|
click here for larger picture and story Last Update Oct. 18th 2016
|
---|
I (Richard Wilson) was born in London, England 90 years ago in 1926, and have been at Harvard University since 1955 (nearly 60 years) where I am now Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics, (emeritus) In 1975 I was made an affiliate of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies and of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government. My CV shows that I am the author or coauthor of 940 published articles and papers. (more to come!) See also charts of my ancestors and descendants and my wife's (Andree Wilson's) ancestors. We, Andree Desiree Wilson and Richard Wilson live in Newton Centre where Andree tends her fine garden. In particular look at the web site of Elaine Wilson, a fine landscape painter. (Look in particular at her present project: a photographical study of what one sees on the the AMTRAK line between Ann Arbor and Kalamazoo) Andree and Richard are proud of all our six children. Arthur Christopher, Michael Thomas, Nicholas Graham, Elaine Susan, Andre A., and Peter James. We note that Elaine wrote a strong letter to the New York Times (published January 9th 2015) supporting and praising her brother Andre who is working hard for health services for transgender people. We were all delighted when in his 2015 "State of The Union Message" Obama mentioned transgender people and gave them spport both then and llater.
Richard Wilson, the physicist, may be found most days in Jefferson Laboratory of Physics room 257 at Harvard University. A page of photographs of Richard Wilson over the years is available only by password or personal request to protect the privacy of others in the pictures. My calculations and belief is that the international drug trade is far more destructive of society than Al Qaeda or the Ayatollahs in Iran. I personally am not worried when details about my life get published. I remember when Winston Churchill stayed in the White House in 1941 and Franklin Roosevelt accidentally found him naked in the bathroom."Roosevelt apologized and Churchill responded the prime minister of England has NOTHING to hide from the president of the United States" To the best of my knowledge there is no publised statement for that comment.
My inititial discussions are among my published papers listed on this site. Keeping perspective was a major theme of our book "Risk-BenefitAnalysis" (now in its second edition) by Richard Wilson and Edmund A. Crouch, available from Harvard University Press and on the book stands; As a sample, see the Table of Contents the first pages of the book and some comments on the book
Three years ago (2005) I self-published an autobiography: "Physics is Fun" : Memoirs of a Life in Physics ISBN 978-0-615-42158-2. This was printed by MIRA DIGITAL PUBLISHING St Louis Missouri, USA. BUT neither Mira nor Amazon carry the book without exorbitant charge. The "backcover praise" before actual publication is here, and a set of flattering reviews are also available. You may order direct from me at $25 a copy including domestic postage. Or a digital copy in either of 2 common formats for $10. Although, for example, I state my concerns that I felt as a teenager, I write them with an understanding of these concerns I have developed, led me in conflict with several established views of the US Government. In particular I found myself thinking diffrently about the Israeli/Palesine conflict.
In 1939 my school, St Paul's School was evacuated to Crwothorne in Berkshire. There were a number of refugees from Germeny and I was friendly with about 30 who were Jewish. As far as I can remember there was only one boy, Aubrey Sampson who talked about a future state of Israel. His younger brother Lenny did not. I found out later that ignoring the possibility of the state of Israel is usual. The famous (or infamous) cabinet of Lord Balfour in 1917 made a declaration which looked with favor on the establighment of a Jewish homeland in what is now Israel. The cabinet included one Jew, Ewan Montagu, who disagreed. Ewan Montago stated "I am a Jewish Englishman and am proud of it. But if I am called an English Jew I am in trouble." But Adolph Hitler came along and forced Lord Montagu to change his view. But then WWII came to an end and we all rethought the issues.
Note to readers. rather than keep a lot of e mail lists I propose to make a note of items such as health of self and my wife Andree accurate at the time noted. as always I am less worried about privacy than about ignorance. On recent nternational issues I have emphasized the views as expressed to me by Andrei Dmitreyvich Sakharov example in items 906 and 920 on my publication list). But in many direct simple statements Andrei correctly emphasized "ALWAYS FORGIVE" but "NEVER FORGET". BUT HE WAS NOT PERFECT. This led to my disagreement with some of the views in an article by Boris Altshuler who referrred to other public statements
I wanted to advance a grade in St Paul's from form 5X to 6X. This was agreed by the mathematics master Christopher Heath and my fathre. But I became ill with "othitis media (middle ear)" at the transition and was sick at home learning in bed. When I came back to school I found I was ahead of the classroom calculus. I wus put in a desk by myself at the back of the room. I was soon joined by by Klaus Friedrich Roth who became my best freind. A third boy tried to join us. He was a cripple and I had sympthy for hom but Chris Heath and my father told me to ignore him. I have always been puzzled by this startling display of anti-semitism. But my best friend in Crowthorne was given special attention in msthematics and joined me. As I will detail later, Klaus was slow to do the required work, not because he was upset (as the school believed) but he was interested in number theory and found fhat even calculus was too "applied" (as I understood better than the school).
He was Klaus Fridrich Roth who walked the mountains from Breslau in East Russia (later Wrokslav) to Austria and then to UK, He became an expert in number theory and won the Fields medal in 1958, althouh his early papearwas 8 years earlier. He died in Inverness in 1985.
In 1941 I hoped that Israel would be an enlightened and helpful nation. Jews had been badly ttreated badly the world for 2000 years They also were keen on education. It was unthinkable that they would vent their suffering on others.But I was wrong; over the years my hopes were destroyed by circumstances wich I document here. In 1945 everyones' thoughts turned to boycotts. The person or organization boycotting must lose something as he/she boycotts. Boycotting USSR in the late 1970s and early 1980s worked for this reason. Soviet scientists - particularly Sagdeev - spoke out in the Soviet Academy of Scientists. I believe that it is important to call for boycotts only when one is personally prepared for a sacrifice and for a defined time. The boyvcott was to last until Yuri Orlov and Anatole (now Natan) Sharansky were released. This was a crucial distnction. I know of many scientists who joined that group (Scientists and Engineers for Orlov and Sharansky) who ignored promises they made.
When I met Dr Vladimir Nazarenko at a conference at BNL he asked if he could come up and visit at Harvard. I said that I had promised NOT to invite him. I declined to go to the High Energy Conference in Tiblisi in 1976 for thatcreason. But I DID violate the letter of my promise in 1979 when I was invited by Lobashov to visit him in Gatchina, Leningrad. Andree came with me. But I salved our consciences by taking journals for refuseniks who were no longer allowed access to scientific and by visiting the refuseniks. It was also the first occasion that we visited Andrei Sakharov.
I discussed these matters in person with Dr Edwin Land who was concerned about his Polaroid operation in South AFRICA. Should he shut it down?. But he also believed in workers rights and agreed to abide by the vote of the workers in Polaroid. The workers in the Polaroid company voted not to boycott and Edwin Land quietly took the heat. Many people find themselves in the position Ed Land was in. But few handle it with his quiet calm.
The person or organization being boycotted must have some influence on the his peers and persuade them that being boycotted is to be avoided. (3) In general any boycott is imposed from outside, but interestingly the cries to boycott Israel come from inside. 10 years ago there were three Israeli academics ASKING TO BE BOYCOTTED. Now there are 200 active academics. It would be mad to ignore them. Also there are 138+ rectors Turkish Universites asking for similar actions. One academic scholar Scott ATRAN has written extensively about the problem LINK to SCOTT ATRAN's even talking (at their invitation) directly to the UN. Most of the world's scholars believes that the line separating Arabs and Jews should be the "green line" - the armistice line in 1948. For example I oppose the "separation wall" largely because it along a far less defsible line.
Indeed it is the official
US government position repeated recently by President Obama,
I personally wrote to the English Journal, the Guardian suggesting that each and every Cabinet Miniter of Israel be invited to comment on the declaration by the Arab League.. But both Israel and the US studiously ignored it. Altough.
(f) MOST IMPORTANTLY I want to address the fact that the number of nuclear weapons owned by major powers is still large. The US has enough "bomb grade plutonium" in storage to make well over 20,000 nuclear bombs but under the nuclear non proliferation treaty the USt is committed to disarm. IT CAN REASONABLY BE ARGUED that the USA is the biggest violator of this treaty in the world. As the song writer Michael Flanders wrote 50 years ago, every man of every nation has his portion: "20 tons of TNT" (File is now in my files as a docx file which dream weaver cannot read but must be changed to PDF to link). Fortunately we no longer talk about 15,000 nuclear bombs "ready to go" but pnly 2,000 or so. Still enough to destroy human civilization. Even 100 is too many.
My school friends were also in trouble the person or organization boycotting must lose something as he/she boycotts. Boycotting USSR in the late 1970s and early 1980s worked for this reason. Soviet scientists - particularly Sagdeev - spoke out in the Soviet Academy of Scientists. I believe that it is important to call for boycotts only when one is personally prepared for a sacrifice. After Yuri Orlov and Anatole (now Natan) Sharansky till they were released. I know of many scientists who joined that group (Scientists and Engineers for Orlov and Sharansky) in name only and either never had any intention of meeting Soviet scientists or were prepared to ignore the promises they had made. I did not ignore my promises. When I met Dr Vladimir Nazarenko at a conference at BNL he asked if he could come up and visit at Harvard. I said that I had promised NOT to invite him. I declined to go to the High Energy Conference in Tiblisi in 1976. I did violate the letter of my promise in 1979 when I was invited by Lobashov to visit him in Gatchina, Leningrad. Andree came with me. But I salved my conscience by taking journals for refuseniks who were no longer allowed access to scientific and by visiting the refuseniks. We also visited Andrei Sakharov.
I discussed these matters in person with Dr Edwin Land wo was concerned about his Polaroid operation in South AFRICA. sholuld he shut it down?. But he also believed in workers rights and agreed to abide by the vote of the workers in Polaroid. The workers in the Polaroid company voted not to boycott and Edwin Land quietly took the heat. Many people find themselves in the position Ed Land was in. But few handle it with his quiet calm.
