Some of my students were talking about movies this evening during lab and asked for recommendations. I don’t really watch many movies, but I came up with this suggestion: Countdown to Zer0.

It’s not the suggestion they were looking for. However, it’s either this, or watch Dr. Strangelove and realize the basic premise of the movie isn’t so far fetched. Recall, if you will, that in protest to McNamara’s insistence on installing launch code computers inside the silos, that NORAD actually set all the launch codes to 00 00 00 00 00 00. Essentially any launch officer for several years knew the launch order for the US nuclear arsenal.

Or think for a moment on the relative ease with which an organization with the sole aim of detonating a nuclear weapon could succeed. Especially if you’re not concerned about what happens afterwards. I fear this really is just a matter of time.

Nuclear weapons : they have not gone away you know. We just don’t care about them as much as we did. And frankly that makes their use more likely, not less. Hell, even Reagan said we should, “eliminate nuclear weapons from the face of the earth.” (granted, I have no idea what he was thinking in Reykjavik at the insistence on SDI)