[Phys-L] Re: The West Wing

[Bernard Cleyet <bernardcleyet@REDSHIFT.COM>]

Somehow I think we can get Bush in here.

Regarding nuclear incompetence, I suffered because of this.  There is a
pervasive unreasonable fear of things nuclear, due to a lack of
knowledge by nearly all teachers.  Unfortunately, even those who should
know have incomplete knowledge.  I accidentally opened a 200 microCi
scatterless Cs-137 source (for Beta spectrometer) and spilled about a
third on my fingers and the floor.  A long story -- the dept. chair
dressed me down for frightening the van pool w/ my explanation that I'd
badly  contaminated myself when they asked why the rubber glove and the
survey meter, not for the accident itself.  "Anyone can have such an
accident ."  The RSO unduly frightened me and angered the survey people
at the Donner Lab. at UCB for wasting their time.   They laughed at my
contamination.  The principle worry of EH&S was one of the college's
rags (Fish Rap) would learn and publicize it.

Remember?  It was Nuclear magnetic imaging -- lost patients because of
the "Nuclear"?

bc

p.s. Perhaps Bush could fund science ed. instead of foreign adventures?

Bob LaMontagne wrote:

> How refreshing! - Someone citing an instance of bad science being forced
> upon us all without the slightest hint of Bush bashing.
>
> Bob at PC
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Forum for Physics Educators [mailto:PHYS-L@list1.ucc.nau.edu] On
> Behalf Of Leigh Palmer
> Sent: Monday, January 23, 2006 1:04 PM
> To: PHYS-L@LISTS.NAU.EDU
> Subject: The West Wing
>
> Last evening I watched my favorite soap opera, "The West Wing", on
> NBC television. The episode's focus was on a catastrophic incident at
> a nuclear rector "near San Diego", presumably at San Onofre, though
> it was fictionalized to "San Andreo" in the story. The events that
> transpired at the reactor during the episode were only reported in
> Washington; there was no effort made to simulate the incident itself.
> Many distortions of scientific fact followed during the few hours
> between the first report of the incident and its final resolution,
> including a death from "radiation sickness" of an engineer,
> ostensibly from a dose of radiation of order of magnitude 10 rem
> (roentgen effective man*). (The script didn't seem to discriminate
> between radiation dose, dose rate, and quantity of activity, so it
> would be difficult to justify the calculation which led me to that
> conclusion.)  I won't belabor the details, too numerous to recount,
> but it is very clear that the series pays no attention whatsoever to
> verisimilitude when it comes to science. The message which was
> delivered is the PC liberal dogma that anything nuclear (or should I
> say "nuculer"?) is evil, and scientific accuracy could be justifiably
> sacrificed given the unquestionable nobility of that message.
>
> I was not at all unhappy to read in this morning's paper that NBC
> will cancel "The West Wing".
>
> Leigh
>
> * I wonder if the writers know that the "m" in "rem" stands for
> "man"? A PC scientific advisor might have steered them to grays and
> sieverts, or else invented on the spot a new gender neutral unit, the
> "rep"!
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