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36

TECHNOLOGY REVIEW

AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 1995

ContentsFEATuREs-

24 BACK TO THE EVERGLADESBY NORMANBOUCHER

After decades of encroachment by cities, farms, and waterworks, south Florida's ailingwetland may soon host yet another massive civil-engineering project-this onedesigned to restore its status as one of the world's most extraordinary ecosystems.

EVERYBODY COUNTS:TOWARD A BROADER HISTORY OF MATHEMATICSBY DIRK] STRUIK

Studies reveal that numerous non-Westem-and even nonliterate-societies havedeveloped remarkably sophisticated mathematical concepts. Such knowledge isdeepening our understanding of the field's origins and improving our teaching methods.

46 THE ATOMIC AGE AT 50RECALLING THE ORIGINAL EVENTS

48 HIROSHIMA, NAGASAKI, AND TIffi POLITICS OF MEMORY by john W Dower51 REVISIONIST HISTORY HAS FEW DEFENDERS by Peter Blute52 SECOND-GUESSING HISTORYbylB. Holley,jr.53 THE BOMB MINIMIZED CASUALTIES by Norman Palmar and ThomasB. Allen55 WHAT SCIENTISTS KNEW AND WHEN THEY KNEw IT by Ronald Takaki56 TALES OF TIffi CITY by Hugh Gusterson

FACING A DIFFICULT LEGACY

58 THE AGE OF NUMBING by RobertJ Lifton and GregMitchell60 "LET'S NOT TALK ABOUT THE BAD THINGS" by Paul Rogat Loeb62 THE BOMB IN POP CULTURE by Bryan C. Taylar64 "NOTHING NATURAL COULD HAVE CAUSED THIS" by Carole Gallagher

WEIGHING THE VALUE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS

66 THE ULTIMATE BOMBING by Carl Kaysen67 KEEP THE BOMB by Alex Roland69 FIVE LESSONS FROMTIffi COLD WAR by Richard Ned Lebow and janice GrossStein

ENDING THE REIGN OF TERROR

72 A NUCLEAR-WEAPON-FREE WORLD by joseph Rotblat74 THE ROAD TO ZERO by jonathan Dean and Randall Forsberg76 A BAN ON NUCLEAR TECHNOLOGIES by TheodoreB. Taylor78 CLEARING THE DEBRIS by BernardLown

COVER ILLUSTRATION: SUSAN LEVAN

Technology Review (ISSN 0040-1692), Reg. U.S. Patent Office, is published eight times each year (January, FebruarylMarch, April, May/June,July, AugusVSeptember, October, and NovemberlDecember)by the Association of Alumni and Alumnae of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Entire contents© I99S. The editors seek diverseviews, and authors' opinions do not represent the official policies oftheir institutions or those of MIT. We welcome letters to the editor. Please address them to Letters Editor,do address below or by e-mail to:<technology-review-letters@miledU>.

Editorial, circulation, and advertising offices:TocJmology Review, Building WS9, MIT, Cambridge, MA02139, (617) 2S3-825O; FAX(617) 253-7264. Printed byLane Press, S. Burlington,vr.Second-class postage paid at Booton, MAand additional mailing offices. Postmaster. send address changes toTechnology Review, MIT, Building WS9, Cambridge, MA02139, or e-mail to <traddress@miledu>.

Subscriptions $30 per year. Canada add $6, other foreign countries add $12 ContactTedmology Review, P.O. Box489, Mount Morris, IL61054, (BOO)877-S23O or (81S) 734-1116; FAX(81S) 734-1127,or e-mail to <trsuhscriptions@mil.edu>.

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16

83

TECHNOLOGY REVIEW

VOL. 98/No. 6

DEPARTMENTS

5 FIRST LINE

6 LETTERS

12 MIT REpORTERAProgram That Puts a Smile on Your FaceDefending an Endangered Act

16 TRENDSAIas Training ToolOutsmarting the Immune SystemA]ob for Super RiceTracking Poachers with Forensic Science

81 THE NATIONAL INTERESTROBERT M WHITEOnce-preeminent U.S. engineers must now contend with professionals abroad whooffer high-quality but low-cost technological skills. Thus to remain economicallycompetitive, the United States must wisely invest in its inherent strengths.

82 THE CULTURE OF TECHNOLOGYlANGDON WINNERThe bygone era ofThe Organization Man,when paternalistic companies providedstable employment to managers and technical professionals, looks increasinglyattractive as lean corporations and perpetual expendability become the norm.

