A short piece about James L. Acord was recently published in the New Scientist. The article does a good job of summarizing one of the last projects Jim was working on before he took his life. He was making plutonium for inclusion in his “Fifth Reliquary.” Though the quantities of plutonium being produced were practically insignificant (otherwise I would likely have had more than one “difficult” conversation with some serious men at an undisclosed location by now), let’s not forget that he was making plutonium in his (subsidized) apartment!
It is a sweet irony that I should learn of the New Scientist article the same day that I toured the Hanford B Reactor where the plutonium for Fat Man, and classified thousands of other warheads, was produced. In Hanford, enough plutonium to destroy the Earth hundreds of times over. In Seattle, Jim produces plutonium in quantities practical only for conceptual art.
James L. Acord 