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Muons against terrorism

February 23, 2005

There’s an old joke that goes…

Boss:  “Nancy, get Kenner in here;  I’m going to fire him. All he ever does is sit back in his chair and look out the window!”
Nancy: “But boss, Kenner came up with all four of our most successful campaigns last year!”
Boss: (not skipping a beat)  “Well then, what are you waiting for?  Get someone up there to clean Kenner’s window for him!”

The curious scientists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory seem to be earning their keep.  It seems they’ve come up with a way to look right through trucks and shipping containers to detect nuclear bombs or radiation shielding.  They perform this important little trick using muons,  which are high-energy particles that constantly fall to Earth from outer space.  They pass right through most things but are deflected just a little by very dense materials like uranium, lead, or plutonium. 

You never know in advance when pure science will wind up turning into a useful technology.  The first time anyone detected “muons,” it must have seemed pretty esoteric and useless.  “What are those crazy scientists spending our money on, anyway?”  Now, it just might save entire cities by detecting a terrorist weapon.

Let’s get somebody out there to clean those scientists’ windows!

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