The person or organization being boycotted
must have some influence on the his peers and
persuade them that being boycotted is to be avoided. (3) In general any boycott is imposed from outside,
but interestingly the cries to boycott Israel come from
inside. 10 years ago there were three Israeli
academics ASKING TO BE BOYCOTTED. One academic scholar Scott ATRAN has written extensively about the problem even talking (at their invitation) directly to the UN. Most of the world's scholars believes that the line separating Arabs and Jews should be
the
"green line" - the armistice line
in 1948. For example I oppose the "separation wall" along a far less
defensible
line. Indeed it is the official
US government position repeated recently by President Obama,
Unfortunately the intransigent attitude of Mr
Netanyahu and others is steadily making a two state solution
more
difficult to achieve. In
recent years this call for a boycott had an interesting facet.
It was
supported by two Israeli
historians of my acquaintance and a well known Israeli
dissident. It is
the only situation where
someone was asking to be boycotted. This demands attention. One
argument is that the
Universities, including both teaching and research, is so
closely tied
to the government that only
a boycott will influence the Israeli government. Maybe. But I
doubt
whether it is a sensible
way of doing so. I was forced to reconsider my joining Scientists and Engineers for Orlov and Sharansky g to be boycotte but the boycott
had some effect. At least one member of the academy, Dr Sagdeev pointed out
in a
meeting of the Soviet
Academy of Sciences thengineers m? Maybe it contributed.
But the
situation in Israel is different. My view, expressed frequently
in the
last 40 years is that the future lies with
American Jews and the influence they have on the government of
Israel.
They are unlikely be
influenced by a boycott.|
In 1941 I optimistically declared that `The jews would run an honorable state"THEYwould not, and by their traditions
could not wreak vengeance on the Palestinians for the
anti-semitic behavior of others: Russians, Turks
and of course Nazis. This seemed impossible to
me. Why did not the Israeli government lead
its people into the ways of forgiveness?
Alas, over the years I have been proven wrong by
events. My first disillusionment was the murder
of the UN representative Count Folke Bernadotte. That this was done by Isrealis
is now admitted by Israel but I unequivocally reject their
justification and the leader of the murderous group, Shamir,
was twice elected prime minister of Israel.
Next came the hatred by so many Jews of
Ernest Bevin. Bevin was a plain-spoken man but not
anti-semitic - though he became anti-zionist. (Zionism
is here defined as someone following the suggestions of
Theodore Herzl including the last page).
When in 1947 President Truman was
pressing Britain to accept all displaced persons to
Palestine after the war Bevin told a labour party meeting
that America would not admit Jews who applied to the USA
because they did not want too many in New York - a statement
that was almost certainly correct but infuriated many.
This seems strange today but is noted in detail by the Iraqi
foreign Minister Fadhel Jamali. Truman had commented that in the next
election more Jews would vote for him than
arabs. Such statements were (later) made to me
by many US Jews including one who had walked in 1944-1945
from Latvia to a refugee camp in France and later joined the
staff of the Harvard physics department. For his
words Bevin was blamed particularly by Zionists.
But Britain depended on US economic support after the war
and had to yield to US pressure on Palestine policy.
The Attlee
government publicly declared in February 1947 that the
British Mandate in Palestine had become "unworkable".
Bevin duly negotiated the Portsmouth Treaty on 15th
January 1948 which according to the then Iraqi foreign
minister Fadhel Jamali was soon ignored by the Israeli
government
On December 4th 1948, A prominent
group of American Jews intellectuals wrote to the NY-Times warning the American
people about the behavior of the "Freedom Party" started
by Begin.
(http://physics.harvard.edu/~wilson/HUMANRIGHTS/Einstein_Letter_Warning_Of_Zionist_Facism_In_Israel.html). I was only 22 years old
and still in the UK. But I found a copy of the
article and read it. The warning was not heeded by US Jews generally nor thoe Jews in in the Holy Land who elected Begin as Prime Minister anyway.
I was very disappointed in 1969 that Israel did not accept UN resolution 242 This had given them 80% of the historical land of Palestine from the sea to the Jordan river– much more than the 50% recommended by the UN in 1947. I sent a letter to the Israeli leaders and to every Israeli leader since then that I saw and still see 4 possibilities.
I note that the 1973 war began after Egypt had asked UN troops to leave its territory. The war was started by Israel. (ADD ISRAELI REFRENCE) In 1973 the US ship LIBERTY was attacked and almost sunk while in international waters. I did not, in 1973 believe that the attack was deliberate - merely that the Israel air force was trigger happy. But the story of the LIBERTY released by the US some 25 years later (link) shows otherwise. I was deeply disappointed. in early 1970 Lebanon had allowed Palestinian refugees to occupy much of Lebanon, and in particular the refugee cams south of Beirut. BUT in all of this there was no clear Palestinian acceptance of Israel. Technically, a hawkish Israeli leader could say “we have no partner in peace”. But all this changed when in an unprecedented unanimous vote of the Arab League Prince (later) King Abdullah proposed recognition of Israel with a call for peace/ Why does not the world respond: "the Palestinians have no partner in peace"? I, Richard Wilson, wrote in the British Journal, "The Guardian" and suggested that each and every Israeli Cabinet Minister respond to this challenge. Both The Israel government and the US government allows itself to ignore the arab resolution and thereby renders itself liable to terror attacks.
I argue that
the sins of the Israeli government were particularly bad
under Mr Sharon, and now worse under Mr Netanyahu are
clearly inappropriate. What are the boundaries of the
state of Israel? We have not a clear statement from
the government of Israel itself and we have heard none
from anyone such as (AIPAC) claiming that Israel can choose its boundaries independent
of the rest of the world. Are they the boundaries
mentioned in the British White Paper of 1936? The
boundaries of the 1949 armistice (the Green line)? Those
discussed by Theodore Herzl in his well publicized statement
in the 1890s? I note a recent suggestion that Herzl was more interested in a Jewish homeland in Patagonia but was dissuaded in WW I by Rothschild. Or the boundaries he proposed in later
writings (from the Suez canal to the Euphrates?
Whichever they are, all persons within these boundaries
clearly do NOT have equal rights either in Israeli law
or world opinion The best reference here, bad though
it is, is the General Assembly of the UN
I object to the view that most Christians held until recently that JEWS are collectively resposible for the death of JESUS of Nazaryj.. We object to the idea of collective guilt and collective punishment. Instead some people are insisting that every person or group of people "'has a right to exist". Do I have a right to exist?? It might seem that my right to exist is obvious yet even \now it is contested by those who ask for the death penalty for murderers. But when it is extended to groups and nations complications multiply. We might concentrate on a detailed concern for Human Rights of ALL persons living within defined boundaries. These rights are enshrined in many UN resolutions formally agreed by all UN countries. But it is evident that not one country in the world (no even the Vatican) has a perfect record in this respect. Both I and my wife call upon the USA to continually examine our actions to see whether they correspond to the world view on human rights. I note here two reports by former diplomats on a "right to exist" by Mr Dean and Mr Speirs about this.
I do not see how anyone can fail to be disturbed by the 1978 Israeli invasion of Syria and Jordan. The USA had a radio “spy” ship, the LIBERTY in international waters monitoring radio traffic. An Israeli plane reported that it was a military ship and torpedo boats tried to sink it. I naively and optImistically said “they are just trigger happy” . But a colleague in the Middle Eastern Studies Center at Harvard (Economist Thomas Stauffer} insisted it was deliberate. I reexamined the radio communications, and began to think more like Tom and now accept the official report. LINK TO REPORT
In the 1970s I started my numerous visits to the Middle East. In order to discuss high energy physics (With Tom Quirk) I needed to go to Kuwait and decided to fly from Beirut. In Beirut I first walked through the refugee camps in Sabra and Shatila where 6000 people lived in an area the size of Harvard Yard. They were soon occupied and surrounded by Syrian phalangists The phalangists’ behavior offended me deeply. They seemed to have no morals. They slaughtered the camp residents. Israelis under Mr Begin would not let the camp residents escape, encouraging the Phalangists in their slaughter. We have a very fine account of this in the book “From Beirut to Jerusalem” by a Chinese pediatric surgeon Swee Chan Ang, not to be confused with another book of the same name by a journalist Thomas Friedman.
by Yuri Avnery
The next item in my education was the reckless building of housing in the west bank by Israel and the Oslo accords which everyone prolessed to support. I think it was here that Mr Sharon misbehaved. He was already known for sacking a Lebanese village Qibya massacre in the early 1970s but now wanted “facts on the ground” (Israeli houses on Palestinian territory). Sharon became another Israeli terrorist.
I must mention a Germen immigrant to Israel Helmut Ostermann. Arriving in about 1934 he fought for a state of Israel. about this time Prince Faisal of the Arab league arranged for a fine document calling for an end to fighting. (An English translation is in the Jerusaelem journal Haaretz and in the Jerusalem POST) I, writing in the British journal the Guardian, suggested that every Israeli cabinet Minister, and US state department official write his response. They have been silent. Ostermann, who had changed his name to Uri Avnery, suggested that "Israelis should be dancing for joy in the streets". (How to Torpedo the Saudis, by Uri Avnery) See also Avnery's lecture "The rock of our existence' ...
his newspaper Gush Shalom. Whether or not the Israelis were right before 1978 that they had no partner in peace, it is clear that now the Palestinians have no partner in peace.
The Israelis fighting in Gaza made a crucial change. The Israelis (Sharon) could have estabished the enclave as an example of peace. But even the Palestinian rocket fire was no justification for the slaughter
In 2001 several important groups stated their concern.
3000 descendents of the holocaust prison camps (THIS FILE HAS YET TO BE FOUND)
538 rectors of Turkish Universities.
THE ROCK OF OUR EXISTENCE by Yuri Avnery
As noted American Jews have an influence and the young people now are 'making their voices heard' so maybe there is yet hope for a vibrant and just Israel leading the world I, direct and arrogant as I am, have written to every Israeli government since then that if, as perhaps seems likely, they want to control the whole land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan that there are 4 options.
The first two are honorable.
OR TWO DISHONORABLE ALTERNATIVES
It should be clear by now that the status quo is the choice of every leader and is the worst choice.