83 REVIEWSThomas FrickonAmen'can Technological SublimeSimsonL. Garfinkel onComputer-Related Risks

A needle-In ahaystackLoral Western Development Labs (LWDL)is aplace for engineers who want a chance to workwith leading-edge and exotic technology. Webuilt a solid 35+ year reputation in Silicon Valleyas a dynamic, yet stable laboratory environment.At LWDLyou can work in our matrix organiza-tion and be tasked out to a wide variety ofexciting projects. You can stick with a favoriteproject or move around the company to ourassorted commercial and government classifiedprograms nationwide. We have an immediateneed to hire the following professionals.

Being on the cutting edge of high-speed digitaltechnology means we have a hard time findingthese "needle in a haystack" design engineers.Are you one? If you or someone you knowfitsthe following requirements contact us NOW!

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• Expertise in design of wideband multiplexers!demultiplexers, switches, Fir Filters, AID, D/A,etc. at clock speeds of 400 MHz and up.

;. Experience in development of high-speed(>400 MHz) custom ASICs- CMOSIECUGaAs.

• At least 5 years in a project leadership rolewith responsibility for technical performance,budget and schedule including technicalmanagement of a small team of Engineers.

• Experience with proposal and technicalspecifications development.

Successful candidate will be responsible forreviewing/developing technical requirements;

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••••providing top-down design architectures andconceptual designs for high-speed equipment;performing in Project Management role respon-sible for overall project technical, schedule andbudget performance; providing technicalguidance to more junior engineers; performingdetail design reviews and design analysis;supporting proposal efforts; and providingtechnical interface to Program Offices.

High-Speed Custom ASICDesign EngineerResponsible for design and analysis of high-speed digital (400+ MHz) circuits with emphasison digital multiplexer/demultiplexer systems!equipment. Minimum 5 years' related experi-ence in the design of high-speedCMOS/ECUGaAs!MESFETIHBTcustom ASICsatrates of 400 Mb/s and above. Capable ofdeveloping conceptual, top-down/detaileddesigns. Must have experience with currentCAEtools. Skilled in functional verification,development of test vectors, performance ofworst-case timing analysis and circuit simulation.Skilled in floor planning and place and route.

Wf: offer a highly competitive salarylbenefitspackage, not to mention our 9 daysl80 hoursschedule. You'll have every other Friday off!

Interested? Forward your resume to: LoraIWestern Development Labs, ProfessionalStaffing, Dept. SR-TR0895, P.O. Box 49041,San Jose, CA 95161-9041. Fax: (408) 473-4062.E-Mail: Ihh@wdl.loral.com.

Applicants may be subject to a securityinvestigation, and may be required to haveaccess to classified material. An EqualOpportunity Employer. Principals only please.

The Atomic Age at 50

DURING the 1980s I could panic atthe sound of a siren and oftenwoke during the night with apounding heart. Although I was

a veteran of the "duck-and-cover" days,when schoolchildren had to practicecrawling under desks at the wail of anair-raid siren designed to warn ofimpending nuclear attack, the spectre ofatomic war had seemed remote. ButPresident Reagan's inflammatory rhet-oric and the massive U.S. arms builduphad apparently convinced me that some-one might actually push the button.

Fortunately, the constant fear ofnuclear armageddon now no longerhaunts us. But the first half-century ofthe nuclear age, marked this August bythe fiftieth anniversary of the bombing ofHiroshima and Nagasaki, saw a relent-less quest by two powerful nations toacquire ever-more-sophisticated nuclearweapons. That arms race and thoseweapons-the ultimate embodiments ofthe human capacity for both technologi-cal genius and self-destruction-leave alegacy that will endure for generations.Technology Reviewhas devoted muchof this issue to examining that legacy.

Covering the dilemmas of the armsrace is not new to the magazine. Duringpast decades numerousTR authors haveanalyzed the effects of innovations suchas "multiple independently targetablereentry vehicles" (better known asMIRVs) and stealth on the strategic bal-ance, proposed alternatives for reversingthe arms race and preventing prolifera-tion, and debated the feasibility ofattempts to create a foolproof missiledefense.

