We were speculating in the office this afternoon about whether physicists really are funnier than other scientists. I know a bunch of them who are hilarious, and on this front Steven Chu did not disappoint.

A case in point: the guy told an arms control joke. Only at a place like Sandia could this get a laugh: One reason we need the technical expertise to be found at places like Sandia, Chu said, is because we need people who can "tell the difference between aluminum tubes and centrifuges." Rim shot. (OK, it needs the setup: top-secret work by Sandia intelligence experts is believed to have led to the conclusion that aluminum tubes being purchased by Iraq were not for use in centrifuges to be used to enrich uranium for use in nuclear weapons. But the Bush administration ignored the conclusion, invaded, etc. A joke only an arms control wonk could love.)

Some more serious notes....

Chu went on the record arguing that the nuclear weapon labs should stay within the Department of Energy. Some within the Obama adminstration want a study of the possibility of moving it, perhaps to DoD. Chu thinks that's a bad idea, arguing in a news conference that the R&D synergy of the labs with other Energy Department missions is too important to be lost.

Chu said decisions about the path forward in replacing Los Alamos National Laboratory's aging CMR plutonium lab will have to wait for the completion of the Pentagon's Nuclear Posture Review.

Chu offered a deep argument, rooted in history, about the role of "mission-oriented science." He invoked the old Bell Labs (where he once worked) and flashed up PowerPoint slides of Oppenheimer, Feynman and company at Los Alamos. It is the kind of work - multidiscplinary, involving flexible teams and broad missions, in which the labs excel, he said. He laid out a number of example challenges, including new biologically-based fuels and more energy-efficient building designs.

(Picture courtesy the Journal's Richard Pipes. That's me behind the microphone, Jonesin' to ask Chu another question.)