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Show I 1 : THE DAILY HERALD, Provo, Utah Thursday, November 21, 19 Nuclear test ban a mistake, some Darker side of Einstein revealed in his letters scientists say By IAN MADER Associated Press Writer - NEW YORK Now that the nuclear powers have agreed to end all peacetime nuclear explosions, to protect man and Earth, some critics say man is tossing away chances to move mountains. These scientists envision using controlled explosions to blast out vast underground storage caverns, stimulate oil fields, prevent earthquakes, generate energy and develop an asteroid defense for the planet. The Chinese even have prochunk posed blasting a from a mountain range to divert the ' Yarlung River. . China initially demanded an exemption for peaceful nuclear explosions, or PNEs, during the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty negotiations in Geneva. China dropped the demand in July and signed the treaty Sept. 24 at the United Nations, after having successfully pushed a clause requiring the PNE issue to be reconsidered each decade. all but over for , The debate how asks whether mankind can be trusted with its own creation. The consensus is no, and that the nuclear genie should be stuffed back into the bottle. Most scientists agree that peaceful-use should be explosions banned along with military tests. Any explosion can be studied for potential military applications. And the more nuclear bombs in the world, the more likely they could be used in war or by terrorists, the argument goes. . "'The fact that you design a peaceful explosive in a different way doesn't mean that you couldn't put it in a plane and drop it on a city,'.' says Richard Garwin, an IBM scientist who studied PNEs for the United States before they were abandoned here in the 1970s. Some scientists, especially in China and Russia, chafe under the ban. So does Edward Teller, the nonagenarian father of the U.S. nuclear program. "In my mind the test ban is a huge mistake," Teller said in a telephone interview. "We are going to fail to understand what can be done with nuclear explosions. All the countries should benefit. The only thing I would forbid is secret tests." Patricia Lewis, a former British nuclear physicist who now campaigns against nuclear weapons, says the treaty's clause requiring the ban to be reviewed every 10 years doesn't bother her. It would take overwhelming international consensus to again allow peacetime explosions, she says. Still, scientists raise some intriguing possibilities for peaceful uses of nuclear blasts. . - The Russians, before they discontinued their program in the 1980s, used underground nuclear explosions to stimulate oil wells, claiming a huge return on their investment. They said the energy produced by the extra oil was five to seven times that of the nuclear explosives. They also used the bombs to staunch otherwise unstoppable gas cushers. and hae created lakes. world's le ' dug canals, and built dams. Russian scientists told American colleagues last year they would like to devise a system of nuclear-tippe- d rockets to zap or deflect monster asteroids headed toward Earth. Vadim A. Simonenko, deputy head of a nuclear laboratory in Chelubynsk, Russia, said he envisions space-ag- e factories harness- - By STORER H. ROWLEY Chicago Tribune mmmT "We are going to fail to understand what can be done with nuclear explosions." Edward Teller, physicist nn n ! c-.- . M?'J4l AP Photos ing nuclear explosions as they float outside of Earth's atmosphere. But Simonenko also said that countries such as earthquake-pron- e the United States and Japan should take note: Underground nuclear explosions could provide occasional nudges to the earth's massive tectonic plates, releasing stresses that' cause large-scal- e earthquakes. "Technological development is a permanent phenomenon," said "It Simonenko, reached via can be continued or interrupted. It's like the choice of going two ways in the development of our civilization: to go to the jungle and eat bananas or to take the challenges Nature sends." A report on a December meeting on peaceful nuclear explosions in Beijing between Chinese and Russian scientists one of several in the year before the treaty was said participants dissigned cussed the river project, which would curb floods downstream in Bangladesh while diverting water to thirsty regions in China. Another Chinese proposal was to harness energy by detonating up to underground explosions the equivalent of 10 kilotons of TNT each and conducting steam in massive steel tubes to turbines at the surface. "It's possible that this kind of controllable nuclear electric station will become the. main energy iUp plier around the world in 30-5- 0 years." wrote He Zuoxiu. a conference participant. Garwin. who researched such power generation for the U.S. government, says it was deemed impractical. And despite strides in limiting fallout from controlled explosions, worry about the governments health risks of radioactivity, which are difficult to quantify. Garwin say s. Milo Nordyke. a researcher at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in California, is writing a book about the Russian PNE program abandoned in 1986. He says most peaceful applications are unworkable, but some are economically attractive, including the creation of underground storage areas. "You could store oil under the North Sea." he says. "Instead of having to lay pipelines to Scotland or Norway, you could have gone a few thousand feet under the surface and created big reservoirs." benefits of But the arms-contra test ban override any such appli- ol Nuclear physicist Edward Teller gestures during an developing the atomic and hydrogen bombs, Interview in his Stanford University office in this believes the nuclear test ban is a big mistake. Most 1991 file photo. Teller, who played a leading role in scientists, however, agree with the ban. " 'AftAW m Wtl .. II J i , 111 : lv nw I r- i MBs hJyl Kli - APR. Toro cations, he says. While an overw helming majority of scientists agree that explosions for peacetime uses should be banned along