I finish this section by asking everyone to read and ponder Uri Avnery’s January 2015 Lecture “The Rock of our Existence”
This section leads naturally to a discussion of petitions and boycotts
In general I do not often sign petitions. Often the petition asks for too much, or asks for the wrong things and is not sent to the best people. I prefer to send individual letters to people who may be influenced. When a petition is sent by others who ask me to join them, I often send my own letter with my own modified wording. an example In the 1980s I joined a group in Amnesty International. I sent letters on behalf of individuals that had been brought to Amnesty's attention. I would send my own letter not always following Amnesty's suggestion and often to additional individuals who I knew. An example was a letter on behalf of a Professor in Pakistan which I sent, about 1980, to the Minister of Education Dr Mahomed Afzal. Dr Afzal personally intervened. There are many other situations. I brought the situation of Dr Hussein Sharistani to the attention of Amnesty International and personally asked to see him when I visited Iraq over the New Year in 1982-3;
Personal discussions
My first discussions on freedom of expression were in 1967 when 4 Russians, Blokhintsev, Dzelepov, Nikitin and Okun visited the US. They were fairly open in discussion of the problems they were facing. My next contacts were in 1959 at the Kiev meeting on high energy physics. I talked to many people. Always 1 on 1 and in a park away from microphones. My scientist friends were all clear: they wanted liberalization. The only one that took action immediately after the "destalinization" was Dr Yuri Orlov who I met in 1964 and was in trouble for speaking out. His Moscow boss Dr Alikhanov asked his brother Dr Alikhanian to find him a job in Armenia. In 1965 I met Dr Sergei Kapitza and his father Dr Pietr Kapitza and discussed these matters with them. Later, in 1979 I met Andrei Sakharov and Elena Bonner who of course are better known in these matters.Boycotts
Boycotts are a procedure whereby
a group can firmly force their opinion on an authority
which is not listening. Again boycotts
historically have been local and the extent to which they
can and should be used in international situations
is hotly debated. I have participated
in one major Boycott - of USSR scientists when Orlov and
Sharansky were sentenced - and added to it when Andrei Sakharov was briefly arrested. I remember discussing the boycott of South
Africa with Edwin Land, President of Polaroid. He
was inclined to boycott South Africa and close the Polaroid
operation
there. But he also
believed in workers rights and agreed to abide by the vote of the
workers in Polaroid. The workers in the
Polaroid company voted not to boycott and Edwin
Land quietly took the
heat. Such a dlemma is faced by many individuqals and groups but rarely handled with Ed Land's skill
Does the right to
exist imply a right to defend oneself?
Again this is simpler for an individual than for a nation. The death penalty for individual miscreants was normal until the last 50 years or so. But the right for a nation brings complications. My own experience can illuminate this. I first heard a similar phrase by Franz Goebbels, Adolf Hitler's propoganda minister when I was in my teens. At school we would parody this. One boy would approach another with raised fists: "I am just defending myself" . This happened several times in my memory WITH MY FRIENDS. In retrospect I note that this parody was largely by refugees from Nazi Germany - a correlation whose significance was not immediately obvious to me. Clearly this right to defend oneself is limited, and if misused it leads to extremists taking over.
In general I do not often sign petitions. Often the petition asks for too much, or asks for the wrong things and is not sent to the best people. I prefer to send individual letters to people who may be influenced. When a petition is sent by others who ask me to join them, I often send my own letter with my own modified wording.
I return to my main scientific work and later to the terrible thoughts about nuclear war
ELEMENTARY PARTICLE PHYSICS
Over the years I have
worked at a number of researchreactors, cyclotrons, synchrotrons, linear accelerators
and colliding beam facilities. The
designers, builders and operators of these facilities (and
even the bureaucrats funding them) are often unsung. I
here give my thanks to each and every one of
them. These sections described my early
work mostly before 1980. and are responsible for more that
half of my 940 published papers and reports available at Publications.
I was awarded the degree of D. Phil. at
Oxford University in 1949 for a thesis on the photo
disintegration of the deuteron. I traveled to the USA in
June 1950 for a research position in Rochester NY. With
Clark and Roberts I used the principle of detailed balance
to measure the spin of the pi zero meson at Rochester in
March 1951. (see a story about this in his notesabout Marshak) On return to Oxford in 1952 I
studied nucleon-nucleon scattering at AERE Harwell, and
after 1955 at Harvard's cyclotron laboratory for many years.
I, together with Karl Strauch and Andreas Koehler led an
upgrade of the cyclotron in 1955 and led a program in uses
of polarized protons to study the nucleon -nucleon
interaction. The Harvard Cyclotron had its first beam on
June 3rd 1949 under the guidance of my late friend and colleague Norman Ramsey and celebrated its 50th anniversary in 1999 with a conference. The
story can be found in my history of the Harvard cyclotrons; in addition to this web based
history is a book - "A brief history of the Harvard
University Cyclotrons"- which is on sale at Harvard
University Press.
Then I moved to a study of nucleon
structure by electron-proton scattering at the Cambridge
Electron Accelerator from 1963 to 1970, and muon proton scattering at Fermilab in the E98 and E665 collaborations
starting in 1972. I was an early proponent of
electron-electron and electron positron colliding beams
with a tentative proposal in 1956, and a definitive
proposal in 1962. I was a participant in the CEA "bypass"
program which demonstrated an unusually large
cross-section for producing hadrons (see published papers
150,152,155,158). I worked in the CLEO collaboration using the electron-positron colliding beam facility at
Cornell University, until November 2001 when the Harvard
group formally left the collaboration. I am still
participating in scattering of polarized electrons from
protons at CEBAF which provides information on the strange
quark form factor in the nucleon. I am also involved
in experiments on parity violation inelectron proton scattering and comparison of neutron and
proton radii at CEBAF (Jefferson National Laboratory at
Newport News VA), I was participating in a minor
way in an experiment on "little a" in decay of polarized
neutrons. My work in that project was in
encouraging and helping Dr Boris Yerezolimski who
proposed the experiment. But Boris died in August
but my wife and I joined his family on Friday March 29th 2014 in remembering
his life.
Interestingly I knew many of Boris' friends and associates
in the USSR and respected many of them and of course
I respected Boris.
More details are available in my 940 published papers of which about half are on these subjects. (I am adding more papers as days go by)
I have used radiation and ionizing particles all of my professional life (indeed starting as an undergraduate in 1946). Most of the time I carried out research into the structure of nuclei and of elementary particles. This necessarily involved understanding radioactivity and radiation therefrom. Also in maintaining the cyclotron I was exposed to radioactivity from the machine and helped establish rules for the staff. Among physicists I became known for this understanding. This is exemplified by a recent ResourceLetter on health effects of radiation that I have written for the American Association of Physics Teachers. The most recent version was in 2011 (This is the on-line version where many of the papers are directly linked). I became aware that radiation was first used by physicians, who did not understand it well, but this changed on August 9th 1945 when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Although there were less than 6,000 deaths (mostly cancers) due to that radiation, it is a major incorrect public perception that the 200,000 or so deaths in each city were caused by radiation. They were direct effects of the explosion itself. When in about 1970 I became actively involved with beneficial uses of radioactivity, particle accelerators and radiation therefrom I began to explain this to the public and anyone who would listen. As noted below I was one of the first scientists to visit Chernobyl after the accident and to arrange for translation into English of a Russian "journal" Radiation and Risk. In addition to the work with the Harvard Cyclotron noted above, I am also interested in wise and appropriate uses of nuclear energy for electricity production. One of my interests and specialties is understanding the risks of misuse ofradiation and technologies involving radiation. This led me into a detailed attempt to understand other risks and dangers of life as noted below. Detail on the use and misuse is discussed in a report on MODELS that was prepared in February 2015 and expnded in August 2015.
Starting in 1972 I became a leader
in the developing field of Risk Analysis. This arose out
of the incorrect perception of many people that radiation
is UNIQUELY dangerous.
The firstarticles were comparing risks of
electricity production for a technical audience.
But in 1979 the first document for the public was an
article "The Daily Risks of Life" published in the MIT
Technology review and then reprinted in the state of
Maine, in Farmer's Almanac and in Readers Digest and
printed in well over 10,000,000 copies. That
same summer my testimony (in the benzene case) was quoted
favorably by the US Supreme Court. This
confluence, which is unusual in the Harvard University
science areas, led me to be considered as
an expert (one even qualified to be an "expert witness"
in legal cases) and was quoted in the New York Times as
well as other newspapers. One interesting feature
that became apparent in the 1970s is that risks of
accidents, particularly radiation accidents, are
calculated by physicists and engineers, risks to health
of chemicals had been calculated by toxicologists and
physicians, and epidemiologists. These used different
words, and different structure to their understanding.
One of my roles has been to ensure that they do not talk
in opposition but in unison or at least in
harmony. The book, Risk-Benefit Analysis, with Edmund Crouch,
followed and is now in its' second edition. My
co-author Edmund A.C. Crouch is widely regarded in the
field. This led to my active concern in many subjects:
Radiation, Chemical Carcinogens, Air Pollution,
Potential Climate Change, Arsenic, Nuclear Weapons. A
recent article on development of Risk Analysis was in
the journal "Risk Analysis" and has received many compliments.
The US EPA risk analysis procedures are arbitrary
and capricious and probably illegal.
In 1975 the US EPA proposed a procedure for risk assessment based on a pessimistic view of the data. Stimulated by Congress, they argued for reducing risks to less than one in a million lifetimes risk. Even in 1979 the EPA procedure was shown to be much too pessimistic, A lifetime risk of one in a million, calculated pessimistically, is NOT achievable for most materials. I objected in writing and in person at a public hearing in Washington DC. The EPA never backed down and modified their procedure but pretend (ERRONEOUSLY) that their procedures are scientifically based and therefore scientifically valid. See for example my publcation 939. A bad example of the problems this causes is the procedure for arsenic risk assessment with I have repeatedly criticized. Yet my criticisms have NEVER had an acknowledgement. If the regulations and actions are not based on the best available science, with a clear statement of uncertainty, they become arbitrary and capricious. Is it not best if a scientifically justified risk assessment PRECEDE any action or regulation? Is it not wise to err on the side of caution in the first instance? But if it transpires that the risk was overly stated in excess of caution, is it not sensible to modify it in the light of the new knowledge and understanding? THIS HAS NOT HAPPENED IN OVER 40 YEARS! To recognize the problem would strengthen the EPA not weaken it. Should not those who want the EPA to have integrity and usefulness address this problem? In 2014 the US President is using the EPA to its' administration to regulate carbon dioxide. Is that power based on reliable scientific data? and reliable analysis? If not what is it based on? The US congress does not seem to admit that this is a problem. It may be getting worse. In May 2015, it appears that recently some calls for public comment were deliberately biassed.
