Andrei Sakharov

2.1. Soviet Nuclear Weapons Program

After World War II, Andrei Sakharov initially conducted research on cosmic rays. In mid-1948, he became a central figure in the Soviet atomic bomb project, working under the guidance of Igor Kurchatov and Igor Tamm. His research group at the Lebedev Physical Institute developed a crucial concept in August-September 1948, known as the sloika, or "layered cake" design. This design involved adding a shell of natural, unenriched uranium around deuterium, which would increase the deuterium concentration at the uranium-deuterium boundary and enhance the overall yield of the device. The natural uranium would capture neutrons and fission, contributing to the thermonuclear reaction. The first Soviet atomic device, designated RDS-1, was successfully tested on August 29, 1949.

In 1950, Sakharov moved to Sarov, a closed city, to continue his work on nuclear weapons. There, he played a pivotal role in the development of the first megaton-range Soviet hydrogen bomb, utilizing a design known in Russia as Sakharov's Third Idea, which had striking parallels to the Teller-Ulam design in the United States. His earlier "layer cake" design, while innovative, had yielded disappointing results, producing no more power than a typical fission bomb. However, the abundance of deuterium compared to scarce uranium made the pursuit of such designs worthwhile. Sakharov's breakthrough involved realizing that soft X-rays emitted by a primary fission bomb could be focused onto a cylinder of lithium deuteride to compress it symmetrically, a process known as radiation implosion. This design also incorporated a secondary fission device within the fusion cylinder to further aid compression and generate neutrons, converting some lithium to tritium to create a deuterium-tritium mixture. This design was first successfully tested as RDS-37 in 1955. Sakharov also contributed to the development of the 50-megaton Tsar Bomba, detonated in October 1961, which remains the most powerful nuclear device ever exploded.

Sakharov observed "striking parallels" between his own experiences and those of J. Robert Oppenheimer and Edward Teller in the United States. He believed that in the "tragic confrontation of two outstanding people," both deserved respect, as "each of them was certain he had right on his side and was morally obligated to go to the end in the name of truth." While Sakharov strongly disagreed with Teller on issues such as nuclear testing in the atmosphere and the Strategic Defense Initiative, he felt that American academics had been unfair to Teller's determination to develop the hydrogen bomb for the United States. He reasoned that any American rejection of thermonuclear weapons development would have been perceived by the Soviets as either a clever feint or a manifestation of stupidity, leading to the same reaction: exploiting the perceived weakness.

Despite his central role in creating nuclear weapons, Sakharov never felt he had "known sin," as Oppenheimer famously expressed. He later reflected that the "balance of nuclear terror" might have helped prevent a World War III for over forty years. However, he was deeply troubled by the instability of this balance, the extreme peril of the situation, and the appalling waste of the arms race. He emphasized the global responsibility of individuals to consider these issues with tolerance, trust, and candor, free from ideological dogmatism, parochial interests, or national egotism.

For his contributions to the Soviet nuclear program, Sakharov received numerous accolades, including the title of Hero of Socialist Labour three times (in 1953, 1956, and 1962), four Orders of Lenin, the Stalin Prize in 1953 (later renamed the Soviet State Prize), and the Lenin Prize in 1956.

2.2. Theoretical Physics and Fusion Research

Sakharov's scientific genius extended beyond nuclear weaponry. In 1950, in collaboration with Igor Tamm, he proposed a groundbreaking idea for a controlled nuclear fusion reactor, which became known as the tokamak. This concept, based on confining extremely hot ionized plasma using torus-shaped magnetic fields, remains the fundamental basis for the majority of current work in controlled thermonuclear fusion.

In 1951, Sakharov invented and tested the first explosively pumped flux compression generators, which he called MK (for MagnetoKumulative) generators. These devices compressed magnetic fields using explosives. The radial MK-1 generator produced a pulsed magnetic field of 25 megagauss (2,500 teslas), while the helical MK-2 generated 1,000 million amperes in 1953. Sakharov later experimented with an MK-driven "plasma cannon," where a small aluminum ring was vaporized by massive eddy currents into a stable, self-confined toroidal plasmoid that was accelerated to 100 km/s. He also theorized about replacing the copper coil in MK generators with a large superconductor solenoid to magnetically compress and focus underground nuclear explosions, creating a shaped charge effect capable of focusing 10²³ protons per second onto a 1 mm² surface.