Writing in this issue of the decision touse atomic weapons on Japan, historianLB. Holley, Jr., decries "Monday-morn-ing quarterbacking of scholars long afterthe event." An Air Force officer duringWorld War IT,he notes that whether thedecision seems wise or unwise dependson your perspective. The real question,he says, is: Did the bomb save lives? Theanswer of journalists Norman Polmar

First line

and Thomas B. Allen is a resoundingyes; they recount the horrifying loss oflife on both sides during the Pacific cam-paign and assert that the bomb avertedwhat promised to be "the bloodiestinvasion in history."

Yet events as momentous as the useagainst civilians of the most powerfulweapon ever devised inevitably entailmoral complexity. In our collection'slead essay historian John W. Dower notonly recounts the many motivations thatmight have propelled this awesome

A Special Issueon a special anniversary

-move but bemoans the nation's recentloss of opportunity to reflect on it-theSmithsonian Institution's decision todrastically scale back a planned exhibiton Hiroshima and Nagasaki and theiraftermath. u.S. Rep. Peter Blute (R-Mass.) counters that the reason forkilling the proposed exhibit was simple:it was fatally flawed.

Public debate of the events spawningthe atomic age would have been particu-larly important, psychiatrist Robert JayLifton and journalist Greg Mitchell main-tain, because the "cumulative influenceof Hiroshima is much greater than mostAmericans suspect." Inu.s.censorship ofon-site footage from Hiroshima andNagasaki and official reference to ago-nizing radiation deaths as "hoaxes andpropaganda," these authors see the startof "patterns of ... concealment that havecontaminated American life ever since."Yet if secrecy and fear have often pre-vented a closer examination of this excru-ciating time, communications professorBrian C. Taylor shows how novels andfilms about irradiated monsters and post-nuclear landscapes have provided alter-native vehicles for expressing the "shock,fantasy, regret, denial, and resolve ofsociety as it has struggled with the possi-bility of nuclear destruction."

Ironically, even as we indirectly dealtwith this grim reality, historian Alex

Roland maintains that by convincing thesuperpowers to avoid all-out confronta-tion, the bomb actually reversed the ac-celerating growth in war-related deathsset off by the Industrial Revolution, thussaving hundreds of millions of lives. Yetdeterrence posed its own contradictions:political scientists Richard Ned Lebowand Janice Gross Stein show that it fueledthe arguments of advocates for unlim-ited atomic arsenals and encouragedbrinkmanship that made nuclear launchimminent on more than one occasion.

Dealing with those massive arsenalsand vast quantities of associated detritusposes an unprecedented challenge. TRauthors make it clear that meeting thatchallenge will require all the technologi-cal, political, and social resources theglobal community can muster. Defenseanalysts Jonathan Dean and RandallForsberg, for example, present a compre-hensive three-stage plan to wean nuclearand would-be-nuclear nations alike fromequating the bomb with ultimate secu-rity. To help ensure against future effortsto build atomic weapons, several authorspropose putting fissile material under thewatch of international monitors. Pointingout that the world's "inventory of pluto-nium produced in nuclear [power] reac-tors now totals about 1 million kilo-grams, nearly five times the amount pro-duced for the world's nuclear weapons,"former weapon designer Theodore B.Taylor would phase out the entirenuclear enterprise.

Although these authors' ultimate goalof a nuclear-free world may seem beyondhumanity's grasp given endemic levels ofglobal violence, physicist Joseph Rotblatmaintains that failure to take action willresult in a much more dangerous worldin which many nations feel "entitled to[their] own nuclear deterrent." Citing themillions of people worldwide whoactively urged disarmament during theheight of the nuclear standoff, physicianand Nobel Peace Prize winner BernardLown sees citizen diplomacy as equallyessential in convincing leaders toembrace a more hopeful future .•

-SANDRA HACKMAN

TECHNOLOGY REYJ}.'W :;

TechnologyReviewPublisher

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6 AUGlIDlSEPTEMBER 1995

Letters

NASA THINKS SMALLAs Bruce Berkowitz notes in "MoreMoon Probe for Your Money" (TRApril 1995), Administrator DanielGoldin and other senior agency officialsof the National Aeronautics and SpaceAdministration are leading majorefforts to incorporate the relevant partsof the Clementine mission, includingshorter development schedules andstreamlined budgets and staff, into theway NASA conducts business. ButBerkowitz is far too quick to dismissthese efforts as "only a small portion ofNASA's activities."