There is no good way as it
stands for understanding the risk of most of the 80,000
chemicals in commerce. Only a handful
(20 or so) have been measured in people. Only
a few thousand have been measured in laboratory animals
and only a few hundred measured
carefully. Ideally we would take a
cautiously conservative position, knowing that
it could be changed when new information becomes
available. A bad example is the
obligation under a 1975 agreement to do something about
nerve gases such as sarin, in the US stockpile.
It has been proposed to incinerate them and a test
burn showed a huge number of chemicals not on the EPA list (IRIS).
A moment's thought should tell anyone that these
chemicals are likely to be MORE dangerous (posing more
risk) than most of the chemicals on the EPA list. Yet the proposed risk assessment set the
risk at zero!
More recently a chemical leaked into the river at Charleston, West Virginia. This again was one of the 60,000 with no rational risk assessment. This problem was discussed on the radio, TV and internet. But none of these discuss the complete failure of EPA and other agencies to address the matter logically and scientifically. Congress is even worse. They should be discussing what it means to say that something is safe. None do. The responses of the officials commenting on TV and radio are particularly troubling. It is highly misleading to declare that "we will not let people use the water unless unless the risk is below 1 in a million" I have argued (number 939 on my publication list) that this is IMPOSSIBLE. To make such a declaration is misleading at best.
Alan Moghissi has a new proceure for what he calls REGULATORY SCIENCE to addresss this issue. I am not yet sure whether it will be a useful tool for the future
I, Richard Wilson noted as early as 1972 that energy problems in the USA are actually environment problems. The US has plenty of fuel (cheap but polluting, coal) if we are willing to use it. I started the Energy and Environment Policy Center at Harvard University, in 1976, and in 1989 started the New England Center of the National Institute for Global Environmental Change (NIGEC). My organization of an energy session at the Boston meeting of the American Physical Society in 1973 reflects this interest. I was a colleague of Professor Roger Revelle who was a mentor of Senator Al Gore who popularized the issue but misquoted Roger. I argued in 1981 and theAmerican Physical Society argued in April/May 2015 that since actions taken now for the climate may have no effect for a decade or more, that it is vital to have "follow-up" studies looking at the effect of effects such as Al Gore proposed, and modifying as appropriate. Alas APS failed to argue for funding for such followwup" studies AND THERE IS NONE. Indeed if one looks at the direct consequence of Al Gore's actions it was a COMPLETE CESSATION OF SUCH FUNDING. (The opposite of what wiser experts were suggesting). It was Professor Harvey Brooks, then Dean of the Division of Applied Sciences at Harvard suggested that I join with AJ Meyer in convening a seminar on "Economics of Energy". AJ invited oil experts to talk and I brought in air pollution and nuclear experts. Later in the 1980s I, together with other physicists, particularly Klaus Lackner of Columbia University (REFERENCE) noted that CARBON asit comes out of the ground. is easy to monitor; For it is at this point that the amounts are recorded for payment. Yet some politicians want to control emissions sector by sector with huge expense and inefficiency. The Lieberman-Warner Bill and the Waxman-Markey bills in the US House of Representatives are loaded with pork. The Maxwell-Markey bill was 1300 pages long.
It has been said that theMaxwell-Markey and Leberman-W-lkerbillsare pork barrel bills with a veneer of climate change. Some experts, including James Hansen of NASA believe that it is best to abandon them and start again. Regulating carbon as it comes out of the ground withno exceptions and returning any funds from an auction of permits to general funds leaves less room for pork and inefficiency. Maybe the desire to cater to special interests is why politicians and financiers are reluctant to control upstream. In this I was encouraged by the Cantwell-Collinsbill submitted to the US Senate. It was short, only about 50 pages. It implicitly included "follow-up" funding. Alas that bill was too sensible, and had no pork barrel, to get anywhere politically. Even the text is not NOW easily available! I believe that the ONLY energy bill to pass both houses of Congress and be signed by the President is the Atomic Energy Act of 1947 which took effect in 1948. Interestingly Congress had explicitly asked the Atomic Energy Commission to compare risks! The newspapwers in 2015 are referring again to Sentor Ccntreell (a democrat). Alas Senetor Collinx( a Republican).
Two items in July 2014 give
some encouragement. Firstly my namesake
Professor David Gordon Wilson, an engineer from MIT, was o n
public TV and commented that he had proposed follow up funding in
1975 (indeed I had strongly supported him at that
time) and secondly, the recent book (MIT Press), "Double Dividend" by the economist Professor Dale Jorgensen and collaborators argues for such funding.
I am concerned with many environmental issues. In p articular I am interested in risks of much greater magnitude than those of nuclear radiation. Of course tobacco smoking is now believed to be far worse than nuclear radiation but air pollution is also important. Being brought up in London, UK I was exposed to London fogs from early childhood. Two dramatic situations changed the widespread professional view that "the solution to pollution is dilution". The fog in London and all the way up the Thames to Oxford and beyond in December 1952 was followed by a dramatic increase in deaths in London hospitals. About the same time but obviously independently air pollution in Donora, Pennsylvania caused much of the town to get sick. I published with others a book "Health Effects of Fossil Fuel Burning" in 1982 which was updated in an edited volume in 1996: "Particles in Our Air: Concentrations and Health Effects" distributed by Harvard University Press. In my coauthors and myself argued that fine particles in air pollution pose a considerable hazard, (some tens of thousands deaths yearly in the USA) and there is probably a linear relationship between dose of these particles and the effect on health. Although this linear relationship was widely disputed in 1982, further work has led more and more experts to agree with this basic conclusion.
Once I started studying the effects of air pollution I naturally began to think about all chemicals in the environment. Traditionally they had only been studied at high exposures and therefore high doses. I soon found out that the public health implications were discussed using the terminology and attitudes of physicians which differed from those of a physicist which are used to discuss the effects of radiation. I have therefore spent considerable time trying to relate the two. Since it is undesirable and unethical to carry out experiments upon people, mankind has carried out experiments on animals, usually rodents, to understand which substances are carcinogens. The way in which the risk of cancer in people is derived from the risk of cancer in animals becomes of great importance and is discussed. Starting in 1979, I (Richard Wilson) and co-workers have written a series of papers on chemicalcarcinogens, on interspecies comparisons in particular and research is continuing on cancer at old age. It appears that above age 80 age specific cancer incidence falls for all tumor sites, vanishing between ages 100 and 105. This fall off is too sharp to be explained by a variation in sensitivity. The work is done with the help of the NIH SEER (Statistics, Epidemiology and End Results) data base. Work continues on understanding issues of "over diagnoses" and consequent excessive, expensive and unnecessary and possibly counterproductive treatments.
The research into chemical
carcinogens naturally leads to a desire to understand the
carcinogens that pose the largest risks to life. He has
therefore been active in emphasizing the chronic health
effects of prolonged doses of arsenic. He was one of the
first to realize the importance of the studies by C.J.
Chen in Taiwan which were published in the USA in 1986 and
ignored by the US EPA for many years. In InnerMongolia in 1994 and more recently in
Bangladesh (1998 to 2013) I have emphasized the magnitude
of the public health catastrophe. I started the Arsenicweb site project at the Faculty of Arts and
Sciences, School of Public Health, and Parsons Laboratory
at MIT. This project aims to cover arsenic problems worldwide but in view of the magnitude of the
catastrophe has Bangladesh as a main focus. Indeed I have often stated that the
Bangladesh Catastrophe makes Chernobyl look like a Sunday
School picnic. In that I has never been contradicted or
questioned. As a particular project, I spent
over 10 years helping the scientists and physicians
at Dhaka Community Hospital in Dhaka to build sanitary
"dugwells" in several villages to replace the older
insanitary wells and the arsenic laden tube wells. Hereis a link to photographs from a
visit in 2004. Also I realized the
success of the River Sand Filters installed with UNICEF
funding in 1982. I emphasize the importance
of reliable and frequent measurement so that the results
may be convincing even to a politician or banker. I
started the ARSENIC FOUNDATION as a charitable
organization to which every viewer of this page is invited
to contribute. In 2014 personal
pressures led me to resign as President of the
Arsenic Foundation and also I have been unable to cope
with the bureaucracy of charitable
organizations. Nor fully upgrade the arsenic
webpage. I feel that my enthusiasm has been justified by an article by Dhaka Community Hospital on patient care. http://www.globalhealthdelivery.org/blog/2015/01/improving-patient-care-in-bangladesh
`This headline represents my personal view which
is strongly held and dominates my recent actions and
writings. Thhis view has rcenetly (October 20th 2015) been stated by Donald Trump Unfortunately it appears that most americans do not agree and believe in an American exceptionalism. Indeed America is exceptional. It is the ONLY country that has ever used Atomic Bombs (really nuclear Bombs) against a civil population deliberately.
It is just over 100 years since the first world war started and it is instructive to consider how rapidly it started. Leaders and bureaucrats had thought they would secure peace by making binding treaties that if country A were attacked country B would come to their defense. I count 5 separate agreements or treaties. When a Serbian nationalist killed the Archduke, Austria went to war against Serbia. But Serbia had an agreement with Czarist Russia which declared war on Austria. Very rapidly Prussia (Germany) attacked Russia. Then by treaty France declared war on Prussia. Finally the “Entente Cordiale” brought England in, together with nations of the British Empire, Canada and South Africa.
During the cold
war between USSR and the west, NATO was created to
reassure Europeans. But once the cold war was over and
the immediate threat was gone, I believe that we in
the USA shou ld have emphasized peaceful cooperation
with the new Russia. The NATO treaty makes it clear,
as President Obama has reminded us in 2014 that if one
member is attacked ALL will come to its defense
immediately. No need for 5 treaties as in 1914. But
the catastrophe of July/August 1914 could recur but
somewhat faster. In addition there is the sceptre of
nuclear weapons. On August 6th 1945 many scientists
realized that mankind now knew how to destroy itself.
