The Safety Issue with Japanese Reactors
(Boiling Water Reactors)
March 25, 2011
I've just finished a first ten-page paper, to appear in the next issue of Nexus, which previously published a ten-page article on the Z-machine, reproducing what I had posted on my website. Well, good—finally, people are talking about it. I've just sent them, at their request, a follow-up paper, also in the form of a ten-page article, expected to appear in the next issue (Nexus is published every two months).
My readers sometimes wonder why they never find one of my articles in any of the numerous French or francophone popular science magazines (La Recherche, Pour la Science, Science et Vie, Science et Vie Junior, Ca m'intéresse, Ciel et Espace, etc.). They also wonder why they never see me participating in televised debates.
The reason is simple: I've been banned from the media for decades. My appearance on television would be exceptional. A chief editor of a small scientific and technical information magazine, who had published one of my articles on the Z-machine two or three years earlier, once found himself at a meeting with other chief editors from various scientific and technical magazines. Hervé This, deputy chief editor of Pour la Science, told him verbatim:
"Why did you publish his article? You know we have instructions not to open our pages to him."
And his interlocutor replied:
"I didn't know it had reached that level."
Yes, Hervé This, like so many others, is one of the
Epistémo-Tartuffes:
- Hide this science, I must not see it
- Science is just cooking...
Go check his Wikipedia page. At the bottom, the list of his honorary distinctions.
Absolutely hilarious—guaranteed to make you laugh. More decorated, you can't get.
Hervé This was my "coach" at Belin editions for well over fifteen years. The publishing house had tasked him with "correcting" the albums in the Anselme Lanturlu Adventures series. Belin owned Pour la Science, which he eventually became deputy editor-in-chief of.
The son of a psychiatrist, This took malicious pleasure in making me rewrite manuscripts N times. The peak was reached with the album on astrophysics, Mille Milliards de Soleils, which went through seven successive versions. At the end of it all, This finally told me: "In the end, the first version was better."
What a delight to play with a talented author, like a cat plays with a mouse. This odious game lasted fifteen years.
This "Collection Director" role allowed This to boast publicly: "Look at the state the Anselme Lanturlu albums arrive in. There's a lot of work to be done in formatting them."
Nonsense.
Censorship eventually fell also on Belin editions. Three albums remained blocked for two years: Le Logotron, Joyeuse Apocalypse, and Le Chronologicon. I went to Paris and asked the company's CEO what he found objectionable in these manuscripts. His reply:
"A publisher publishes books... of course... but above all, they publish works they personally like. And these ones don't appeal to us."
Then he threw the three manuscripts onto the table. I then found a "small publisher" from the Sisteron region. This time, being cautious, I had included in the contract: "In case annual sales fall below 70 copies per year, the author automatically regains all rights."
They never reached those figures.
I didn't know what else to do. In the meantime, I had drawn "Pour quelques Ampères de Plus." Publishing such a work with that kind fellow seemed like wasted time. Since I was doing it anyway, I sent a photocopy of the manuscript to This, who returned it covered in red marker comments. Dialogue:
-
This, I think you haven't understood—I sent you the manuscript, but you're publishing it in that state. That's it or nothing. No changes to a single word or drawing.
-
But before, we did it differently...
-
Before, it was before. Now I'm fed up with this little game. You publish the album as it is, or we drop it.
Eventually, the publishing house decided to publish the work. It was the last one. Many years later, I was able to reclaim all rights to the entire series. The publisher, having sold only 10 to 20 copies per title annually, had eventually exhausted certain print runs. But contractually, a publisher is required to make a book available to readers. They would have had to reprint it.
I have another anecdote to share, concerning the Alembert Prize, created to reward a popular science book on mathematics. Many people assumed I would automatically be the recipient, given works like Le Geometricon, Le Trou Noir, and Le Topologicon.
During the commission meeting responsible for awarding the prize, one member proposed my name. But the others immediately replied:
"Petit hasn't just done those works. He also did the Mur du Silence..."
"Oh really? In that case..."
To take revenge for my allegedly arrogant behavior as an author, when I published my 1997 book On a perdu la moitié de l'Univers, This published a thorough demolition in Pour la Science, spanning two columns, written by a certain Philippe Zarka from Meudon. This critique revealed the author's incompetence. I contacted a member of that lab, determined to respond in a seminar to what I thought was a researcher. But I found myself facing not a researcher, but merely an engineer who had "read a lot of popular science books." I felt like a tennis player trying to play a "rematch" against a ping-pong player. It was pointless to insist.
I then turned to This, asking for a right of reply in the pages of Pour la Science, which he refused, drunk on the power conferred by his status.
Yes, for This, science is just... cooking.
To circumvent the problem, the commission awarded the prize to Pour la Science itself, for publishing a book on mathematics, whose crown jewel was my 1979 article on sphere eversion.
I have never received, and never will receive, the Alembert Prize.
So be it.
As for This, just look at the astonishing list of his decorations to grasp the contours of the character—courtier at heart. What bows, what brushing up of the broom to collect such a résumé. He reminds me of Brassens' character "Cornes d'Auroch," and the final line of the song:
"And since he'd never done anything wrong,
They held his national funeral."
Perhaps This will end up in the Panthéon one day... who knows?
For this very reason, you will find no mention in any of these media of the existence of our association, Savoir sans Frontières, which now makes freely available to readers over 400 albums, translated into more than 36 languages.
A reader has just sent me this PDF concerning safety procedures for BWRs (Boiling Water Reactors), the type used in all Japanese nuclear power plants. No time for commentary now. I'll try to find time later...