As chief of the Small Missions Devel-opment Branch in NASA's Solar Sys-tems Exploration Division, I am respon-siblefor theDiscoveryseriesof scientificprobes mentioned in the article and theMars program. The currentDiscoveryflight projects, Mars Pathfinder andNear Earth Asteroid Rendezvous(NEAR), are being developed for lessthan $150 million (1992 dollars),excluding launch services. Earlier thisyear, NASA selected Lunar Prospectoras a newDiscovery project. With itsgoal tofill in missing links in our knowl-edge about the moon, Lunar Prospectoris slated for completion by 1997 andwill cost $59 million, including launchexpenses.

The Mars Surveyor '98 missions in-volve the construction of an orbiter andlander at the cost of $92.2 million. Thecurrent Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) ison a developmentscheduleof 28 monthsat a cost of $154 million, excludinglaunch expenses. The MGS will fly fiveof the seven instruments from the priorMars Observer program.

All the missions I have mentioned '_....,.....have project management structuresthat are at least half the size of the onefor Mars Observer. While the totalvalue of these missions may not consti-tute a huge percentage of NASA's bud-get, they are nonetheless very high pri-orities for the agency.

WILLIAM L. SMITH

ational Aeronauticsand Space Administration

Washington, D.C.

Bruce Berkowitz skims over the centralreason why space missions incur highcosts: the need for ultra-reliability.Spacecraft must function for extendedperiods of time without any opportunityfor repair. Without its ancillary agendato investigate the moon,Clementinemight have been labeled a failure sinceit was unable to perform the BallisticMissile Defense Organization's originalmission of testing defenses in spaceagainst actual missiles. Very few pro-grams have the luxury of being hailed asuccess for performing a secondary mis-sion instead of its primary one.

THOMAS W. JOHNSON

Albuquerque, N. Mex.

Although Bruce Berkowitz captured theimplications of Clementine for futurespaceactivities,I was disappointed by hisomission of the project role played byLawrence Livermore National Labora-tory. At least an equal partner with theNaval Research Laboratory, we built allsevencameras forClementine,producedmuch of the mission software, and madeall the data easilyaccessibleby putting iton the Internet.

C. BRUCE TARTER

DirectorLawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Livermore, Calif.

ThOUGHf FOR FOODThe life-cycle analyses of conveniencefoods that Lester Lave, Tse-Sung Wu,Chris Hendrickson, and Francis Me-Michael advocate in "My Shopping

Trip withAndre" (TRFebruary/March 1995). .mappropn-ately seekto combine

market prices with unknown and inmany cases incalculable environmentalcosts. Consumers don't -and probablycan't-s-conduct such computations be-cause they're virtually impossible to do.Life-cycleanalyses require the identifica-tion of both the obvious and not-so-obvi-ous environmental damage caused by a

product or a process. While the releaseof toxic chemicals from a manufacturingfacility is easily identifiable, the environ-mental harm caused by the burning offuels---say, to produce the energy to makeone component of a product-is not.

As technologies change, so will therisk levels associated with certain prod-ucts and processes. Could any organizedbody, including the government, beexpected to keep track ofall such devel-opments? And even if it could, the"right" life-cycle analysis would still beunavailable to consumers because somany of these effects are unquantifiable.

An alternative approach to life-cycleanalyses attacks the environmental harmsor inappropriate resource uses where theyoccur instead of trying to calculate thedamage at the end of the cycle. The advan-tage of such an approachis that it focusesdirectly on the environmental problemrather than trying to trace back through thecomplex interconnections of the economy.

RICHARD D. MORGENSTERN

Visiting ScholarResources for the Future

Washington, D.C.

DISINTERESTED EQUATIONSIn "Sheriffs of Scientific Correctness"(TR February/March1995), LangdonWinner revealed a shocking gap in myphysics education. He says that "a grow-ing number of writers observe that eventhe knowledge claims of physics andbiology are shot through with subjectivejudgments about the abilities of malesand females as well as different ethnicgroups." Had I somehow missed thisimportant point in spite of outstandingtutelage by the MIT physics faculty?

I reviewed the equations of mechanicsand electromagnetism in both their classi-cal and quantum mechanical forms. I evenstudied the equations using a mirror to ob-tain left-right inversion. I concluded thatthe equations of physics are supremelyindifferent to the points raised by Winner.The equations also appear to have little tosay about matters of diversity, multicul-turalism, or the bounties of the rainforest.

GREGORY R. JOHNSON

St. Louis, Mo.