Einstein stated the problem most simply. “Everything
has changed except our way of thinking". I believe we
must heed Einstein and change our way of thinking.
In the late
1930s advice was given to Americans “Go west young man
and make your fortune”. Indeed many did and California
was rapidly populated. But it is not generally
realized that a similar advice had been developing in
the USSR. People were encouraged to go to the wide
spaces of the east. Albeit by force in many cases. Why
should that worry USA? Japan had good reason of course
and that concern led to the war of 1905. We have to counter the
suggestion that the present concern in the USA is based on an
immoral desire to run the world. Should US
should use the power of NATO? Or should
it prefer instead to work with the UN.
In this I am reminded of the statement in 1954 by Winston Churchill in a meeting in the White House: "Jaw, jaw ,jaw is better than war, war, war." (Only an oral statement is available)
Other
thoughtful writers have looked at this same
problem. A distinguished anthropologist Dr
Scott Atran in particular in his 2010 book
"Talking to the Enemy" (In this case terrorists)
discusses “sacred values” – values that a person
or country may hold that seem contrary to its economic
(usually short term economic) interests. I urge
you to look carefully at his discussions with
terrorists. They resonate with
me. In the UK in May 1940, almost
the whole population held such “sacred values” which
enabled the British people to challenge the Nazi
evil. As noted in my auto biography:
"Physics is Fun", I was prepared in May 1940 at
age 14 to behave as a terrorist if England was invaded,
and later learned that 14 year old school girls in SE England were
also training as terrorists. They made and tested Molotov cocktails. This behavior
surprised and encouraged other countries to stand up
to the evil Nazis.
In August 6th 1945 the world learned that we could destroy civilization even with a war with only 100 bombs. But in 2014 we have thousands of bombs ready to go. Yet we still talk about Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), or NUTS as if they were possible options for a long term policy. Important Russian military people (such asthe Defense Minister of the Soviet Union - Marshal Yazov) have declared that: "A nuclear war cannot be won". This was said in his office to a group of us led by Lady Caroline Cox, on our return from a visit Armenian-Azerbaijan border I have NEVER heard such a simple statement from any US military person, uniformed or civilian. Do they understand that a nuclear war would destroy civilization? We must keep our military men under control.
In that matter I applaud the warning given in October 20th 2014 by Secretary Kerry. We must not have another "cold war". Although in a humorous way (and humor is often a way of emphasizing a point) a Pakistani diplomat told me that he never ate as well as during that cold war. The USSR and USA competed for third world attention. He was invited to lunch with the Soviet delegation and a competing dinner with the US delegation!
Once we recognize Russia in this way we can work together on subsidiary world problems. What is a country and does it have a right to exist? More important, what are its duties toward the rest other world? How does one work together to reduce the risk of nuclear war? Of epidemics becoming pandemics? (as the 1919 flu?)
Epidemics and Pandemics
In the
middle ages 1/3 of the population of Europe vanished (the
Black Death) and probably 1/3 of the world population
vanished also. New diseases could indeed
destroy us. The flu epidemic of 1919 killed
more people than the world war immediately preceding
it. But not until the end of WWII has the development
been studied, This has led people to emphasize that we
CAN prevent an epidemic becoming a pandemic, This has
been particularly emphasized by meetings of the World
Federation of Scientists in Erice, Sicily by Dr Garwin and
myself. The steps are not difficult but they must be
taken by at least 80% of the affected population and some
way MUST be found to include people relying on "herd
immunity". This was one of the items that I talked
about at a joint meeting with the Pontifical Academy of
Sciences in the Vatican (my published paper). (I hope to find a direct link to the Vatican).
But official organizations (including, alas
the Harvard University School of Public Health) have been
slow to take such preventive action (among other things serious discussion of who
is to pay?) . Instead we have an early reaction. America
prefers to react after the situation is serious. That
must change.
EBOLA
I am
most concerned in August 2014 with the outbreak of the Ebola
virus in west Africa. Warnings were given by
people studying emerging viruses (e.g Nicholas Mellor) as
early as January 2004 but were ignored. We must
admit that the epidemic became a pandemic. WHO, US
Center for Disease Control, and even Doctors without Borders
share and should admit the blame. This pandemic is
presently out of control. Should the world respond as
we did 3,000 years ago when we sent lepers out into the
desert with no human contact? (although food was
provided for them) or with yellow Fever 200 years ago when
victims were sent to an off shore island? The
world must act to stop the pandemic in Liberia, Ghana and
Sierra Leone and prevent one in US and European
nations. Should these countries be quarantined with
food and supplied dropped by helicopter without human
interaction? In this I recommend one of the most
sensible voices - of Dr Howard Markel, a pediatrician and
author at the University of Michigan. I recommend in
particular a webpage of his.
My interest in Iraq and Iran started when I was 10 years old. We had to read, in ancient Greek, the report of a mercenary turned adventure story teller Xenophon “the retreat to the sea”. There was a conflict between the MEDES (Iraqis) and the PERSIANS (Iranians) Xenophon led about 20,000 Greek Mercenaries fighting for the Medes against Cyrus - ruler of Persia. Their armament was swords and javelins. They lost and their communication with Greece was cut off so he headed north across Asia Minor, “living off the land” to a Greek town on the southern shore of the Black Sea. Xenophon described the joy of the soldiers as they saw the sea at last. “Thalassa” (the sea) they cried. When after crossing Canada by car in 1951 I saw the sea I immediately cried out “Thalassa”! We all know of the battle of Marathon in Thrace as Cyrus the Persian was defeated in a narrow pass and a soldier ran to Athens to bring the news of an invading army. This magnificent exploit is celebrated the world over. But, alas, the history behind it not widely known.
I became aware of Iran when Mossadegh was
elected by the people of Iran as prime minister. At
the time Herbert Morrison was Foreign Minister of UK in the
labour government of Clement Attlee. Herbert Morrison
was a very able Trades Union Leader but he was out of his
depth. Iran took over the Anglo-Iranian Oil
company (later BP) and claimed the oil was Iranian with no
compensation for the take over. Although
Attlee had stated there would be no force, the
Conservative government of Winston Churchill took over.
Churchill had two problems. When he was First
Lord of the Admiralty (I believe in 1912) he arranged for
the British government to buy the Anglo-Iranian oil company
to guarantee oil supplies to fuel the naval fleet instead of
coal. He was obviously interested when the Iranian
government wanted to ignore the UK who was the owner.
Secondly he was always an advocate for the "British
Empire". In 1945 for example he would not have given
India its independence. This was, I believe a factor
helping to turn him out of office in 1945.
England, now led by Churchill, and helped by the US
(probably the CIA) organized a coup which overthrew the
government replacing the Shah with a person more
pliable to oil interests. It is important to realize that Iran is a central Asian country more than a middle eastern one. It has
been a rocky road since. However a speech by
the present Prime Minister Mr Rouhani in the UN in September
27th 2014 makes very good sense. He
argues that the area has been destabilized by actions
of the USA and allies who should apologize to the peoples
concerned. On behalf of my British friends who
supported Herbert Morrison or more particularly the maniacal
actions of the EMPIRE that Winston Churchill supported I
apologize. I wish bureaucrats and ministers would do
likewise. Alas apologies are rare in politics although even more important than in ordinary life.
My “recent” fascination with Iraq
was fed by the early days of my visiting the middle east -
and in particular Kuwait. I was invited to visit
Kuwait about 1975 by the Deputy Director (a Syrian) of the
Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR) and met the
director Adnan Shihab-Eldin who was and is probably the best
scientist south of the line between Beirut and
Baghdad. While there I met Usameh Jamali, born
in Lebanon but flown to Baghdad as a baby and who, while at
Tufts University in the early 1970s had audited the
seminar course on Economics of Energy taught by Dr AJ Meyer
and myself. He introduced me to several
ex-patriate Iraqis, who preferred not to live in Iraq under
the domination of Saddam Hussein. In particular
Usameh explained the situation of his father (Fadhel
Jamali) who was then a Professor at the University of
Tunis. He also introduced me to his colleagues
at OAPEC (organization for Arab Petroleum Exporting
Countries) related to but NOT the same as OPEC (organization
of Petroleum Exporting countries) which included non Arab
countries such as Iran, and Nigeria.
I had already met Abdlatif Al-Hamad when in 1975. AJ Meyer had invited him to talk to our
seminar. Abdullatif was the third
director of the Arab Foundation for Social and Economic
Development which had been set up by the Arab League in
1967/8.
My involvements with other
countries in the world
I therefore have made many friends in
Kuwait over the years. I noted that most of them could
have got jobs in any major US University but preferred to
stay and help bring their countries into the 20th
century. I admired them all, and still admire most of
them for their dedication. As described
below under Iraq, Iran, and Russia, this view was extended
into these countries also. I have not hesitated
to act when I believe that I have something to
contribute. But it is a matter of extraordinary
sadness that my efforts in the former USSR,
Iraq, Pakistan, Armenia and the Holy Land have not
been as helpful as I had hoped.
My hopes for peace between the USSR and
its post Gorbachev fragments, from my first meeting in
Russia and Ukraine led to reduced confrontation from 25,000
active bombs to 3,000 or so but confrontation still
exists. (100 is already too many) The
period with 25,000 active bombs, from 1965 on was utterly crazy and
mankind is lucky to have survived it.
(1) My visit to Kuwait showed me an important role
for Kuwait in the world but, alas, since 1991 the Kuwaitis
have not quite showed the leadership for which I had
hoped.
(2) My role in Iraq did not prevent the 2nd Gulf
war. The second Gulf war was a mistake and while
admitting the mistake the USA has not fully admitted its
cause and seems likely to repeat it. Nor, most importantly has the USA apologized for the mistake.
