Jan 17, 2009

Sig Hecker and Bob Cowan honored

[Absentee Lab Director Sighted at Ceremony]

By ROGER SNODGRASS, The Los Alamos Monitor

Two hugely influential scientists received Los Alamos National Laboratory’s highest recognition.

LANL Director Michael Anastasio bestowed the 2008 Los Alamos Medal on Siegfried S. Hecker and Robert D. Cowan in a ceremony and reception at the J. Robert Oppenheimer Study Center Thursday afternoon.

Hecker, LANL director from 1986-1997, is now a professor and co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University.

Sharp and precise as always, he recalled in his remarks that he had become laboratory director 23 years ago to the day.

A legendary figure in many ways, he is the only lab director who worked his way up from a graduate student.

Robert Cowan is the internationally known father of atomic structure calculations and the author of “Theory of Atomic Structure and Spectra,” the fruit of 25 years of effort considered “the bible of modern atomic physics.”

His children in attendance said he was always a father first and found it remarkable that at the age of 89 he continues to tutor English-as-a-second-language students and tutor math with local students.

Cowan was introduced by Joe Abdallah, a colleague from the lab’s Theoretical division, who said he met Cowan in the late ’70s and that he would always be grateful for a quilt that Bob and his wife Wilma gave him after he lost everything in the Cerro Grande Fire of 2000.

In accepting his reward, Cowan reviewed the scientific basis of his spectral studies starting with one of the first primitive computers he had to work with in 1951.

“It only did two operations a second, but that was 50 times faster than the motor driven desk calculators that were used,” he said. Later he progressed to “serial number one” of the IBM 701 Defense Calculator.

“It didn’t always work,” he said, “but it speeded up things a great deal.”

He was especially proud of a series of international degrees he received and his travels to England, the Netherlands, Sweden, China and the former Soviet Union

“I don’t do physics anymore,” he said, except for occasional queries from former theoretical division colleagues. “I’ve had a long and interesting and worthwhile run in my career and so I’m happy.”

Dave Clark, head of the lab’s Seaborg Institute for Actinide Science, introduced Hecker, who made his name and reputation on his research in plutonium, the king of the actinides, the always and ever more remarkable element.

Clark reviewed Hecker’s enormous accomplishments as director, as the chief navigator through the transitions at Los Alamos as the test moratorium put the brakes on the nuclear weapons race, stockpile stewardship began, and the Soviet Union dissolved.

Clark also gave away Hecker’s well-established secret for remembering literally everybody’s name, recalling a time when the former director ran across a parking lot to ask him his wife’s first name and then ran all the way back to a gathering to greet her by name.

Hecker’s talk, by turns characteristically perceptive, comprehensive, witty, chatty and challenging, was about why he came (skiing), why he stayed (people at Los Alamos), and why he left (because he always wanted to be a university professor).

“I didn’t come to build bombs or save the country or the world,” he said. “I had no desire to become a lab manager. Like many of my colleagues, I did it for self defense – so somebody else who could make my life miserable would not get the job.”

He also said he did it because others had made the sacrifice from which he had benefited.

Being a director was like wearing ski boots, he said. “It was fun while wearing them, but God does it feel good when you take them off.”

He said his advice was ignored, when Congress insisted on fixing the problems at the lab by taking it in exactly the wrong direction, into the hands of private industry.

He cautioned that nuclear weapons were fundamentally the responsibility of government.

To meet the new challenges of clean energy and climate change he suggested that the laboratory rise to the occasion.

“Los Alamos and nuclear energy are joined at the hip,” he said. “Nuclear energy can electrify the world or destroy it and there is a fine line between them.”

He’ll be back, he said, to talk about global proliferation issues, the subject that has preoccupied him most in recent years. He’s scheduled for a director’s colloquium next month, before he takes another trip to North Korea.

“Frankly, I’ll never leave Los Alamos,” he said.

