Wow...what an interesting set of ideas plus the question you end with...let
me ponder this. It does remind me that western countries need to consider
why "other" countries pursue things nuclear may not always be comprehensible
within the western framework. Hugh Gusterson has a nice piece on this:
Hugh Gusterson (1999) "Nuclear Weapons and the Other in the Western
Imagination," Cultural Anthropology 14.1: 111-143.
Patrick
On 6/13/09 1:17 PM, "roger malina" <rmalina@alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> patrick and yasminers
the elections in Iran and the implications for nuclear
> industry in Iran
inevitably reminds us of the way fusion and fission are tied
> to political
agendas= the fields of high technology are areas of national
> competition=
there is a new 'space race' with India, China now having their
> own ambitious
programs for human space flight and lunar exploration,
and the
> nuclear club of nations with capability for nuclear energy
and weapons is an
> area of strategic competition
as an anecdote, i was at an astronautics
> congress in Hyderabad and happened
to mention to a taxi driver that we were
> having a keynote by Abdul Salam the
former president of India. The taxi driver
> responded immediately how respected
Abdul Salam was, 'he is a nuclear
> scientist and a great man". Here is some
info on
> Salam:
\\http://www.intentblog.com/archives/2006/09/transforming_in.html
its
> interesting to see the cultural references for the Indian nuclear
> tests:
Smiling Buddha and Shakti , the Hindu goddess of strength
inevitably
> we have to link this to robert oppenheimers quoting
of
"...now I am become
> Death [Shiva], the destroyer of
> worlds..."
http://www.rjgeib.com/thoughts/shiva/shiva.html
the cultural
> embedding of nuclear power as an element of national prestige
and achievement
> is perhaps hard to understand from within the block
of nuclear countries us,
> russia, france etc, and the iranian, indian
pride in their
own nuclear
> capabilities is linked to many other areas of their cultural
self image...
is
> there a particular link between the ideas of nuclear fission and fusion
and
> indian philosophy and mythology ?
roger
Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, the
> Scientific Adviser to the Prime Minister,
and Dr. R. Chidambaram, the head of
> the Department
of Atomic Energy, were the chief coordinators for the
> operation. They
were assisted by the 58th Regiment of the Army
> Engineering
Corps in preparing the test site. Scientists from the Bhabha
> Atomic
Research Centre (BARC) and the
Defence Research and Development
> Organization (DRDO) were involved in
assembling the weapons, moving them
> to
Pokhran, placing them into shafts in the ground and laying a network
of
> sensors to gather data during the
> explosions.
http://www.intentblog.com/archives/2006/09/transforming_in.htmlPo
> kharan-II
refers to test explosions
of five nuclear devices, three on 11 May
> and two on 13 May 1998,
conducted by India at the Pokhran test range.
These
> nuclear tests resulted in a variety of sanctions against India
by a number of
> major states. On 18 May 1974 India
exploded its first nuclear device code
> named Smiling Buddha. After
about a quarter century, on Buddha Jayanti, 11 May
> 1998,
Operation Shakti was carried out. Shakti (शक्ति in Sanskrit
> meaning
'Strength'), is also the name of the Hindu Goddess
of strength. Shakti
> was the codename for
> Pokhran-II.
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