Andrei Sakharov
Dr.
Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov () (
May 21 1921 –
December 14 1989), was an eminent
Soviet nuclear physicist,
dissident and
human rights activist. Sakharov was an advocate of
civil liberties and reforms in the
Soviet Union.
Born in
Moscow in
1921, he entered
Moscow State University in
1938. Following evacuation in
1941 during the
"Great Patriotic War", he graduated in
AÅŸgabat, in today's
Turkmenistan. He was then assigned laboratory work in
Ulyanovsk. He returned to Moscow in
1945 to study at the Theoretical Department of
FIAN (the Physical Institute of the
Soviet Academy of Sciences). He received his
Ph.D. in
1947.
On
World War II's end, Sakharov researched
cosmic rays. In mid-1948 he participated in the
Soviet atomic bomb project under
Igor Kurchatov. The first Soviet atomic device was tested on
August 29,
1949. After moving to
Sarov in 1950, Sakharov played a key role in the next stage, the development of the
hydrogen bomb. The first Soviet fusion device was tested on
August 12,
1953, using what was called the
Sloika design. In 1953, he received his
D.Sc. degree, was elected a full member of the
Soviet Academy of Sciences, and was awarded the first of his three
Hero of Socialist Labor titles. Sakharov continued to work at Sarov, playing a key role in the development of the first megaton-range Soviet hydrogen bomb using a design known as "Sakharov's Third Idea" in Russia and the
Teller-Ulam design in the United States. It was first tested as
RDS-37 in 1955. A larger variation of the same design which Sakharov worked on was the 50MT
Tsar Bomba of October 1961, which was the most powerful device ever exploded.
He also proposed an idea for a controlled
nuclear fusion reactor, the
tokamak, which is still the basis for the majority of work in the area. Sakharov, in association with
Igor Tamm, proposed confining extremely hot ionized
plasma by
torus shaped
magnetic fields for controlling
thermonuclear fusion that led to the development of the tokamak device.
Sakharov proposed the idea of
induced gravity as an alternative theory of
quantum gravity.
Turn to activism
From the late-
1950s Sakharov had become concerned about the moral and political implications of his work. Politically active during the
1960s, Sakharov was against
nuclear proliferation. Pushing for the end of atmospheric tests, he played a role in the
1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty, signed in Moscow. In 1965 he returned to fundamental science and began working on
cosmology but continued to oppose political discrimination.
The major turn in Sakharov's political evolution started in
1967, when
anti-ballistic missile defense became a key issue in USâ€"Soviet relations. In a secret detailed letter to the Soviet leadership of
July 21,
1967, Sakharov explains the need to
"take the Americans at their word" and accept their proposal "for a bilateral rejection by the USA and the Soviet Union of the development of antiballistic missile defense", because otherwise an arms race in this new technology would increase the likelihood of nuclear war. He also asked permission to publish his manuscript (which accompanied the letter) in a newspaper to explain the dangers posed by this kind of defense. The government ignored his letter and refused to let him initiate a public discussion of ABM in the Soviet press.
In May
1968 he completed an essay,
Reflections on Progress, Peaceful Coexistence, and Intellectual Freedom, where the anti-ballistic missile defense is featured as a major threat of world nuclear war. After this essay was circulated in
samizdat and then published outside the Soviet Union, Sakharov was banned from all military-related research and Sakharov returned to FIAN to study fundamental theoretical physics. In
1970 he was one of the founders of the
Moscow Human Rights Committee and came under increasing pressure from the regime. He married a fellow human rights activist,
Yelena Bonner, in 1972.
 |
Statue of Andrei Sakharov in Sakharov Square in Yerevan at night. Copyright (c) 2004, Raffi Kojian, Armeniapedia.org |
In
1973 he was nominated for the
Nobel Peace Prize and in 1974 was awarded the
Prix mondial Cino Del Duca. He won the Nobel prize in
1975, although he was not allowed to leave the Soviet Union to collect it. His wife read his speech at the acceptance ceremony.