Hecker and Cowan bring the total of inductees into what amounts to the laboratory’s hall of fame to 11.

The tradition began in 2001 when then-director John Brown awarded the 2001 medal to Hans Bethe, the Nobel laureate and former lab director Harold Agnew.

23 comments:

Anonymous said...

"He said his advice was ignored, when Congress insisted on fixing the problems at the lab by taking it in exactly the wrong direction, into the hands of private industry."

We can only hope that Congress will correct their earlier mistake.

Anonymous said...

Two really great guys!

Anonymous said...

From Thursday's Lab Links:

Laboratory Directory Mike Anastasio will share his perspective on important topics of the day in a periodic all-employee e-mail message called "Director's Outlook".


From the initial "Director's Outlook" (Jan 15, 2009) - excerpts:
----------------------------------
Change in Washington means opportunity for our Laboratory
----------------------------------

"...I've had several positive interactions with the Obama Transition Team..."

"...Renewable energy will certainly be a national priority... He (Dr. Chu) also committed to maintaining the nuclear deterrent and sees the need to promote nonproliferation throughout the world.

Added to all of this is a re-examination of the nation's nuclear policy. This will unfold over the next two years, first in the final results of the report of the Congressionally charted Strategic Posture Commission followed by the Obama Administration's Nuclear Posture Review. Both of these efforts will have a considerable effect on the work we do here.

How all this change in Washington plays out for the Laboratory will become evident in coming weeks an months... Budgets will continue to be challenging... but at this point I do not see any major financial obstacles immediately in our path."

"In all of this change, I see opportunity for our Laboratory."

******

Comments, anyone?

Anonymous said...

"We can only hope that Congress will correct their earlier mistake." - 11:25 AM

Dream on! I must get a hold of some of those marvelous pills you must be taking.

Congress doesn't care a wit about the US nuclear weapons labs. The labs will die of slow neglect, much like they've been doing over the last two and half years under the "for-profit" LLC management.

I was glad to see Sig Hecker get his LANL reward. It was also refreshing to see that Sig Hecker can still "tell it like it is" in front of Anastasio's face. BTW, Sig never had a luxury sports car paid for by the LANL budget during his term as our Director. I don't think he would have even stood for it!

Anonymous said...

"We can only hope that Congress will correct their earlier mistake." - 11:25 AM"

"A very common, almost defining feature of satire is its strong vein of irony or sarcasm."


Sorry, I suppose I should have noted in the margin on my earlier post that is was intended as satire. :)

Anonymous said...

No one who celebrates the Obama presidency or the majority (almost veto-proof) Democratic congress should expect anything good for LANL. If you think LANL will be "re-programmed" into a "green" lab, you are delusional. More progress along the long slide into oblivion is in the immediate future for LANL. As all liberals will applaud.

Anonymous said...

A "Director's Outlook", you say? LANL has a Director? I did not know that.

All kidding aside, though, I have to disagree with Mikey. Dark days appear to be heading for LANL. Even if Congress wants LANL turned into some type of "green" lab, it would be darn near impossible to do it without replacing most of the current weapons directed scientific work force with a new crop of scientists more suitable to the task.

When the weapons budget receives its big cut in the next fiscal year, the result will be, as Domenici has said, a loss of many jobs. Perhaps as many as 2000. Mikey and Sen. Udall are in denial about what's coming LANL's way.

Anonymous said...

In my time at LANL I met a few times with Sig one-on-one. I found him to be a complete gentleman, and I felt myself in the presence of a great person, as he discussed his then-recent trip to NK. He was articulate, precise in his phrasing, and almost embarassingly concerned about my reactions and feelings. At the time, I was a Group Leader, and he was a former Director. I will cherish those meetings, and the emails I exchanged with Sig when he left as Director. He is a treasure to LANL and to the country.

Anonymous said...

Note that Hecker was a nice person and a very good director and he did it all without a bonus or a reserved parking space.

