singlehandedly do you not understand? . . . . Mic Drop.....Cheers~
Drop your stuff all you like, you have been proven wrong. One quote from one guy is not dispositive in this world. Noticed you didn't bother to refute 9/24/2019 5:13 PM.
It's not about NW science, it's about new deployable warheads. LLNL loses again. But they'll feel really good about themselves. The "science" part is cancelable by any congress. The deployable weapons part is absolutely necessary for national security.
Anonymous said... It's not about NW science, it's about new deployable warheads. LLNL loses again. But they'll feel really good about themselves. The "science" part is cancelable by any congress. The deployable weapons part is absolutely necessary for national security.
9/26/2019 5:03 PM
LLNL has the new deplorable warhead according to the Air Force so what are you talking about.
LLNL wants the nuclear weapons business. Great,you can have it. Its just a bother around here. Too much paperwork that interferes with the real science. But, please take Greg Mello and Jay Coghlin too ! A gift from Northern New Mexico.
35 comments:
Doesn’t look like OP can demonstrate any knowledge of statistics.
But is the number of APS fellows really a good measure of scientific leadership? One problem that I’ve noted is that these APS fellow awards often seem to be overly influenced by how many connections the nominee may have to high profile APS members willing to nominate and support the prospective awardee. Another problem is that the difficulty of becoming an APS fellow depends on the particular scientific field in which one is nominated, and I’ve heard of people maneuvering to get nominated in a field in which only a small fraction of their research was done simply because that particular field offered a less competitive path to becoming an APS fellow.
One of the newly named fellows I’ve recently had contact with. He’s not the sharpest guy, but he is a high level manager with a lot of funding responsibilities. I suspect that has a lot to do with it.
"One problem that I’ve noted is that these APS fellow awards often seem to be overly influenced by how many connections the nominee may have to high profile APS members willing to nominate and support the prospective awardee. "
Your experience differs from my experience. If you want some measure of the quality of the place this is a potential measure. Sure you can always say it is problematic however I would contend that it still correlated with the scientific quality, rigor and activity of an institution. LANL use to get twice the number of APS fellows as LLNL but not anymore. This must mean something. 15 years ago LANL was ranked in the top 10 of US intuitions in terms of the number of papers, now it is at 100 or even 150 depending on the metric.
I understand that you can dismiss any statistics, any measure or any evidence. Finley you can simply ask people at Universities, at the NNSA labs and other DOE labs if the quality of science at LANL has declined and you will get an overwhelming response that yes it has greatly declined. I guess in your world everyone must be wrong.
9/21/2019 9:58 AM
Your last paragraph reveals what you are - simply a troll who has nothing to add but your unsupported opinions. "Just ask people..."? Please. That's your data? You have no business on a board related to science and national security.
"One of the newly named fellows I’ve recently had contact with. He’s not the sharpest guy, but he is a high level manager with a lot of funding responsibilities. I suspect that has a lot to do with it.
9/21/2019 8:06 AM"
Is this a LLNL person or a LANL person? I know all the new LANL people and your description does not fit with anyone of the.
I don't know the LLNL people.
I also know how APS fellows are chosen and being a NNSA manager or being responsible for money would have absolutely nothing to do with how the fellows are picked. Now it might get help in you getting nominated but it is your record that determines if you actually get the fellowship. Do you understand how these fellows are chosen from the group of nominations?
I suspect you do not.
In fact all you have to do is look up the record recent fellows and you will see that you have to be at a certain level within your field to get it. I have rarely seen exceptions to this.
Bechtel seemed to do everything they could at LANL to get rid of scientists so they could concentrate on where the money was: pit production. Just one of many problems trying to make a scientific laboratory into a pit factory. LLNL seems to have escaped that fate. That is good. The country needs top notch National Laboratories. It may be too late to save LANL.
Poster of 9/20, 10:56pm here (Doug).
Concerning the recent post of 9:58pm, I still don’t think that the number of APS fellows is a very good measure of quality of science at an institution. In addition to the points I made, I think that the poster who wrote “He’s not the sharpest guy, but he is a high level manager with a lot of funding responsibilities. I suspect that has a lot to do with it.” had a point. Not saying that a lot of high level managers aren’t scientifically sharp. Most of them are. But I have to think that the reason that managers of big programs get awarded as APS fellows far out of proportion with their actual numbers has more to do with their visibility and their contacts with influential people than it does with their raw scientific record.