After 1965, Sakharov returned to fundamental science, focusing on particle physics and physical cosmology. He sought to explain the baryon asymmetry of the universe and was the first to provide a theoretical motivation for proton decay, a concept previously suggested by Eugene Wigner in 1949 and 1952, with experiments performed since 1954. Sakharov uniquely considered CPT-symmetric events occurring before the Big Bang, proposing that neutral spinless maximons (or photons) could be produced at t < 0 from contracting matter with an excess of antiquarks, pass "one through the other" at the instant t = 0 (the point of infinite density), and then decay with an excess of quarks when t > 0, thereby realizing total CPT symmetry of the universe. He hypothesized that all phenomena at t < 0 are CPT reflections of phenomena at t > 0. His legacy in this field includes the famous Sakharov conditions: baryon number violation, C-symmetry and CP-symmetry violation, and interactions out of thermal equilibrium.

Sakharov was also interested in explaining the remarkably small curvature of the universe. This led him to explore cyclic models, where the universe oscillates between phases of contraction and expansion. He considered various starting points for these models, including a flat universe with a slightly negative cosmological constant, a universe with positive curvature and a zero cosmological constant, and a universe with negative curvature and a slightly negative cosmological constant. The latter two models featured what Sakharov termed a "reversal of the time arrow," where entropy increases as time increases for t > 0 and also as time decreases for t < 0. In these models, he posited no dynamic interaction between the universe at t < 0 and t > 0. In his first model, the two universes interacted only through local matter accumulation, whose density and pressure became high enough to connect the two "sheets" through a bridge without spacetime between them, allowing for a continuity of geodesics beyond the Schwarzschild radius with no singularity. This idea, influenced by Igor Dmitriyevich Novikov, presented "collapse" and "anticollapse" as alternatives to the black hole and white hole in the wormhole model. Additionally, Sakharov proposed the concept of induced gravity as an alternative theory of quantum gravity.

3.1. Advocacy for Peace and Disarmament

Politically active during the 1960s, Sakharov was a vocal opponent of nuclear proliferation. He actively pushed for the cessation of atmospheric nuclear tests, playing a crucial role in the signing of the 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty in Moscow. He consistently warned against the dangers of the arms race and the environmental and human health risks posed by atmospheric nuclear testing.

In July 1967, a major turning point in Sakharov's political evolution occurred when anti-ballistic missile (ABM) defense became a key issue in US-Soviet relations. In a secret, detailed letter to the Soviet leadership, he explained the necessity of accepting the American proposal for a "bilateral rejection by the USA and the Soviet Union of the development of antiballistic missile defense." He argued that an arms race in this new technology would inevitably increase the likelihood of nuclear war. Sakharov also requested permission to publish his accompanying manuscript in a newspaper to inform the public about the dangers of such a defense system. However, the Soviet government ignored his letter and refused to allow him to initiate a public discussion of ABMs in the Soviet press.

Following the Six-Day War in 1967 and the onset of the Arab-Israeli conflict, Sakharov actively supported Israel, a stance he publicly reported multiple times. He also maintained friendly relations with refuseniks, Soviet Jews who were denied permission to emigrate, many of whom later made aliyah (emigrated to Israel).

3.2. Human Rights and Democratic Reforms

Sakharov's commitment extended deeply to individual freedom, civil liberties, and democratic reforms within the Soviet Union. He became a staunch critic of the Soviet political system, advocating for the principles of an open society. In 1964, he was involved in a politically charged event when the Soviet Academy of Sciences nominated Nikolai Nuzhdin, a follower of Trofim Lysenko (the initiator of the Stalin-supported anti-genetics campaign known as Lysenkoism), for full membership. Breaking from normal practice, Sakharov, as a member of the academy, publicly spoke out against Nuzhdin's full membership, holding him responsible for "the defamation, firing, arrest, even death, of many genuine scientists." While Nuzhdin was ultimately not elected, this episode prompted Nikita Khrushchev to order the KGB to gather compromising material on Sakharov.