(3) My friendship with Jewish refugees in 1944-1948 had led me to
hope that a state of Israel would have the generosity, hope
and sense of justice that Jews had been denied for 2
millenia. But I had hoped for
too much as noted. below. (http://physics.harvard.edu/~wilson/HUMANRIGHTS/Einstein_Letter_Warning_Of_Zionist_Facism_In_Israel.html) On the one hand I
had hoped that the Jewish people having suffered persecution
for over 2 millenia would not inflict suffering on others. Although
Palestinians always recognized Jews as individuals,
but they were unwilling to recognize Israel as a zionist state
with special privileges and Americans in particular
interpreted this a a refusal to recognize Israel as a
state. But in 2001 this changed. In
particular Israel and the USA did not respond to the
initiative of Prince, later King, Abdullah in an unprecedented unanimous
vote of the Arab League. I call attention to the artcicles and activiety byHelmut Osterman who left Germany for the Holy Land in 1934 snd fought to help establish Israel but he since changed his name to Uri Avnery and founded the orgnization Gush Shalom. His paper at a conference in January 2025 "The Rock of Our Existence" is particularly important.(Translation by Haaaretz in Israel). Does not this
suggest that, whatever the past situation, that
Palestine now has no "partner in peace". I explain my disappointents in Israel which has been less forgiving than I had hoped. Look in particular at my page. http://users.physics.harvard.edu/~wilson/Boycotts.html
(4) My visits to Indians and Pakistanis in the 1970s
had led me to hope that they would find a peaceful solution
to their differences. I was reliably informed
that when President Ayub Khan of Pakistan first met
with Prime Minister Indira Gandhi of India, a
historic first some ten yeras ago, discussion of control of nuclear weapons was
top of the agenda. Alas it led nowhere.
Suspicion remains and has led Pakistan to react in
Afghanistan in unfortunate ways.
(5) One Persian acquaintance at school (about
1938-1939) had encouraged me to a positive view of
Iranian history, and Iran's role in US supplies to
USSR in 1942-3 by the "back door" led me to hope that Iran
would become a helpful country in the world. But I was
never seriously involved.
(6) If we are worried about the Taliban should we
not we should make common cause with others who for
good reason hate the Taliban more that we do? Iran leaders
have clearly said as much. Why do we insist on following George W Bush (Dubya) who
called Iran as being part of an "axis of
evil"? Is that a phrase suggesting a cooperation
and hopefully change? Maybe in the discussions
about Iran's ability to separate uranium isotopes and the
obvious desire of the world to prevent them using this ability to make
atomic bombs this could be quietly brought into the picture.
A FUNDAMENTAL RULE PRESENTLY IGNORED
If there is a choicce between two actions, should one subsidize the actionone wants or tax the action one does not want? It is easy to see that subsidies can only be temporary and may be divisive.
MANKIND'S DESIRES STEADILY INCREASE WITHOUT LIMIT
Subsidizing will not work for ever. Politicians, Media and many public economists only follow it until the next election!
THE DOUBLE DIVIDEND
For thirty years good economists have argued for taxation.The tax collected my be used for a gereral fund (which they argue is economically stabilizing) or specifically used for the poor and disadvataged. The latest is by Professor Dayle Jorgensen who argued for over 30 years now in the"Double Dividend" (MIT Press). The choice is easy to see for fuel economy in cars (increase the gas tax or subidize efficient cars) but it appears in many public decisions. Dale was interviewed for Harvard Magazine for the September-October 2014 issue. In his book "Double Dividend" he emphasizes that taxing carbon and repaying the tax to general revenue or directly to the people, is economically the right thing to do. There is a subsidiary issue which we urged. Any control should be as early in the calculated chain of events as possible. This was proposed by Dr Klaus Lackner of Columbia University and myself (REFERENCE). These thoughts were formally brought to the attention of Nicholas Stern (now Lord Nicholas) four years ago by the scientists assembled at Erice, Sicily. He was and is the architect of the English (and subsequently European proposals) but our proposal was ignored by Lord Nicholas and those he advised. If you look at Lord Nicholas statments I suggest he violated the fundamental rule not once but twice. Newspaper reports suggest that some countries are getting the point but in US politics THE PROBLEM STILL REMAINS.
THE IMPORTANCE OF SCIENTISTS IN PUBLIC POLCY
I argue that scientists MUST get involved in public policy and not stay in an ivory tower. They, especially physicists, think very fundamentally about problems and in public policy about world problems. I argue that any public policy "expert" who forgets this is almost by definition not an "expert". This is especially true of the Harvard University physics department. I was hired as an assistant professor at Harvard by Professor Kenneth Bainbridge (department chairman at the time) and was encouraged to come by Professor Norman Ramsey. It should be remembered that Bainbridge was in charge of the Alamagordo test in July 1945 and Ramsey was director of the Atomic Energy Laboratory in Tinian to which were delivered pieces of metal which were assembled into devices which were loaded on the airplane and dropped on Hiroshima and then Nagasaki. The name of the airplane "Enola Gay" is better known publicly. The military ensures that its pilots were remembered and honored. Likewise we should remember Ramsey and his team. Both Bainbridge and Ramsey were eager that this never be repeated. Many discussions of these issues took place in the physics department. I wrote a brief public biography of Bainbridge and have been writing about Ramsey. Strangely many supposed "policy experts" did not realize this experience which led to expertize.
This is particularly vital
in any discussion of events involving nuclear weapons, and
or events that can lead to pandemics, which might destroy
civilization. Alas we are only just beginning to
face this. My own activities have led me to
write a number of letters to government and
newspapers. Here is a selection.
http://users.physics.harvard.edu/~wilson/Human_Rights_Letters.html.
It is particularly important in the USA, the only country almost exclusively run by lawyers. Almost all of Congress and now a president are lawyers. There is only one physical scientist in the Congress who has a PhD. Fortunately Bill Foster (with a PhD in physics from Harvard) was reelected in 2014 in spite of strong opposition. I realize that public policy experts tend to assume that the SCIENCE is settled and can be simply described. This is a very dangerous simplifaction. As the discussion of Global Climate Change tells us that the Public Policy objectives and the Science are intextricably linked. The complete ignoring by Lord Stern of the scientists in Erice, Sicily is a bad example of this.
Terrorism
Although it was obvious in 1945 that
a nuclear bomb could be used by a terrorist organization
(usually thought to be a state actor) I was not
directly involved until 1970 when I had become involved with
energy and environment issues, but I remain deeply concerned
that we do not learn from small actions.
In 1970 we did not talk about
terrorism. Locally in USA it was sabotage by a person
deciding to avenge himself on his employer. But
that has changed. It is now all too clear that
when there is a confrontation that has lasted 50 years or so
there is potential for international terrorism.
These confrontations include Ireland, particularly Northern
Ireland since 1970; Ceylon/Sri-Lanka where the Tamil
tribe has disagreed with the Sri-Lankan or Indian
government; the relics of the Ottoman empire where
Serbia and Bulgaria have disagreed; The relics of the
Austrian- Hungarian empire where Serbians and Austrians have
been at odds; the Caucusus where Armenians and Azeris
have quarelled - with the Kurds acting as a third
(interested ) party complicating the question and of
of course the eastern Mediterranean (Israel/Palestine) where
there have been disputes for millenia. In
9/11/2001 the attack on the twin towers led Americans to
change their views. President Bush promised to "get
the guys who did this". But the guys had died in these
suicide attacks. In the next couple of years I gave a
dozen or so talks entitling them "Complications" describing how to logically order a response. I have since accepted the arguments by Scott Atran (add link to his 2010 book) that the danger is the
"sacred values" that persuade extremists to pursue actions
contrary to their economic interest. I also accept
Dick Garwin's important distinction between "ordinary"
weapons, ordinary explosives, knives, etc
that cannot be contained and weapons of mass destruction,
such as nuclear bombs, nerve gases etc. (See the next paragraph)
In September 2014 we consider the
threat posed by the organization ISIS. The USA is
falling into a trap. It is trying to get international
support for military action against ISIS. But the trap
into which many people would have us fall, is to for the USA
to lead and coordinate these international activities.
But as a coordinator we would inevitably be
called anti-Islam. The USA MUST NOT let that happen
or the USA will inevitably become a target for extreme
Muslim terrorists (often called jihadists). This view
seems to be shared by the distinguished economist Jeffery Sachs.
Distinguishing terror actions with
small and large consequences
Now imagine a battle with 300 nuclear
bombs on each side, each with the address of a major town.
At the end of the battle 3 bombs were remaining, did the
owner of the three "win"? No. He lost heavily. So did
everyone including non-participants. Civilization as we know
it would come to an end. This was stated to a group of us,
in his office by Marshal Yazov of the USSR on May 29th 1981
about 10 am. This group, led by the Deputy Speaker of the UK
House of Lords, Baroness Cox (Caroline) had been to a
meeting about Chernobyl, and had just returned from facing
down Azeri militia on the border. "Chernobyl
taught those of us who did not know that a nuclear war could
not be won. If a device not intended to explode (Chernobyl
reactor) caused that much mess a nuclear war would destroy
the planet". I have heard no pentagon
leader, civilian or military make such a clear
statement. I wish that every military man
would state the problem as clearly as Marshal Yazov and
think every day about its logical consequences.
It follows that the first side to reduce the (undesirable) number of nuclear bombs wins and saves money. It is generally agreed that having weapons grade plutonium for tens of thousands of weapons is excessive. But it is not yet agreed that reducing to 100 or so is a clear financial advantage for the "side" that does the reduction whether or not is is balanced by the other side.
Michael Flanders of the duo Flanders and Swann wrote a song:"Twenty tons of TNT" We MUST remind ourselves of this. i think it couldwell be ung ar aa international gatherings.
In 1973 Professor W.K.H. (Pief) Panofsky wrote to the President (Clinton) calling attention to the fact that each of USSR and USA hadover 10,000 nuclear weapons and a stockpile of "bomb grade" plutonium. He called the existence a "clear and president danger" implying that he should act. But he did not act and no President has acted since. In principle the Secretary of Energy should remind the administration of this danger but in spite of being publicly urged by scientists (including Pief Panofsky) to change the Energy Department declined to do so. Fortunately the present Secretary of Energy Dr Ernest Moniz) has publcly supported the Secretary of State in the recent year 2011sgreeement with Iran. I have sent him a personal letter of thanks for so doing.