Sakharov's ideas on social development led him to put forward the principle of human rights as a new basis of all politics. In his works he declared that "the principle 'what is not prohibited is allowed' should be understood literally", denying the importance and validity of all moral or cultural norms not codified in the laws. He was arrested on
January 22 1980, following his public protests against the
Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan in
1979 and was sent to
internal exile to a city of
Gorky, now
Nizhny Novgorod, a
closed city that was inaccessible to foreign observers.
Between
1980 to
1986, Sakharov was kept under tight Soviet police surveillance. In his memoirs he mentions that their apartment in Gorky was repeatedly subjected to searches and heists. He remained isolated but unrepentant until December 1986 when he was allowed to return to Moscow as
Mikhail Gorbachev initiated the policies of
perestroika and
glasnost.
In 1988 Sakharov was given the International Humanist Award by the
International Humanist and Ethical Union.
He helped to initiate the first independent legal political organizations and became prominent in the Soviet Union's growing political opposition. In March 1989, Sakharov was elected to the new parliament, the
All-Union Congress of People's Deputies and co-led the democratic opposition.
Sakharov died of a
heart attack in 1989 at the age of 68, and was interred in the Vostryakovskoye Cemetery in Moscow.
The
Sakharov Prize, established in
1985 and awarded annually by the
European Parliament for people and organizations dedicated to human rights and freedoms, was named in his honor.
The Andrei Sakharov Archives and Human Rights Center, established at Brandeis University in 1993 are now housed at Harvard University.[
1]
*Sakharov and the "Sakharov Drive" were featured in
Arthur C. Clarke's novel
2010: Odyssey Two.
*Sakharov is mentioned briefly in
Kurt Vonnegut's
Timequake.
*One of the
Enterprise-D shuttlecraft in
Star Trek: The Next Generation is named for him.
*He may also be the inspiration for the name 'Prokhor Zakharov', the leader of the University of Planet in
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri.
*During the 1980s, the U.S. government named the street in front of what was then the main Soviet embassy building in midtown
Washington, D.C., "Andrei Sakharov Place" as a form of protest against his 1980 arrest and detention. This applied to the block of 16th Street NW between L and M streets. The new embassy complex on
Wisconsin Avenue was still under construction, as it was for many years.
* "In this pamphlet, advanced for discussion by its readers, the author has set himself the goal to present, with the greatest conviction and frankness, two theses that are supported by many people in the world. These are:
*# The division of mankind threatens it with destruction… Only universal cooperation under conditions of intellectual freedom and the lofty moral ideals of socialism and labor, accompanied by the elimination of dogmatism and pressure of the concealed interests of ruling classes, will preserve civilization…
*# The second basic thesis is that intellectual freedom is essential to human society â€" freedom to obtain and distribute information, freedom for open-minded and unfearing debate and freedom from pressure by officialdom and prejudices. Such a trinity of freedom of thought is the only guarantee against an infection of people by mass myths, which, in the hands of treacherous hypocrites and demagogues, can be transformed into bloody dictatorship. Freedom of thought is the only guarantee of the feasibility of a scientific democratic approach to politics, economics and culture." (
Reflections on Progress, Peaceful Coexistence, and Intellectual Freedom, in ''
The New York Times, July 22, 1968) [
2]
* "I foresee a universal information system (UIS), which will give everyone access at any given moment to the contents of any book that has ever been published or any magazine or any fact. The UIS will have individual miniature-computer terminals, central control points for the flood of information, and communication channels incorporating thousands of artificial communications from satellites, cables, and laser lines. Even the partial realization of the UIS will profoundly affect every person, his leisure activities, and his intellectual and artistic development. …But the true historic role of the UIS will be to break down the barriers to the exchange of information among countries and people." (Saturday Review/World, August 24, 1974) [
3]
* Sakharov, Andrei,
"Facets of a Life". 1991.
* Babenyshev, Alexander,
"On Sakharov". Russia, 1981.
* Lozansky, Edward D.,
"Andrei Sakharov and Peace". 1985.
* Drell, Sidney D., and Sergei P. Kapitsa,
"Sahkarov Remembered". 1991
* Gorelik,Gennady, with Antonina W. Bouis,
"The World of Andrei Sakharov: A Russian Physicist's Path to Freedom". Oxford University Press, 2005
*
Sergei Kovalev*
Edward Teller