In 1970, Sakharov was among the three founding members of the Committee on Human Rights in the USSR, alongside Valery Chalidze and Andrei Tverdokhlebov. This committee actively wrote appeals, collected signatures for petitions, and successfully affiliated with several international human rights organizations. Their work was closely monitored by the KGB, leading to increasing pressure on Sakharov from the government. In 1972, Sakharov married Yelena Bonner, a fellow human rights activist, who became his steadfast companion and collaborator in his dissident activities.

By 1973, Sakharov was regularly meeting with Western correspondents and holding press conferences in his apartment, using these platforms to voice his concerns. He notably appealed to the United States Congress to approve the 1974 Jackson-Vanik Amendment to a trade bill, which linked trade tariffs to the Kremlin's willingness to allow freer emigration for Soviet Jews.

Sakharov described that it took him "years" to "understand how much substitution, deceit, and lack of correspondence with reality there was" in the Soviet ideals. He initially believed, despite his observations, that the Soviet state represented "a breakthrough into the future, a kind of prototype for all countries." However, he eventually arrived at what he called "the theory of symmetry: all governments and regimes to a first approximation are bad, all peoples are oppressed, and all are threatened by common dangers." He famously compared the Soviet state to "a cancer cell - with its messianism and expansionism, its totalitarian suppression of dissent, the authoritarian structure of power, with a total absence of public control in the most important decisions in domestic and foreign policy, a closed society that does not inform its citizens of anything substantial, closed to the outside world, without freedom of travel or the exchange of information."

Sakharov's ideas on social development led him to propose the principle of human rights as the new foundational basis for all politics. In his writings, he declared that "the principle 'what is not prohibited is allowed' should be understood literally," directly challenging the unwritten ideological rules imposed by the Communist Party on Soviet society, despite the existence of a democratic 1936 Soviet Constitution. He saw himself not as a "volunteer priest of the idea, but simply a man with an unusual fate," and was against all forms of self-immolation. In a letter written from exile, he encouraged a fellow physicist and free-market advocate with the words: "Fortunately, the future is unpredictable and also - because of quantum effects - uncertain." For Sakharov, the inherent indeterminacy of the future reinforced his belief that he could and should take personal responsibility for it.

3.3. "Reflections on Progress, Peaceful Coexistence, and Intellectual Freedom"

In May 1968, Sakharov completed his highly influential essay, "Reflections on Progress, Peaceful Coexistence, and Intellectual Freedom." This essay outlined his comprehensive views on global challenges, the dangers of the nuclear arms race, and the fundamental importance of human rights. In it, he specifically described anti-ballistic missile defense as a major threat leading to world nuclear war and advocated for nuclear disarmament by all nuclear-armed states.

The essay was initially circulated within the Soviet Union in samizdat (self-published, underground copies) before being published outside the Soviet Union in July 1968, first in the Dutch newspaper Het Parool and subsequently in The New York Times. The publication of this critical work outside the Soviet Union had significant repercussions for Sakharov. As a direct consequence, he was banned from conducting any military-related research and was reassigned back to the Lebedev Physical Institute (FIAN) to focus solely on fundamental theoretical physics. This essay marked a major and irreversible turn in his public profile, solidifying his position as a prominent dissident and leading to increased persecution by the Soviet authorities. For the next 12 years, until his exile to Gorky in January 1980, Sakharov openly assumed the role of a widely recognized dissident in Moscow. He actively stood vigil outside closed courtrooms, wrote appeals on behalf of more than 200 individual prisoners, and continued to publish essays advocating for democratization.