Anonymous said...

There is no way that LANL can survive if it's hit with a cut to the weapons budget in the amount of several hundred million dollars. If Mike now believes this is possible, he is delusional. A cut in the amount that was proposed for this year, about $400 million, would wipe out LANL's future. It would result in the layoff of about 2000 employees which would decimate the lab.

We'll soon see if LANL can survive or is headed for extinction when next year's budget is released sometime around April.

Anonymous said...

"The tradition began in 2001 when then-director John Brown awarded the 2001 medal to Hans Bethe, the Nobel laureate and former lab director Harold Agnew." (Article)

No one of Hans Bethe caliber would ever think of working at today's LANL. That is the big difference between the LANL of yesterday and the LANL of today.

Anonymous said...

4:56 pm: "No one of Hans Bethe caliber would ever think of working at today's LANL."

Unfortunately, in Bethe's case, it wouldn't have been about his "caliber" but about his politics. Like many of the WWII-era weapons designers, once the war was won, he renounced all work on weapons and shunned his legacy in that regard, becoming anti-nuclear, as if his successful efforts were the product of someone else, in some other universe. Misplaced shame and the sudden lack of a moral imperative can transform amazing accomplishments into regrettable deviations from one's beliefs. Sad.

Anonymous said...

"Misplaced shame and the sudden lack of a moral imperative can transform amazing accomplishments into regrettable deviations from one's beliefs." - 9:33 PM

And, yet, Bethe made many trips back to Los Alamos over the subsequent decades.

Anonymous said...

10:30 pm: "And, yet, Bethe made many trips back to Los Alamos over the subsequent decades."

Yes, but never to speak positively about the Lab's mission or achievements in the nuclear arena.

Anonymous said...

Both Hans Bethe and Edward Teller amongst other scientists and personnel of The Manhattan project attended the 50th anniversary of LANL in 1983. (Joe Martz was also there.)

I personally thought that Edward Teller should have been included in the first prize cermony in 2001, together with Hans Bethe and Harold Agnew.

Anonymous said...

9:33 and 11:10 obviously never had a one-on-one with Hans Bethe.

Anonymous said...

"Both Hans Bethe and Edward Teller amongst other scientists and personnel of The Manhattan project attended the 50th anniversary of LANL in 1983. (Joe Martz was also there.)" - 9:42 AM

I'm terribly confused. How could Joe Martz have been channeling the ghost of Hans Bethe all those many years if Bethe was still alive? And who will be The One to channel Joe Martz's ghost when he shuffles off his mortal coil? Better be careful if Joe points his finger at you during one of his talks!

Anonymous said...

"In all of this change, I see opportunity for our Laboratory."

- Mike Anastasio, Director's Outlook


As in.. the opportunity to shut this place down and be richly rewarded for it?

Anonymous said...

"1/18/09 9:33 PM"

Nope.

Anonymous said...

"Yes, but never to speak positively about the Lab's mission or achievements in the nuclear arena.

1/18/09 11:10 PM"

Yes he did.

This is one of those posts that appear on the blog from time to time that comes from someone living in alternate universe.

Anonymous said...

"In all of this change, I see opportunity for our Laboratory."
- Mike Anastasio, Director's Outlook

Is "our" being used here in the same sense as the Director has used it in past employee memos?

I've yet to see or hear anyone but a LANS senior-level manager ever use the phrase "our Laboratory" in a talk/presentation/memo.

Anonymous said...

The LAFD is a a waste of the tax-payers money! What does the LAFD do that cannot be done elsewhere. What does the LAFD do that cannot be done more cheaply and better by others? Why do we need to support the so called "stongest and bravest"? They are just a bunch of arrogant buttheads who sit around all day. The United States cannot afford to pay for this kind of welfare anymore!

P.S Ed please do not get your panties all in a bunch, this is called sarcasm.

Anonymous said...

7:56 am: Wrong thread, dummo.