I also recall one scientist I knew at LLNL who, to my surprise, I later discovered was an APS fellow. He was a really nice guy, but not particularly remarkable as far as his scientific record. He had a long history of doing good, competent work, but nothing which really stood out compared to work by other good scientists doing similar work at LLNL. So, yes, I was very surprised to learn that he was an APS fellow.
As for using the total number of peer-reviewed papers, including high-profile papers, by an institution, I think that that is a better measure or at least a better starting point for accessing the level of scientific research done at an institution.
-Doug
(P.S.: This system of everyone being named “Anonymous” and us being only able to distinguish each other by the time stamps of the posts is really awkward. Any way that this posting system can be modified so that posters can enter a name when they post a message so that we can refer to each other by name rather than time stamp?)
"Your last paragraph reveals what you are - simply a troll who has nothing to add but your unsupported opinions. "Just ask people..."? Please. That's your data? You have no business on a board related to science and national security.
9/21/2019 6:50 PM"
Data has been provided for you. The last part about asking people is also data if you ask enough people especially people that may have access to other numbers. Suppose you ask about 10-20 people and get a consistent answer, that is telling you something. You than combine that with other data that is out there. To be honest it is you that seem too have have no clue about how science is conducted.
10:03, your sentiment is correct. However, while LANL’s scientific capabilities have been plummeting since the mid 1990s, Livermore has been bouncing off the bottom in the meantime. Ironically, the production plants, particularly Oak Ridge and PNNL have picked up their scientific pace. In no case are any of those Labs up to snuff in terms of meeting the threats that face us. One thing Nanos said that was absolutely correct is that science+politics=politics. This country will continue to become 2nd and 3rd rate. It is a sad thing to watch, particularly for those of us who helped US astronauts play golf on the moon.
How does the APS vetting for fellows stack up against vetting of fellows for other scientific societies?, like AAAS?
Bechtel is gone. Convenient excuses left at the feet of a company who had minority control and no management over Any of the science divisions. NNSA decides where the money goes for science and they have continued to vote for LLNL.
Bechtel is still at LLNL and science thrives as the NNSA money for science keeps flowing. Make all the excuses you want but the bottom line is no one wants to go to LANL.
The country doesn’t need national labs anymore. The military (for instance) relies on contractors like Raytheon, General Atomics, Aerojet, Boeing, etc. The military doesn’t even want to talk to the Jasons anymore (hint: 90-year olds don’t give good technical advice). The overhead of national labs is a killer too. They’ll still be funded permanently though, especially the NM labs.
They’ll still be funded permanently though, especially the NM labs.
9/22/2019 1:42 PM
And there's a reason for that. It's because your first sentence is not true. And because that's where the weapon expertise is, still.
"9/22/2019 9:08 AM"
Wow that was brutal.
"9/22/2019 8:30 AM"
I agree with some of what you are saying.
One of your point: "As for using the total number of peer-reviewed papers, including high-profile papers, by an institution, I think that that is a better measure or at least a better starting point for accessing the level of scientific research done at an institution."
Has actually been addressed there was a couple of studies on this which showed how much LANL has fallen over the last 15 years. This put on the blog a few times. In 2004 LANL had the most papers of any DOE lab, the next three where LBNL, ANL, ORNL. Now LANL lags behind all three of these.
I don't not have the data for this but I would take as a very safe bet that as basic science has fallen at the labs that the quality of the weapons science has also fallen and probably fallen at a faster rate.
One thing I do have numbers on is where the PhD's at least at LANL come from: in 2001 you had something like 25% from the top 5-10 universities like MIT, Princeton, Harvard, Caltech, Stanford, Yale and so on. Now it is closer to 2-3%, or a 10 -7 fold decrease. LANL also had something like 30% postdocs form the UC campuses, now it is less than 10% since the quality of the UC systems is rather high.
Now that Bechtel is out things may improve.
"And there's a reason for that. It's because your first sentence is not true. And because that's where the weapon expertise is, still.
