Members in the Media

"In the 1980s, while we were working out all of the theory of this, we were also stimulating our experimental colleagues to keep going to higher and higher levels of accuracy to find out these fundamental fluctuations in the temperature of the radiation that's coming from the Big Bang."
—Dick Bond, University of Toronto, on progress in cosmology, Ottawa Citizen, December 29, 2003

---

"If every neuron in your brain gets hit, do you come back being a blithering idiot, or not?"
—Derek Lowenstein, Brookhaven, pointing out that researchers don't know how radiation would affect astronauts on a trip to Mars, New York Times, December 9, 2003

---

"This is really very distressing. They're saying, 'Go after it, guys. We're back in the '50s. Come up with all the crazy ideas you can—if there are any crazy ideas left out there.' This is fossil Cold War mentality surfacing again."
—Frank von Hippel, Princeton University, on the Bush administration's nuclear policies urging federal labs to explore a full range of new nuclear weapons, Oakland Tribune, December 12, 2003

---

"It means that—if it's right—we need to keep an eye on it. When we think about all these greenhouse gases, we ought also to think about controlling these particles that are also changing the climate."
—Michael Oppenheimer, Princeton University, on a study by NASA showing that soot particles cause as much as a quarter of observed global warming, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, December 23, 2003

---

"In terms of routine emissions, nuclear plants are a lot better option than fossil-fuel plants that emit greenhouse gases and, in the case of coal, a whole series of other nasty pollutants like mercury."
—Thomas B. Cochran, Natural Resources Defense Council, Washingtonian, January 2004

---

"It's like chasing a quarry into a corner. If we kill [the Los Alamos experiment], we'll be heroes. And if we find sterile neutrinos, then we're really heroes. Either way, we've made a big step forward."
—Janet Conrad, Columbia University, on looking for sterile neutrinos, Los Angeles Times, December 20, 2003

---

"They thought I was either a double agent, or it wouldn't be safe for the security of the United States that an Iranian nuclear physicist would come here and do research."
—M. Hadi Hadizadeh, Ohio University, on his struggle to get a US visa, Los Angeles Times, December 19, 2003

---

"It's only a theory of everything if you can explain all the things. The experiments are forcing us to try to understand the theory in places where the calculations are difficult. If you call yourself a theorist and have any self-respect, you have to take the challenge."
—Chris Quigg, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, New York Times, December 30, 2003