So, I do have a story I can relate. I probably have several, but this is a good place to start:
In 1997, I was part of the IAEA inspection team that was sent to North Korea. My mission was threefold: observe the encasement of fuel rods, determine if their reactors were suitable for power production (
no), and collect data for determination of whether they were capable of developing a weapon. The answer to the last question-at least,
my answer, was yes, at the time. Now, at the time, I was 6 years from having a doctorate forced on me, and was-in the eyes of Los Alamos Lab and a great deal of the community, "just a well-qualified technician." My opinion didn't matter-the data I collected told the then head of the lab, a truly brilliant man named Sig Hecker, that North Korea couldn't develop a weapon, and he said so, publicly, several times-something like their being decades away. He let the lab in '97, and went on to make several trips to North Korea himself. On one of them, around 2002 or so, they made their slight reveal to Sig, (compared to the big reveal of their centrifuge plant, in 2010) who was shocked to have to change his opinion, especially after getting data from their 2006 and 2009 nuclear tests.
Sig Hecker's a plutonium metallurgist-a really brilliant, well-measured and thoughtful guy. A much better and more qualified
scientist than I am.
I'm an engineer-a pretty good one, not necessarily brilliant,and a self-admitted knuckle dragger.
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I have a scientist's
credentials, which I didn't at the time, but I'm really just an engineer, in the end.
I was right, though, and he was wrong, and 10 years later, North Korea proved me right.
Was Sig FOS? Not really-he based his evaluation on his experience and knowledge. Of course, he got into the work after most of it had been developed by some really brilliant men......and a collection of knuckle draggers like me, and he couldn't see what North Korea had-he only saw what they lacked. Based on what they lacked, he couldn't envision being capable of developing a program himself, and so he determined that North Korea couldn't.
I looked at what they had with a blacksmith's mentality, and said,
Yeah, I could do it. It wouldn't be pretty, and it wouldn't necessarily be done as well as they did back in '45, and the effort would probably kill a few workers, but I could get it done......
I'd say that it's for those of us who know that they're right......doom on you if you're wrong, though. :lol:
This puts us pretty far afield from your original question, though......of course, the answer to that is
yes-in that context , I've never had occasion to say that one of my seniors was FOS....