9/22/2019 5:11 PM"
Why not just have that expertise move to LLNL and be done with it.
While 1:42 isn’t telling the truth, his observation about the JASONS is spot on. The Bohemian Grove club is outdated and stupid.
I think the weapons work can be collapsed into one dedicated lab like a previous poster said. A lot of what the national labs do is not weapons related. There are 1000 people working on NIF. Sandia has job postings for experts in solar cells. I recently met someone from a national lab who is an economist. He said his group of economists is expanding and he is having trouble finding new hires. The country needs to maintain the stockpile but with a much smaller contingent of workers and managers. They need to go back to a small group of talented and motivated people, like Johnny Foster had in the early 60’s at LLNL. Those guys singlehandedly invented the modern stockpile, putting a warhead on a submarine launched missile, as LASL watched.
I can’t imagine LANL getting any UC graduates. Those people are in high demand for startups and places like google and Facebook. Showing up at work and listening to an abusive baby boomer manager is not something young people are interested in. I think they’ve done a study that said young people out of college are discouraged from going to the labs because they don’t want to work for the elderly. It was different years ago when there was no tech industry. Getting a job at a national lab was great.
Why not just have that expertise move to LLNL and be done with it.
9/22/2019 7:50 PM
Because they like living in NM, hate CA, and won't move?
"Because they like living in NM, hate CA, and won't move?
9/23/2019 5:29 PM"
First of all how many people are in the talent pool that really matter at LANL, that would that be, 1000 at most. I think at least half would move to California voluntarily and 85% would move if just closed LANL down.
By the way 9/23/2019 9:48 AM is absolutely right that the modern stockpile was completely created by LLNL, so there are many people at LANL who would love to go to LLNL in any case.
LANL gets converted to a production facility, LLNL goes full science and the whole thing works.
By the way 9/23/2019 9:48 AM is absolutely right that the modern stockpile was completely created by LLNL
9/23/2019 5:44 PM
Oh really? B61, W76, W88?? Designed by LLNL? HaHaHaHa!
Don't forget the W-80, that LANL was forced to give to LLNL, so that LLNL would have at least a little Nuclear Weapons work to keep it afloat.
"Oh really? B61, W76, W88?? Designed by LLNL? HaHaHaHa!
9/24/2019 5:13 PM"
Excuse me but one of the other posters said this:
"They need to go back to a small group of talented and motivated people, like Johnny Foster had in the early 60’s at LLNL. Those guys singlehandedly invented the modern stockpile, putting a warhead on a submarine launched missile, as LASL watched."
Ok what part of singlehandedly do you not understand?
.
.
.
.
Mic Drop.....Cheers~
LLNL weapons are the ones getting future missions. LANL is not. Its that simple.
Drop your stuff all you like, you have been proven wrong. One quote from one guy is not dispositive in this world. Noticed you didn't bother to refute 9/24/2019 5:13 PM.
"LLNL weapons are the ones getting future missions. LANL is not. Its that simple.
9/25/2019 2:41 PM"
Ding, ding, ding, ding. Whatever LANL did in the past is irrelevant, the future for NW science is LLNL.
It's not about NW science, it's about new deployable warheads. LLNL loses again. But they'll feel really good about themselves. The "science" part is cancelable by any congress. The deployable weapons part is absolutely necessary for national security.
Anonymous said...
It's not about NW science, it's about new deployable warheads. LLNL loses again. But they'll feel really good about themselves. The "science" part is cancelable by any congress. The deployable weapons part is absolutely necessary for national security.
9/26/2019 5:03 PM
LLNL has the new deplorable warhead according to the Air Force so what are you talking about.
Oddly, 6:55 is correct!
LLNL has the new deplorable warhead according to the Air Force so what are you talking about.
9/26/2019 6:55 PM
I think they may have the new depolyable warhead. Anything deplorable is with LANL.
Not into satire much 9/27/2019 9:50 AM?
LLNL wants the nuclear weapons business. Great,you can have it. Its just a bother around here. Too much paperwork that interferes with the real science. But, please take Greg Mello and Jay Coghlin too ! A gift from Northern New Mexico.
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