The fundamental reason for incremental linearity
There is a lot of argument about whether exposures (and consequent doses) are linear at low doses. I have argued especially in a paper by Crawford and myself (Low Dose Linearity the Rule or the exception Human and Environmental Risk Asessment 2(2) page 305, 1996) that if there is an adverse effect caused by a pollutant or action, then a small increase in the dose or action will cause a small increase in the effect. This is implicit in the claim that radiation at small exposure and consequent small doses only makes a small increase. But it is not generally realized that the same agument applies to chemical pollutants. The argument which was popular in the 1970s that only genotoxic chemicals will have such effects at low doses is clearly WRONG. Three chemicals that the US EPA most loves to hate, Asbestos, Arsenic, Mercury are NOT genotoxic. Yet the EPA insists on linearity. It is time that this be understood as a scientific statement with its consequences. Many people argue that for new technologies there is a LEARNING CURVE. Yet for nuclear matters there seems to be a FORGETTING CURVE. This is not a laughing matter. It is fundamental and must be seriously discussed.
The false hope
of an ABM system
The idea came up in the 1960s that it was possible to build an Anti-Ballistic Missile system to prevent a nuclear attack. There is general (alas not unanimous) scientific agreement that this will not work. I note that other scientists more distinguished than I (Bethe, Garwin, Panofsky) have been arguing for over 40 years that an ABM system will not work.
All three gave such testimony in the US Congress in the late 1960s The world set up an Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty in 1972 to stop this escalation of the arms race.The ABM treaty was abrogated in the 2002 by the USA. In 1973 Professor Wolfgang (Pief) Panofsky, Chairman of several important committees (and my wife's brother-in-law) wrote to the President of the USA (President Clinton) calling his attention to the huge stockpile of nuclear weapons and of "bomb grade" plutonium. He called their existence a "clear and present danger" to the country implying that the President should act. But the President did not act. Nor has any president acted since. In principle it is up to the Secretary of Energy (DOE), now Dr Ernest Moniz) to urge this but he did not. (Pief) Panofsky continued to raise the issue and his important oped piece in the San Francisco , "Missiles No Defense" was published two days after he died.
(http://physics.harvard.edu~wilson/Missiles_no_defense.doc) The losers are the American people who have been persuaded
that there is a technical solution to a political problem
that demands the best diplomacy we can imagine. I have written and talked about this
several times at the Erice meetings of the World Federation
of Scientists. (Bush-Putin_disagreement ) This is clearly another area where the inextricable linkage between public policy and science is ignored at our peril.
I note that other scientists more distinguished than I (Bethe, Garwin, Panofsky) have been arguing forover 40 years that an ABM system will not work. I was a strong supporter of the Eisenhower "Atoms for Peace" initiative, and its partial implementation in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, but left details up to the scientists named above (Bethe, Garwin, Panofsky) and others such as Professor Bernard Feld of MIT who went to the Pugwash meetings, I felt after 1975 or so that there was a major gap which I could help to fill. Discussions on nuclear weapons took place between those states which had them. USA, USSR, China, France, UK. I was more interested in those countries which did not have them but had the capability to make them in a short time but had declined to do so. Can we encourage them not to make them and lead the world by example? I started to visit India, China and then Middle Eastern countries. I found to my sorrow that many leaders in Pakistan or Arab countries did not even understand the questions and issues. The urgency, magnitude and difficulty of my self imposed, task increased after President George W Bush (Dubya) abrogated the ABM treaty.
I strongly argued these positions
in the seminars on prevention of Nuclear War in Erice in the
1980s with Dr Evgeny Velikhov (science advisor to Secretary
Gorbachev) and argued strongly with Dr Edward Teller
who took a different position. (See the photograph of myself with Velikov and Teller in the background)
I was not very active in nuclear electric power till about 1970 since then I have spent a great deal of time explaining it to the public and discussing it. I summarize the recent work on a special webpage nuclear_power_support.html
I have spent considerable time and effort trying to understand the USSR and its peoples. I note that our family, like much of the western world in 1934 was thinking about the "RED MENACE" (and a similar problem the "YELLOW PERIL"). In 1938 our history teacher (Mr Berry) asked what we wished to be and I responded that I wanted to join the British diplomatic service and travel. Later, in 1948 I read Fitzroy Maclean's book EASTERN APPROACHES (printed in US as "EASTWARD TO ADVENTURE") and I was enthralled. In 1957 an opportunity came. I was at the International Conference on High Energy physics in Geneva in July 1957 and at the same time Hans Bethe (for the USA) and Igor Tamm (for the USSR) were in Geneva as science advisors to the politicians negotiating the limited test ban treaty. A small group of us (Hillman, Panofsky, Hofstadter, Tamm and myself) climbed a small mountain near Lauseanne where Igor Tamm opened up. ( I took a photograph of the group in page 49 of my autobiography) Tamm told us about his recent visit to China. I suspected then, and still believe, that he went to tell the Chinese that the USSR would NOT help them build an atomic bomb. On that climb he also mentioned his (doctoral) student Andrei Dmitreyvich Sakharov, of whom Tamm said "he is brighter than I am". In 1958 I made my first visit to the USSR to the High Energy Physics conference in Kiev, Ukraine. Many visits have followed.
Russian radiation issues
Just as at Harvard where Professors Kenneth Bainbridge and Norman Ramsey encouraged, almost insisted, that young physicists understand effects of radiation on health I wanted to understand the studies in Russia. For these and other reasons I was asked (by the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of Belarus) to help found the International Sakharov College of Radioecology, in Minsk, Belarus and be the Chairman of its' International Advisory Committee (which position I held until 2001). This has now become the (International Sakharov Environmental University) on the tenth anniversary of the opening (in May 2002) of this university, Dr. Frantisek Janouch, from the Czech Republic and Sweden, gave an admonition to students (in Russian and in English) to think carefully whether they deserved to use the Sakharov name. At the ninth anniversary (Sakharov's 80th birthday), I told the students my memories about Sakharov. I believe in putting my actions where my mouth is and followed closely the Russian and Ukrainian radiation accidents at Chernobyl in the Ukraine, and the accidents at the Techa River and the Mayak production complex in the Ural Mountains. This interest also led me to become editor of the English Translation of the Russian Journal Risk which is published by the Russian Medical Research Laboratory in Obninsk and is mainly about effects of Chernobyl. In 1987 I visited Chernobyl with a Chicago TV crew and the resulting film (Back to Chernobyl) was released in late 1988. I was among the first in the USA to emphasize the importance of the Russian radiation accidents in the 1950 - 60 period. In that period, for example, 2 million Curies of radioactive material were dumped into the upper reaches of the Techa River. The effects have been studied for 40 years by a dedicated group of physicians and scientists in the Urals Center for Radiation Medicine (URCRM) in Chelyabinsk. See also public comment on EPA proposals to regulate DOE facilities, and tighten standards for uranium in drinking water.
Nuclear waste disposal
Starting in the late 1990s I was the spokesman for a group "Scientists for Secure Waste Storage" (SSWF) which supported the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians who would like to store nuclear waste (temporarily) on their reservation. Although after 7 years the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was ready to grant a license, the politicians in Utah, both the Governor and the Senators, have vowed to oppose it. They persuaded the US Bureau of Land Management to deny use of land to transfer casks from rail to road and to deny the right to make a long term agreement., and the Bureau of Indian Affairs to deny the right to make a long term agreement. SSWF sent in a brief supporting the Goshutes. The activity is in limbo for the last 8 years and it is unclear whether anyone can resurrect it. More detail on some radiation issues is available in a separate page on this site and in a special (requested) report for the American Association of Physics Teachers (also available on this site).
(and by extension other accidents)
Those who favor new energy technologies argue that even if they are too expensive now, there will be a "learning curve" and they will become cheaper. Yet these same people object when I ask for a real study of the "forgetting curve" displayed by commercial nuclear power plant implementation. Nuclear power was cheap - cheaper than coal - in 1971. This statement is based upon actual bills by the reactor operator to the distributor of electricity - the busbar cost. WHY IS IT NOW SO MUCH MORE EXPENSIVE? (Both capital cost and operating cost) The cost cannot be due to safety improvements. The main safety improvement is careful analysis according to Rasmussen's procedure in his landmark report in 1975 (Reactor Safety Study), and analysis is cheap. A large part is intransigent opposition by a segment of the population which has persuaded the politicians at every stage. Why do we let these intransigent members of the population control the discussion? It is vital to realize the distinction between Prompt deaths (Acute Radiation Sickness occurring within days) and delayed effects such as cancer. Prompt evacuation is only necessary to ensure that no one gets acute radiation sickness. There are presently EMERGENCY PLANS on what to consider in an emergency including EVACUATION plans. In the thoughts of many in the public these are synonymous and evacuation should be automatic. This led to an unnessary evacuation at Three Mile Island and unnecessary deaths at Fukushima. In this connection look at the webpage on public hearings especially the last item. http://users.physics.harvard.edu/~wilson/publichearings.html
Even the most exposed worker at Fukushima had an exposure and hence dose well below that giving Acute Radiation Sickness so there would have been time for a careful analysis of the situation. I argue that at Fukushima evacuation was unnecessary and undesirable. The calculated figures for future radiation cancers will never be fully verified by experiment yet there are definite deaths from unnecessary evacuation. (http://users.physics.harvard.edu/%7Ewilson/publications/pp932.doc) More important, when something untoward happens, the risk and benefits of any risk/benefit decision immediately change, and should be analyzed (preferably in a procedure discussed and maybe mandated in advance). The increase in dirty coal use with its concomitant air pollution in Tokyo and other cities also dramatically altered the risk equation. If that had been immediately taken into account, no evacuation wold have taken place at the Fukushima-daichi nuclear power plant area. The Japanese earthquake and Tsunami has led to other tests of nuclear ideas. Why do we worry about disposal of radioactive materials which last only thousands of years yet mercury and arsenic last forever? Why is a secure land fill for ordinary waste one which is guaranteed for 30 years whereas one for nuclear waste must last 1,000,000 years? In the USA radiation standards for clean-up of radioactive material are far tighter than necessary and that has led to unconscionable delay in clean-up of weapons sites such as the Hanford reservation.
