Conveners
Special Session - Nuclear Weapons Threat Reduction | Session extraordinaire - Réduction de la menace des armes nucléaires
- Wendy Taylor (York University (CA))
Description
The Canadian Association of Physicists has partnered with the Physicists Coalition for Nuclear Threat Reduction to organize a discussion on how physicists can help reduce the threat of nuclear weapons. The Physicists Coalition was founded in 2019 with the support from the American Physical Society Innovation Fund and the Carnegie Corporation. This session is divided into three topics with speakers presenting on a range of issues including the current status of nuclear weapons worldwide, the Golden Dome strategic missile defense system being advanced by the United States, the technical aspects of nuclear stewardship and verification, and the current state of advocacy. This will be followed by a Q&A.
Topic 1: The Increasing Nuclear Danger
Stewart Prager, Program on Science and Global Security (Princeton University) and Physicists Coalition for Nuclear Threat Reduction
Topic 2: The Golden Dome: Technical and Policy Aspects
Walter Dorn, Defense Studies (Royal Military College of Canada)
Igor Morić, Program on Science and Global Security (Princeton University).
Topic 3: Physicists and Nuclear Weapons: How we can help reduce the threat
Talia Weiss, Ph.D. student, and creator of the Yale Kimball Smith Series. (Yale University)
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Stewart Prager22/06/2026, 12:00Other Sessions or Meetings / Autres séances ou réunionsInvited Speaker / Conférencier(ère) invité(e)
The distribution of about 12,000 nuclear weapons possessed by nine nations around the globe subject people of all nations to great danger. At all times, about 2,000 weapons are on alert status, capable of delivering civilization-ending physical power within minutes of receiving an order from a national leader. Beyond direct effects of a nuclear detonation, such as the blast wave, indirect...
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Walter Dorn (Royal Military College & Canadian Forces College)22/06/2026, 12:15Other Sessions or Meetings / Autres séances ou réunionsInvited Speaker / Conférencier(ère) invité(e)
The US Golden Dome initiative, announced by President Donald Trump in 2025, envisages a multilayer defence system to destroy ballistic, hypersonic and cruise missiles and possibly even drones. The prospect of a “defensive shield” has appeal in some quarters, but its effectiveness can easily be questioned, especially when one considers the countermeasures like larger attacks and decoys. In some...
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Igor Morić (Princeton University)22/06/2026, 12:30Other Sessions or Meetings / Autres séances ou réunionsInvited Speaker / Conférencier(ère) invité(e)
The Golden Dome promises to protect the United States against ballistic, hypersonic, and cruise missile attack, regardless of where they are launched or by whom, presenting national missile defense as a technological answer to the nuclear danger. This talk examines the gap between the political vision of Golden Dome and the technical, economic, and strategic realities of missile defense. An...
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Talia Weiss22/06/2026, 12:45Other Sessions or Meetings / Autres séances ou réunionsInvited Speaker / Conférencier(ère) invité(e)
Canadian physicists have a stake in nuclear threat reduction. Canadian scientists supplied uranium and researched plutonium production for the Manhattan Project. Hundreds of US nuclear weapons were stationed in Canada from 1950 to 1984. Today, Canada remains embedded in the US nuclear alliance through NORAD and NATO, and would suffer severe consequences in a nuclear exchange. At the same time,...
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