When you tear out a man’s tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you’re only telling the world that you fear what he might say. — George R. R.

Scientific journalism, Julian Assange, and a world without leaks

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2024-09-01 07:30:02

When you tear out a man’s tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you’re only telling the world that you fear what he might say. — George R. R. Martin

(Author’s note: I wrote this article as a sequel to Rubberhose Cryptography to be published in time for the UK High Court’s final appeal against Julian Assange’s US extradition. I’ve, happily, had to make some edits…)

In the northern spring of 1905, the young Swiss physicist Albert Einstein published the first of three scientific journal articles that outlined the theory of special relativity — how light travels in discrete “photons”, how the speed of light is constant even if you’re on a moving train, and the famous energy-matter equivalence E=mc² which would go on to unleash nuclear power across the planet.

One hundred years later, in 2005, the world marked the anniversary of Einstein’s annus mirabilis by declaring it the International Year of Physics. The Australian Institute of Physics celebrated too — and for its biannual congress held that year at the Australian National University invited Nobel Prize-winner and laser-physicist Bill Philips to deliver a keynote address, and held, for the first time ever, a National Physics Competition. The best undergraduate physics students from across Australia and New Zealand were invited to compete in theoretical and experimental tests with sponsored prizes for the winners.