ASU's Lawrence Krauss to co-chair disarmament group

Last week, during the ScienceDebate strategy meeting at ASU, host Lawrence Krauss announced to us that he will co-chair the Board of Sponsors of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists with Nobel Laureate Leon Ledermen. Together they plan to re-energize a national discussion on the reduction of nuclear weapons stockpiles, and a commitment to fight proliferation and encourage disarmament efforts.

Most of us are familiar with BAS' famous 'doomsday clock' that has shown the Earth often just minutes away from nuclear war.

Lawrence is a theoretical physicist and cosmologist in the School of Earth and Space Exploration and director of the new “Origins” initiative at ASU.

A press release from the Bulletin says the role of the Sponsors, founded in 1948 by Albert Einstein and first led by J. Robert Oppenheimer, is to support the efforts of the Bulletin to amplify voices of reason and encourage rational policymaking on nuclear weapons, nuclear energy, climate change and biotechnology. The board has 44 members and includes 17 Nobel laureates.

Lawrence was named to the Board of Sponsors in 2006, along with Stephen Hawking, Lisa Randall and Brian Greene. Scientific American has described Krauss as a public intellectual. Among his six books is the best-seller, The Physics of Star Trek.