Word: experimentation
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...decision. The White House announced last January that the U.S. "will join ... an ambitious international research project to harness the promise of fusion energy, the same form of energy that powers the sun. America will join negotiations with Canada, Europe, Japan, Russia and China to create the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER). This will be the largest and most technologically sophisticated fusion experiment in the world." Actually, it's the same consortium to which the U.S. had been party in the 1990s and from which it then bailed...
It was not to be. A series of events conspired to derail the policy. The Algerians, who shipped the LNG, jacked up the price. The Carter Administration and the natural-gas and pipeline companies balked at paying more. After months of fruitless negotiations, the deal unraveled. The ships went elsewhere...
To get how big a deal this is, imagine Eminem, Shania Twain, Britney Spears, Bruce Springsteen, U2 and 40 more of pop's hottest acts gathering in an Alpine village to chew the fat, hang out and occasionally perform together - for no fees and no charitable cause - under a tent...
Even in staunch ally Britain, rancor is building over the tribunals. "Does the Pentagon think the U.S. is the only country in the world ever to face terrorism?" asks Kelly of the Bar Council. Britain (to fight the Irish Republican Army), Italy (to fight the Mafia) and many other countries...
When the secret finally got out, it had sweeping repercussions. As Harvard historian of science I. Bernard Cohen (who died June 20) has pointed out, Franklin's experiment showed that electricity was not just an amusing "bizarrery" but a force of nature, like gravity. It also illustrated an Enlightenment ideal...