with military development, a few want to continue testing nuclear weapons as a defense against a possible catastroa monster asteroid colliding phe with Earth. "People be careful." warns Russia's Simonenko. "The asteroid threat is a long-terthreat, but a certain one." Many scientists who have examined the asteroid threat in the past decade agree that a nuclear weapon would be the most efficient option against a catastrophic asteroid one with a diameter of if there is litmile over one-ha- lf tle warning. But other scientists say there is a negligible threat of another monster asteroid or comet on the scale of the one suspected of wiping out dinosaurs 65 million years ago. "The chances of this ever happening again are so remote that there's no need to think about it any further than we've thought about it already." says Clark R. Chapman, a planetary scientist in Boulder. Colo. Still, the next Big One could come, and with very little warning. Its legacy could be what Simonenko and a panel of scientists described in a 1994 paper as "a devastating climate change, dwarfing the 'nuclear w inter long feared as collateral effect of a global thermonuclear w ar." Scientists in China and Russia have said they would like to test a nuclear bomb defense system. Simonenko advises "laree-scal- e 1 ? It m U.S.-Russi- President Clinton signs the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty at United Nations in New York Sept. 24. A number of scientists believe the nuclear test ban is detrimental to society. the explosion research for technological applications and planetary defense." Johndale C. Solem. a Los Alamos scientist w ho joined Simonenko in the 1994 paper, disagrees with him about the need for any testing. i4 "For one thing you wouldn't asteroid around have some-othe- r for a convenient target," he said. "If you had an incoming asteroid, you'd probably have several rockets for backup and then you'd simply launch them and go after it." A nuclear explosion would be used in one of two ways. One would be to blow up the asteroid or comet. The more accepted method would be to detonate at some distance from the object to produce a "standoff impact, keeping it intact but nudging it off its deadly path. Other methods under consideration would use solar power or large lasers. Teller maintains that the fallout danger from controlled, peacetime explosions has been overstated and would be less than that from nuclear power plants. The Chernobyl accident killed dozens. He says the only death from U.S. peacetime explosions was a Japanese fisherman who unw ittingly wandered into the danger zone of a test explosion in the Pacific in 1954. "Some time in the future, maybe 20 years, maybe 200 years, using nuclear explosions will become common, and it will be very hard to show people why we shied away from it" Teller says. School regulations sometimes clash with ethnic cultures ' : By STEPHANIA H. DAVIS and JERRY THOMAS Chicago Tribune In Carla Nash's CHICAGO home in Sauk Village, part of the weekday morning ritual is combing her daughters" hair before sending them off to school. Nash often styles it in braids or pulls it back into a ponytail. which she decorates w ith hair ornaments adorned w ith pictures of cartoon characters. But on the morning of Oct. 16. she decided to try something different. Instead of making a straight TaCara's hair. part in Nash made a zigzag design. i The new style landed IaCara in the. principal's office. Officials at RIckover Junior High School said the part v iolated the school's dress code, which prohibits students from having symbols carved into their hair. The next day. school officials Aqueelah Sha-repulled out of her class, minutes before she was lo take an exam. UU TaCara. she hadcome to sdiuVvl with a zigzag part in htr hair N, either girl was suspended, but to they were told not to return schoI w ith inappropriate hairdos. For cirls at Rickover, that also ; means no ornaments, beads, coloring or colored hair. extensions. Boys risk suspension if their hair is worn in cornrows. dreadlocks, braids or ponytails. The resulting controversy over Rickover's strict hair policy is the styles most commonly worn by are now under attack as possible "gang identifiers." or styles favored by gang members. School officials in Sauk Village, a community of 10.000 about 35 miles south of Chicago. African-America- ns "Any time little black children try to make themselves look better by doing something to their hair, (school officials) tell them it's and I don't believe it is right." gang-relateCarla Nash, resident d, latest example of how ethnic culture sometimes clashes w ith school regulations designed to guard against gangs. As street gangs have spread from the inner city to the suburbs in recent years, law enforcement officials and educators in many communities have taken counter-measure- s. ef At many Chicago and suburban g measures schools, the have included banning the display of large pieces of gold jewelry, wearing Starter jackets, caps, bandanas and some type of sneakers because those items sometimes serve as gang symbols. But in the same vein, some hair- anti-gan- Page A9 say they were told by experts that one of those identifiers is the zigzag hair part. On the other hand, some Sauk Village residents, black and white alike, say the school's ban on certain hairstyles is a case of legitimate concern gone too far. "Any time little .black children try to make themselves look better by doing something to their hair, (school officials) tell them it's and I don't believe it is rieht." said Carla Nash. "Thomas Ryan, superintendent of District 168. makes no apology for the school's strict dress code, which was amended to cover hairstyles two years ago. It was drafted gang-relate- d, by teachers and school administrators, some of whom have attended seminars on gangs. Although the district has experienced no serious gang problems. Ryan contends the dress code is the most cost effective way to keep it that way. "This has nothing to do with race or culture." said Ryan, who came to the district eight years ago. "It has to do w ith keeping our kids safe and preventing distractions in the classrooms. We have never had a gun in the school or a kid stabbed. I don't ever want to call to a home and say to a parent. 