Word: physicist
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...honey. Some particles, such as photons - weightless carriers of light - can cut through the sticky Higgs field without picking up mass. Others get bogged down and become heavy; that is the process that creates tangible matter. "The Higgs gives everything in the universe its mass," says David Francis, a physicist on the ATLAS experiment. Pointing at CERN's grand geological amphitheater of the Jura and the Alps. "None of that is possible without the Higgs...
...project, called the High Frontier, which was funded by the Heritage Foundation, a Washington think tank. It reported that technology currently exists to orbit more than 400 "killer satellites" that could knock out Soviet missiles. There were other supporters of the idea, most notably Edward Teller, the hawkish physicist known as "the father of the hydrogen bomb...
Reagan first discussed the question of missile-killing technology with his science adviser, Physicist George Keyworth II, in a conversation two years ago. Keyworth, an admirer of Teller's who helped develop an earlier ABM system, appointed a task force that included Teller, Consultant Edward Frieman and former Deputy Secretary of Defense David Packard. Early this year they informed Reagan that the idea seemed technically feasible, and it was brought up at a Feb. 11 White House meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Reagan said nothing for the next three weeks, then popped the idea at a morning briefing...
...satellite antimissile system could lead to more emphasis on low-flying missiles, like the cruise, that would not be vulnerable to space defenses. The satellites could also be vulnerable. "Many potential counters, such as decoys or space mines, have the power to neutralize space-based systems," says Stanford University Physicist and Arms Control Expert Sidney Drell. His colleague Arthur Schawlow, who won the Nobel Prize for his work on developing the laser, agrees: "A laser battle station out in space would be a sitting duck...
Even if such a system could survive, points out another Stanford physicist, Wolfgang Panofsky, it is "infeasible" to design a defense that will intercept all missiles. "It is possible to develop a system that can shoot down one missile, but that is a long cry from developing a system that does not leak," he says. Such shortcomings in a nuclear defense system clearly would be disastrous. Even if a system were 90% effective, the leakage of just a fraction of Moscow's 8,500 or so warheads could be devastating. Says Kosta Tsipis, co-director of a program in science...