Wesley Clark's Inadvertent Science Advisor

First, some history. Back in November 1995, I was in DC staying with the Lodals for Thanksgiving, part of my usual routine. At the time Jan was serving as Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Policy. As part of our weekend's activities, Elizabeth got tickets for the group of us to see the Vermeer exhibit at the National Gallery - a fantastic experience. Afterward we went to dinner with one of Jan's colleagues from the Pentagon, a four-star general, Wesley Clark.

In advance of dinner Jan explained to us that Gen. Clark was currently angling to be named commander of the NATO Bosnia mission. It was clear that Jan thought very highly of him, which as those of you who have met Jan will know, really means something.

Once we met up with Gen. Clark and his driver outside the East Building, it was easy enough to be impressed with him in person. At dinner we talked a lot about the situation in Bosnia, which had been mired in NATO dithering since the Bush (I) administration. I asked him why he wanted the Bosnia command, which seemed at the time a pretty thankless job. He said that it was an easy decision - Bosnia was where the action was.

Then the subject of my work came up and, in particular, the question of the practical applications of astrophysics. This can be a hard one to address, but as it happened, I had recently read a paper in Phys Rev Letters about the possibility of faster-than-light travel. The gist of this article was that the famous speed limit applies only in a local sense (special relativity) and can be exceeded if one warps space-time in an appropriate fashion (general relativity). So, not that it would be easy - it requires moving around solar masses of material and, in particular, use of "negative energy density" matter, whatever that might be (physicists currently have no idea) - but it is not absolutely ruled out. I told Gen. Clark about this and, to my surprise, he was very intrigued. I tried to summarize the caveats but all in all I was happy to have engaged his imagination.

Okay, now read this Wired article, and you'll appreciate the significance of my title.