'Your kid was stabbed in school." Though the two elementary schools in Sauk Village have dress codes that forbid certain types of clothing, hairstyles are restricted only at the community's one junior high school. That, according to Ryan, is because Rickover students are at the age most likely to be recruited by gangs. Aqueelah's mother. Anne Nelson, said that she is troubled that the policy, which appears to culturally restrict African Americans, was developed without input from black parents. When school officials refused to address her concerns, she contacted the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the American Civil Liberties Union for infor mation about their legal options. "What we want ... is for them to amend the school dress code." said Nelson, a feeling shared by some other students and parents as well. "It's stupid." said Jessica Oldenburg. 13. "That school thinks everything is Mark Easley. a white parent, called the student hair code 'ridiculous. "I don't care what they wear as long as they don't w ear razor blades." he said. Cmdr. Donald Hilbring. head of the Chicago Police Department's gang investigations unit, said that according to his experience, colored beads, "can indicate gang affiliations." But he said a ban on styles that include a zigzag part seems extreme. "What gang members do is have their gang symbols carved into their hair ... like trimming shrubbery." Hilbring said. "But that doesn't seem to be the case here." Noliwe Rooks, assistant professor of Englisii and coordinator of n studies at the University of Missouri at Kansas City, said the intricate beading, zigag parts and extra height of arc hairstyles many current designed to draw attention. They should be regarded as positive symbols, she said. gang-related- African-America- ." Albert EinJERUSALEM stein taught the world about the ; relativity of things, but now it seems the benevolent image he projected to humanity may have been relative as well. Einstein had a darker side, and it appears in personal letters that were put on display to the public for the first time last week in Jerusalem. In one letter to his frst wife. Mileva Marie, Einstein laid down the law on her duties if she expected him to stay with her. admonishing her to "renounce all personal relations with me, except when these are required to keep up social appearances." The famous physicist demanded she not request him to sit w ith her at home, to go out or to travel together. In the terse instructions, subdivided by numbers and letters, he ordered her to keep his clothes and linen in order, serve him three meals a day in his room and ensure that "my bedroom and study are ' always kept in good order and that my desk is not touched by any one : other than me." "You will promise explicitly to observe the follow ing points in any contact w ith me." he wrote in the letter, written in April 1914 as their marriage was falling apart: "( ) you will expect no affec-- : tion from me and you will not reproach me for this. (2) you must answer me at once when I speak to you. (3) you must leave my bedroom or study at once w ithout protesting when I ask you to go. "You will promise not to denigrate me in the eyes of the children, either by word or deed." At the time. Einstein and his wife had recently arrived in Berlin, w here he had taken up a post at the prestigious Prussian Academy of Sciences. They later separated, and Marie took their two sons back to Zurich. Switzerland, w here the couple met years earlier when they both were ; students at the Zurich Polytechnic ; " Institute. The letter is part of a collection pf 430 displayed in recent weeks in Jerusalem and Europe. While they are not news to Einstein scholars. and some were published in a scholarly collection, the ones deal-- " ing with Einstein's relationship. I estrangement and divorce from his' first wife are on public v iew for the ; first time. ; Christie's auction house will be ; putting the lot up for sale in New ; York on Nov. 25. The letters, mostly in German, were discovered in a Los Angeles bank vault in 1986. They are being sold to benefit Einstein's and Mar- ic's grandchildren and children. Many are tender love letters dat-- ; ing from the early relationship; between the German Einstein and; the Serbian Marie, who was the only woman studying physics at the Zurich institute where they-meand the letters show how her I support helped encourage him. "When I am not w ith you I feel ; as if I'm not whole," Einstein; 1900. wrote her in August "Though my old Zurich makes me feel very much at home acain. I n IT ,t.,.ir 1111 UtiU lifil lltllU 'nnkf llll mite JUU. mi: IIllt hand. I can go any w here I w ant but I belong nowhere, and I miss y our two little arms and that glow- - i ' ing mouth full of tenderness and ; kisses." The following March, he wrote, "You are and will remain a shrine; for me to which no one has access; ; I also know that of all people, you; love me the most, and understand ; me the best. ... I'll be so happy and proud when we are together andi can bring our work on relative! motion to successful conclusion!" I When their relationship was! unraveling and they were discussing divorce terms in 1918. Einstein's wife still had enough faith in his genius to suggest her settlement should include proceeds from the Nobel Prize, which win until 1922. according to; Einstein biographer Ronald W.j I Clark. Hundreds of Israelis turned out last week to view the letters at the Jewish National and University Library at Hebrew University in ' 1 Jerusalem. because! are important "They it's the first time the public hasf seen them and because of the high-- f ly personal nature of the lettersj which reflect specific aspects off Einstein's personality." said Ze'evi of lluq Rosenkranz. curator library's Einstein archives. The letters chronicle the birth ofi the couple's daughter. Lieseri. irn January 1902. a year before they 2 were married. 1 great-grand- -'. t, I 4 |