Family Biographical Information

    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.

My hopes for an enligtened state of Israel

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, that this is the default position with agreed land swaps. As noted in this website, any acomodation was opposed by Arab governments until 2001 when in a historic unanimous declaration, proposed by Prince, now King, Abdullah the green line was accepted and the arabs proposed to recognize Israel and declare Peace

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. studiously ignored by Israel, Arab countries unanimously accepted it. I support this official US position whole heartedly.    Since writing the above I note that on July 28th 2011 there was a full page advertisement in the New York Times by a Jewish group supporting a two state solution with a similar starting point.  

My recent interests in 2015 include:
(a) understanding and advertising the uses of charged particles in radiotherapy and my history of the Harvard cyclotrons shows how much of this began. In this I want to encourage the belated recognition of the crucial role of Andy Koehler
(b)  Studying cancer at old age;
(c)  the problem of chronic arsenic exposure:
(d)  experiments on parity violation in electron proton scattering at CEBAF. 
(e)   I also has a major interest in analyzing and trying to understand, risks; how to reduce them, how important individual risks may be. Ten times as many people were killed on the roads in the  USA  last year as were killed on September 11th 2001.  In February 2015 I visied the University of California at San Diego where I worked on a paper on MODELS showing how they are misused and what a physicist can do about it. In this work I realize that ideas, books words and even punctuation affects the model and its use.

(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, that this is the default position with agreed land swaps. As noted in this website, this was opposed by Arab governments until 2001 when in a historic unanimous declaration, proposed by Prince, now King, Faisal accepted it But this was studiously ignored by Israel, Arab countries unanimously accepted it. I support this official US default position wholeheartedly.    Since writing the above I note that on Tuesday June 28th 2011 there was a full page advertisement in the New York Times by a Jewish group supporting a two state solution with a similar starting point.  

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 4^th 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.   ).    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.

1. giving citizenship with equal rights to all people within the territory claimed
2. Allowing at once an independent Palestinian State within the territory within the land left by UN resolution 242
3. Forcible removal of all Palestinians from all territory that Israel claimed and claims.
4. Acceptance of the status quo.   I argued and still argue that (4) is the worsst of all solutions. The Qibya massacre, also known as the Qibya incident, occurred during "Operation Shoshana", a reprisal operation that occurred in October 1953 when Israeli troops under Ariel Sharon attacked the village of Qibya in the West Bank.

    The status quo is even worse than I had thought in 1967.   It has become more and more clear that following this route hands control to the extreme groups on both sides, with awful conclusions for the future.   

    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.

THE ROCK OF OUR EXISTENCE

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.

200 Jewish academics

3000 descendents of the holocaust prison camps (THIS FILE HAS YET TO BE FOUND)

538 rectors of Turkish Universities.

Article in the Guardian

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.

1.  Take over and give each and every person equal rights including right of “return”
2. Allow a Palestinian state  where a Palestinian can travel from one end to the other without meeting an Israeli soldier or bureaucrat

OR TWO DISHONORABLE ALTERNATIVES

• 3. Move each and every Palestinian out of the area by force if necessary
• 4. The status quo

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.

Nucleon-nucleon interactions

    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.

Lepton-nucleon scattering and nucleon form factors

    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)

Radiation and its Uses

    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.

Risk Analysis

 

    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

Energy and the Environment

    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.

Chemical Carcinogens

    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.

Arsenic

    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.

       Gorbechev tried to make accommodation with NATO but he was rebuffed. Now Russia is not only being rebuffed but is being ignored. But who is NATO? Does NATO represent the people? If so how can I vote to change its directorate? It is hard to escape the conclusion that NATO is run by the military of the member countries. Not a very democratic system! The immediate effects are all too clear in the eastern Ukraine. The USA needs Russia more that the reverse. Yet there is constant pressure from some US politicians to remove Russia's influence in the world. In 1997 an important group of US government advisors wrote to the US President asking that NATO not be expanded. Unfortunately their advice was not taken. A simple look at a map of the world shows that Russia is larger than the USA. How many American leaders take Russia seriously? How many consider the simple fact that each of Russia and USA has MANY more nuclear weapons ready to go than the total of all other countries?  In this I suggest we note the words of the famous American philosopher POGO."We have met the enemy and he is us".

       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?)