Sakharov Memorial Lectures In Physics

The Soviet physicist, dissident, and human rights activist Andrei Sakharov (1921–1989) was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975. The first Russian to have been so recognized, Sakharov in his Nobel lecture held that humanity had a "sacred endeavor" to create a life worthy of its potential, that "we must make good the demands of reason," by confronting the dangers threatening the world, both then and now: nuclear annihilation, famine, pollution, and the denial of human rights.Meeting the Demands of Reason provides a comprehensive account of Sakharov's life and intellectual development, focusing on his political thought and the effect his ideas had on Soviet society. Jay Bergman places Sakharov's dissidence squarely within the ethical legacy of the nineteenth-century Russian intelligentsia, inculcated by his father and other family members from an early age.In 1948, one year after receiving his doctoral candidate's degree in physics, Sakharov began work on the Soviet hydrogen bomb and later received both the Stalin and the Lenin prizes for his efforts. Although as a nuclear physicist he had firsthand experience of honors and privileges inaccessible to ordinary citizens, Sakharov became critical of certain policies of the Soviet government in the late 1950s. He never renounced his work on nuclear weaponry, but eventually grew concerned about the environmental consequences of testing and feared unrestrained nuclear proliferation.Bergman shows that these issues led Sakharov to see the connection between his work in science and his responsibilities to the political life of his country. In the late 1960s, Sakharov began to condemn the Soviet system as a whole in the name of universal human rights. By the 1970s, he had become, with Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the most recognized Soviet dissident in the West, which afforded him a measure of protection from the authorities. In 1980, however, he was exiled to the closed city of Gorky for protesting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. In 1986, the new Gorbachev regime allowed him to return to Moscow, where he played a central role as both supporter and critic in the years of perestroika.Two years after Sakharov's death, the Soviet Union collapsed, and in the courageous example of his unyielding commitment to human rights, skillfully recounted by Bergman, Sakharov remains an enduring inspiration for all those who would tell truth to power.

A considerable amount of public debate and media print has been devoted to the “war between science and religion.” In his accessible and eminently readable new book, Stephen M. Barr demonstrates that what is really at war with religion is not science itself, but a philosophy called scientific materialism. Modern Physics and Ancient Faith argues that the great discoveries of modern physics are more compatible with the central teachings of Christianity and Judaism about God, the cosmos, and the human soul than with the atheistic viewpoint of scientific materialism. Scientific materialism grew out of scientific discoveries made from the time of Copernicus up to the beginning of the twentieth century. These discoveries led many thoughtful people to the conclusion that the universe has no cause or purpose, that the human race is an accidental by-product of blind material forces, and that the ultimate reality is matter itself. Barr contends that the revolutionary discoveries of the twentieth century run counter to this line of thought. He uses five of these discoveries—the Big Bang theory, unified field theories, anthropic coincidences, Gödel’s Theorem in mathematics, and quantum theory—to cast serious doubt on the materialist’s view of the world and to give greater credence to Judeo-Christian claims about God and the universe. Written in clear language, Barr’s rigorous and fair text explains modern physics to general readers without oversimplification. Using the insights of modern physics, he reveals that modern scientific discoveries and religious faith are deeply consonant. Anyone with an interest in science and religion will find Modern Physics and Ancient Faith invaluable.

This book comprises expository articles on different aspects of gravitation and cosmology that are aimed at graduate students. The topics discussed are of contemporary interest assuming only an elementary introduction to gravitation and cosmology. The presentations are to a certain extent pedagogical in nature, and the material developed is not usually found in sufficient detail in recent textbooks in these areas.

This book discusses the notion that quantum gravity may represent the "breakdown" of spacetime at extremely high energy scales. If spacetime does not exist at the fundamental level, then it has to be considered "emergent", in other words an effective structure, valid at low energy scales. The author develops a conception of emergence appropriate to effective theories in physics, and shows how it applies (or could apply) in various approaches to quantum gravity, including condensed matter approaches, discrete approaches, and loop quantum gravity.

There has not been a scientific revolution for about 100 years. One seems imminent, as QED has recently been violated at the Sigma-6 level. Kuhn, in 'The Structure of Scientific Revolutions', used Wittgenstein's famous duck-rabbit optical illusion to demonstrate how bias in interpretation causes scientists to see the same information in radically different manners, which is likely to have delayed the pending paradigm shift. Jean-Pierre Vigier, continually labeled l'hérétique de la physique and l'eternel resistant in French media, remains a pillar of modern mathematical physics. 'Heretical' works of Vigier related to extended electromagnetic theory incorporating photon mass and a longitudinal B(3) EM field, gravity, quantum theory, large-scale additional dimensions, the Dirac polarized vacuum and many more related issues are deemed by his followers to be essential to the evolution of physics. The phrase 'Lives On' was chosen in the title of this volume to claim ignored portions of his work are relevant to implementing the Paradigm Shift to an Einsteinian Unified Field Theory. Specifically, chapters about the Dirac Hypertube, Tight-Bound States and Spacetime programming provide required insights into crossing the dimensional barrier and 'proving' parts of M-Theoretic dimensionality. As happens periodically in the history of science, we live in a climate where coloring outside-the-box can have severe myopic consequences such as difficulties in passing PhD exams, challenges in grant approval or problems in receiving tenure. Since there is no conflict with Gauge Theory, once realized, many chapters in this important volume will aid in facilitating progress in physics beyond the Standard Model.