LETTERS

BLENDING FACT WI11I VALUEIn "Suffer the Little Children" (TRApril 1995), Stephen Solomon exam-ines the ethical dilemmas health careprofessionals face in providing ad-vanced medical treatment. However, inhis reference to the Oregon health pri-oritization project, Solomon incorrectlyconcludes that its primary goal was sav-mgmoney.

The Oregon legislature developed theprioritization project in an effort to pro-vide health care to a greater number ofstate residents, even at the cost ofincreasing expenditures. Through con-sultation with health care experts andsurveys intended to determine the com-munity's health care priorities, theHealth Services Commission spent fouryears weighing the ethical questionsposed by certain kinds of treatment andit derived what it considered to be aneffective and efficient package thatblended fact with value.

But the federal government inter-preted biases against certain segments ofthe population, criticizing the prioriti-zation project for discriminating againstthe disabled under the Americans withDisability Act. The federal governmentthus weakened the commission's pro-ject; in particular, it had the commissiondrop its recommendation that only com-fort care be provided to babies whosegestational age was under 23 weeks andwhose birth weight was less than 500grams. Although the commission hadbased the recommendation solely on theinevitability of death, the federal gov-ernment was concerned that it violatedthe Child Abuse Amendment by singlingout children with underdeveloped bodysystems.

Until ethics and technology are inagreement, the public will continue to

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pay a great emotional price and thehealth care system will continue toundergo financialdrain at the expense ofpreventive services.

PAIGER. SIPES-METZLER

Executive DirectorOregon Health Services Commission

Portland, are.

ENERGY EFFICIENCYSince I share Flavin and Lenssen's con-cerns about environmental quality, Ihope their forecasts in "The ElectricityIndustry Seesthe Light"(TR Mayl]une1995) for an electricity industry thatdepends more on decentralized powergeneration and renewable energysourcesare correct. But, as the debates con-tinue and the industry structuredevelops, we should re-member that the goalfor the future electricindustry is not onlyenvironmental qual-ity but also economicefficiency.

Curiously, Flavin--= •• IJ~and Lenssen providelittle information about efforts byutilities to help customers becomemore energy efficient. The discussionof smart utilities providing real-timepricing does not consider that thismethod will encourage consumers todemand more electricity off-peakwhen prices are low. Real-time pric-ing will have a major effect on whenelectricity is used but not on howmuch electricity is consumed.

The authors also envision an in-dustry in which wholesale competi-tion is widespread but retail competi-tion is limited. Their model includesa retail monopoly franchise for localutilities, which can then plan onbehalf of all customers in their ser-vice area. However, some groupsstrongly favor "retail wheeling,"which enables customers to choosetheir energy supplier.

Readers of Flavin and Lenssen's excel-lent review of the electric industry maywonder how their vision relates to pro-posed retail wheeling-letting retail cus-tomers buy power from any supplier atmarket prices. This development hasbeen widely but falsely reported asimminent nationwide.

No state has authorized retail wheel-ing and none seems likely to. The presi-dent of the five-member California Pub-lic Utilities Commission unexpectedlyproposed retail wheeling in 1994, but itgot only one vote in May 1995. Nevadaoffered it to woo operators of a steelrolling mill into the state in 1994, butthe plant has still not materialized.Michigan authorized a small experiment

with retail wheeling in 1994, butimmediately landed in court.

Wrapped in the superficiallyattractive rhetoric of choice

and competition, retailwheeling has a venal mo-

tive: industries using 41·.1""'~._ percent of the nation's

electricity want to grabthe cheapest power and bur-

den ordinary consumers with costlierplants, which are primarily nuclear. TheFederal Energy Regulatory Commissionsaid in March 1995 it will not allowsuch unfairness.

Talk of retail wheeling nonethelesscaused panic among utility managers.Expecting that rewards for selling morepower would resume and that only lowrates would matter, they have slashedhighly cost-effective programs aimed atencouraging customers to cut bills byusing electricity more efficiently. Theimmense benefits of saving electricity(ultimately worth perhaps more than$100 billion per year nationwide) ratherthan generating more of it are thus beingsacrificedfor the much smaller benefit ofbuying bulk power competitively. Yetthat benefit will be captured by whole-salecompetition already required by fed-erallaw. Combined with proper stateregulation that rewards utilities for cut-ting customers' bills, wholesale compe-tition will yield both benefits.

Especiallyif everyonebuys bulk power