Both I and my wife Andree
Desiree Wilson have been concerned about the
disadvantaged in the world all our lives. We were both happy
(independently because we had not then met) that in 1945
America was known throughout the world for its optimism, its
enthusiasm, its generosity even to the defeated countries
(the Marshall Plan) and its responsibility to those who
defended her (the GI Bill). By 2011 these have disappeared
and as we contemplate the
terrible events on 9/11 and
again on 11/11/11 we remembered these important American
ideals that these veterans fought to defend. When
opportunity arises, which it does all too often, we engage
in various Human Rights activities.
A short summary of my human rights activities since the
1960s is available here.
Richard Wilson is serves on the Board of Directors of
the Andrei
Sakharov Foundation which endeavors to
continue the work of Andrei Dmitreyvich Sakharov in Human
Rights and Human progress. It is now 48 years since
Sakharov's famous article on "Progress, Peaceful Coexistence
and Intellectual Freedom" was published. A major
conference to discuss this and
implications for the future was held on 24th and 25th
October 2008 hosted by Harvard University and the American
Academy for Arts and Sciences A copy of this is also
available here with some auxiliary papers.
I am trying to put back on the
site a collected summary of some papers and reports
with separate folders on many countries including
Palestine. This is running into problems. I
believe, however, that the following gets the HUMAN
RIGHTS list (which is huge) and in particular the PALESTINE list which
is topical.
http://physics.harvard.edu/~wilson/HUMANRIGHTS
Andrei's widow, Elena Bonner, valiantly fought to preserve the memory of Andrei. Here is a personal tribute to Yelena Georgovna Bonner. I, Richard Wilson, joined a fact finding group, led by Baroness Cox, President of Christian Solidarity worldwide, that visited the Armenian-Azerbaijan border in May 1991 and reported thereon to the first Sakharov conference on physics two days later. I attended, (and talked at) a conference on self-determination of peoples in Moscow on June 27th to July 1st 1999. I helped Dr. Stanislaw Suskevich, then Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of Belarus, and "de facto" head of state, set up the Sakharov College of Radioecology in 1991. I was the first Chairman of the International Advisory Committee. This is now the International Sakharov Environmental University (ISEU). In many of the issues which arise throughout the world I (Richard Wilson) have been asked by one party or another, to sign petitions, support divestitures, participate in boycotts or otherwise join in actions of others. Whether I have signed, or declined to sign, I have often been misquoted. A more detailed discussion of boycotts etc. is on a separate page. I am especially proud to be the recipient of the Andrei Sakharov prize of the American Physical Society in 2012. After meeting Andrei Sakharov in 1979 I actively worked for the principles he espoused and on his death I have worked for his memory and remembrance of his principles. I spoke about my meetings with Sakharov in acknowledgement of the prize.
Responses
to some events in 2013 and later
Monday, April 15th, Patriots Day, 2013 saw terrorism in Boston. As we mourn for those killed and wounded, and prepare for worse, we must contemplate how lucky we are in the USA. Tragedies such as this happen every day in Iraq and Syria is far worse. Let us redouble our efforts to make the whole world safe. We must also contemplate that these bombs had an explosive power of a few pounds of TNT; 5 billion times less that Andrei Sakharov's 1964 Nuovo Zembla test. I am deeply disturbed that Americans are careless about words and thereby misinform the public. 10 pounds of TNT is NOT a weapon of mass destruction. Nor even are the chemical weapons used in WWI. The real weapons of mass destruction are, as noted above nuclear weapons and biological weapons. To misuse the word encourages a dangerous complacency.
All people are very concerned when one human being kills another, and more so when it is a terrorist attack. Yet, we must all be aware that the same week saw an explosion at a fertilizer plant in West Texas which killed more people and did more damage than the Marathon bombers. While we must await full information that in addition to anhydrous ammonia, which is not in itself explosive, there was 500,000 pounds (250 tons) of ammonium nitrate which was not properly rendered non explosive by the addition of urea. Alas, urea also makes the uranium nitrate stink.
Press reports say this was true of over 44 Texas communities. Apparently farmers object to the foul smelling addition. Although it would not have helped in a coordinated terror attack (because the urea can be removed easily) it would have made the plant safe for accidents.
My wife Andree and I are also shattered by the collapse of the top 4 floors of a 7 story building in Savar, a suburb 25 km NW of Dhaka, Bangladesh. Andree and I drove through Savar in 2011. According to a reliable report from Dhaka Community Hospital (DCH) in 2013 this buildiong was approved at 3 stories high and the top floors with the garment factories were illegal. This accident killed over 1000 people mostly women garment workers. It is tragic that although women have gained a degree of independence by finding a job in the city rather than stay in the country with no control over their lives, they are being exploited in the cities. We should worry about earthquakes which would bring many buildings down with a tragedy greater than that in Haiti 2 years ago. That would be terrible but the stupidity of the building owner in ignoring developing cracks makes a bad situation worse. The USA had a tragedy like in Savar in the garment district in the USA a century ago. A major part of the solution was a garment workers union. Bangladesh needs one.
The question also arises "How do we in the western world
help the developing countries?" "Refuse to buy garments from
them and reducing the national income of Bangladesh by 30%?"
"Send money to a corrupt government to distribute?" Our
personal solution is to bypass the government and send money
to the Dhaka Community Hospital Trust (DCH), a charity
hospital which offers a minimum of health care for everyone.
The DCH staff were fully occupied after the SAVAR accident
in helping in the situation. DCH is also a major group that
has been concerned with the nation's arsenic pollution
problem. I feel that my enthusiasm has been justified by an article by Dhaka Community Hospital on patient care. http://www.globalhealthdelivery.org/blog/2015/01/improving-patient-care-in-bangladesh/
DCH were also on the job at the beginning when the Nepal Earthquake came. They setup field hospitals west of Katmandu and treated 200 paiients the first day.As noted above we had been helping through the years by a 501(c)3
charity the ARSENIC
FOUNDATION Inc. While this for helping on
the arsenic problem, sending funds releases funds for
general help to the poor. But as
noted earlier I have felt unable to continue my work for the
foundation and have resigned from the Presidency. We are now (in 2015) helping directly through Charitable Aid Foundation of America.
Another financial fact raises another paradox. Although more people were killed in Sandy Hook CT IN 2013 by the rampage of a young man who took his mother's guns, than in the Boston Marathon bombings, the funds for helping the victims are in the other order ($32 million for the marathon bombing survivors vs. $3 million for the Sandy hook victims. A part of that is a result of the fact that compensation for a disabled person can far exceed compensation to the family of a dead one. This simple statement should be pondered by everyone. Is this what society wants?
Over the years I have testified at a number of public federal and state hearings on various issues from nuclear power to risk analysis. But the President of the National Academy of Science (Dr. Fred Seitz at that time) persuaded me to become a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Atlantic Legal Foundation (ALF), a public interest foundation which specializes in contesting "junk" science in the courts. I disagreed with Fred on a number of issues but he also believed that disagreements needed more discussion than agreements. I started a special "sound science" page IN THE 1990s. ALF has submitted three briefs of "amicus curiae" to the US Supreme Court ( DAUBERT, JOINER and KUMHO decided by the Supreme Court in 1993 (Daubert), and on March 23rd 1999 (Kumho) and several "amicus curiae" briefs (ASHLAND , CANAVAN and JENNINGS ) to state courts on behalf of a number of distinguished scientists on the admissibility of scientific evidence. In these I was one of the "amici" and helped write the briefs. In particular I have emphasized that the data that suggest that low frequency and low intensity magnetic fields cause cancer are unconvincing, and that many such claims fall into this category of junk science. In this I criticized a 1998 draft report of a committee of the National Academy of Sciences which fortunately never got beyond draft form. The Atlantic Legal Foundation also criticized this draft report on legal grounds. The Atlantic Legal Foundation submitted a brief of "amicus curiae" (COVALT) to the Supreme Court of California and to two district courts on the issue of whether the court should take seriously claims that electromagnetic fields cause cancer. The courts decided that they should NOT take the claims seriously. I joined two Physics Nobel Laureates in submitting a brief of amicus curiae to a Hawaii court supporting the start-up of the Large Hadron Collider in CERN, Geneva, and opposing a proposed injunction to prevent operation. The court threw out the case claiming lack of legal jurisdiction. Yet in the court of common sense a claim that the whole world will vanish into a black hole inherently involves everyone!
On behalf of the Atlantic Legal Foundation, I started a web page: sound-science.net (also addressable from this page) to outline these matters. I also wrote a paper in Technology and Society to explain these issues. For this work I was recognized by ALF with a "Lifetime Achievement" award presented in Washington DC in March 2013.
I have often participated in meetings of the Ettore Majorana Insitute of Scientific Culture in Erice, Sicily which is run by a brilliant but often controversial scientist Antonino (Nino) Zichichi. The scientific center he created in Erice is at the top of a 3000 foot hill nearby. I was (2001-2005) Chairman of the Permanent Energy Monitoring Panel which meets at Erice, Sicily (August 2003, August 2004, August 2005) and am still (2015) a member thereof. Unfortunately illness prevented my attandance in 2015. An informal webpage, started in 2003, is now organized by other excellent scientists.They formed a group to which many members of the PMP belong.
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/energy-permanent-monitoring-panel
I attach here introductory comments at a session on non-proliferation in summer 2006. I am also a member of the Permanent Monitoring Panel on Terrorism. I started a page of information on Mitigation of Terrorist Actions. For all of this work I was awarded the 2005 "Erice" prize for Science and Peace which was presented in the Vatican in 2006. Look also at my page on public hearings about these subjects especially the most recent. http://users.physics.harvard.edu/~wilson /publichearings.html
I note that in a couple of months, December 2014 and, January 2015, three friends in physics have died. Marvin ("Murph") Goldberger of the University of California at San Diego, Charlie Townes of UC Berkeley, and Akira Miayahara of Japan. Akira was a regular attendee at these Erice meetings. Another friend, Professor Mujid Kazimi of MIT died in summer 2015 while on a visit to China. He was a young man- in his 60s!
Alas my health is declining and I had to cancel participation in the Erice meeting in August 2015. I sent an apology to everyone there, together with some background notes for consieration. I have had to decide that I will not, for health reasons, go again and sent my best wishes to the place, to Nino, and his fantastic staff.
"How do I know that my life is all spent
My get up and go has got up and went
In spite of it all I face life with a grin
and think of the places my get up has been" (anon)