4.1. Arrest and Exile to Gorky

Sakharov's most severe punishment came on January 22, 1980. Following his public protests against the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in 1979, he was arrested by authorities and subsequently sent into internal exile to the city of Gorky (now Nizhny Novgorod), a city that was closed to foreigners. Upon his exile, Sakharov was stripped of all his Soviet awards and honors for engaging in "anti-Soviet activities."

4.2. Life in Exile and Resistance

Between 1980 and 1986, Sakharov endured challenging conditions under constant Soviet police surveillance in Gorky. In his memoirs, he recounted that his apartment was repeatedly subjected to searches and thefts. Despite his isolation, international recognition for his human rights work continued; he was named the 1980 Humanist of the Year by the American Humanist Association.

His exile was marked by acts of resistance, often undertaken in solidarity with his wife, Yelena Bonner. In May 1984, after Yelena Bonner was detained, Sakharov began a hunger strike, demanding permission for his wife to travel to the United States for critical heart surgery. In response, he was forcibly hospitalized and subjected to force-feeding. He was held in isolation for four months. In August 1984, Bonner herself was sentenced by a court to five years of exile in Gorky.

In April 1985, Sakharov initiated another hunger strike with the same demand for his wife's medical treatment abroad. He was again taken to a hospital and force-fed. The Politburo, the highest policy-making body of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, discussed his case in August 1985. Sakharov remained hospitalized until October 1985, when his wife was finally granted permission to travel to the United States. She underwent heart surgery there and returned to Gorky in June 1986.

During his exile, in December 1985, the European Parliament established the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, an annual award recognizing outstanding contributions to human rights. This prize underscored the international community's continued support for Sakharov's ideals despite his suppression by the Soviet state.

6.1. Role in Democratic Opposition

Following his release, Sakharov quickly re-engaged in public life, helping to initiate the first independent legal political organizations in the Soviet Union. His influence grew, and he became a prominent figure in the country's burgeoning political opposition. In March 1989, Sakharov was elected to the newly formed parliament, the Congress of People's Deputies of the Soviet Union, representing the Soviet Academy of Sciences. He subsequently became a co-leader of the democratic opposition movement, the Inter-Regional Deputies Group, advocating for significant and radical political reforms within the Soviet Union. In November 1989, the head of the KGB reported to Gorbachev on Sakharov's encouragement and support for the coal miners' strike in Vorkuta, highlighting his continued engagement with social and labor movements.

In December 1988, Sakharov undertook a fact-finding mission to Armenia and Azerbaijan amidst the escalating Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. He concluded that "For Azerbaijan the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh is a matter of ambition, for the Armenians of Karabakh, it is a matter of life and death." He also proposed a draft constitution for a "Union of Soviet Republics of Europe and Asia" (Союз Советских Республик Европы и Азии^Russian), submitting it to Gorbachev. His courageous and principled statements, including his criticism of the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, earned him widespread respect, leading many to refer to him as the "Father of Perestroika."

In October 1989, just two months before his death, Sakharov made his final visit to Japan to attend the second Nobel Prize Laureates Japan Forum, hosted by the Yomiuri Shimbun. During his visit to Tokyo, he met with Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu, Emperor Akihito, and other Japanese government officials. He also traveled to Sapporo, Hokkaido, where he engaged in a dialogue with local high school students.

8.1. Memorial Prizes and Institutions

Numerous honors and institutions have been established worldwide to preserve Sakharov's memory and promote his ideals:

• The Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought was established in 1988 by the European Parliament in his honor. It is the highest tribute to human rights endeavors awarded by the European Union, presented annually to "those who carry the spirit of Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov" and who "dedicate their lives to peaceful struggle for human rights."
• The Andrei Sakharov Prize has been awarded by the American Physical Society every second year since 2006. It recognizes "outstanding leadership and/or achievements of scientists in upholding human rights."
• The Andrei Sakharov Prize for Writer's Civic Courage was established in October 1990.
• In 2004, with the approval of Yelena Bonner, an annual Sakharov Prize for journalism was established for reporters and commentators in Russia. Funded by former Soviet dissident Pyotr Vins, now a businessman in the US, the prize is administered by the Glasnost Defence Foundation in Moscow. It is awarded "for journalism as an act of conscience," and past winners include notable journalists such as Anna Politkovskaya and Yelena Kostyuchenko.
• The Andrei Sakharov Archives and Human Rights Center, initially established at Brandeis University in 1993, is now housed at Harvard University. Documents from this archive, including numerous letters from the head of the KGB to the Central Committee concerning Soviet dissidents and their activities (covering the period from 1968 to 1991), were published by the Yale University Press in 2005 and are also available online. These documents provide crucial insights into Sakharov's activities, those of other dissidents, and the actions of high-ranking Soviet apparatchiks and the KGB. No equivalent of the KGB archive is publicly available in Russia.

8.2. Places and Cultural Impact

Sakharov's global recognition is reflected in various places and cultural references named in his honor:

• A public Sakharov Center operated in Moscow until 2023.
• In the 1980s, the block of 16th Street NW between L and M streets in front of the Soviet embassy (later the Russian ambassador's residence) in Washington, D.C. was renamed Andrei Sakharov Plaza as a form of protest against his 1980 arrest and detention.
• In Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, Sakharov Square, located in the heart of the city, is named after him.
• The Sakharov Gardens (established 1990) are located at the entrance to Jerusalem, Israel, off the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv Highway. There is also a street named after him in Haifa, near the Haifa Hof HaCarmel train station.
• In Nizhny Novgorod, the city of his exile, there is a Sakharov Museum in the apartment on the first floor of the 12-story house where the Sakharov family lived for seven years. A monument to him was erected near the house in 2014.
• In Saint Petersburg, his monument stands in Sakharov Square, and there is a Sakharov Park.
• The asteroid 1979 Sakharov was named after him in 1979.
• A public square in Vilnius, Lithuania, in front of the Press House, was named after Sakharov on March 16, 1991, while the Press House was still occupied by the Soviet Army during the January Events.
• Andreja Saharova iela in the Pļavnieki district of Riga, Latvia, is named after Sakharov.
• Andreij-Sacharow-Platz in downtown Nuremberg, Germany, is named in his honor.
• In Belarus, the International Sakharov Environmental University was named after him.
• The intersection of Ventura Boulevard and Laurel Canyon Boulevard in Studio City, Los Angeles, is named Andrei Sakharov Square.
• In the Netherlands, the bridge over the Nederrijn in Arnhem is called the Andrej Sacharovbrug. The Andrej Sacharovweg is a street in Assen, and there are also streets named in his honor in other Dutch cities such as Amsterdam, Amstelveen, The Hague, Hellevoetsluis, Leiden, Purmerend, Rotterdam, and Utrecht.
• There is a street named after him in Copenhagen, Denmark.
• Quai Andreï Sakharov in Tournai, Belgium, is named in honor of Sakharov.
• In Poland, streets are named in his honor in Warsaw, Łódź, and Kraków.
• Andreï Sakharov Boulevard in the Mladost district of Sofia, Bulgaria, is named after him.
• In New York City, a street sign at the southwest corner of Third Avenue and 67th Street in Manhattan reads Sakharov-Bonner Corner, honoring Sakharov and his wife, Yelena Bonner. This corner is located near the Soviet Mission to the United Nations (later the Russian mission) and was a frequent site of anti-Soviet demonstrations.
• In Chisinau, the capital of Moldova, there is an Academician Andrei Sakharov street.

His impact also extended into popular culture:

• The 1984 made-for-TV film Sakharov starred Jason Robards in the title role.
• In the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation, one of the Enterprise-D's Shuttlecraft is named after Sakharov, appearing prominently in several episodes, in keeping with the Star Trek tradition of naming shuttlecraft after prominent scientists, particularly physicists.
• The fictitious interplanetary spacecraft Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov from Arthur C. Clarke's 1982 novel 2010: Odyssey Two is powered by a "Sakharov drive." The novel was dedicated to both Sakharov and Alexei Leonov.
• Russian singer Alexander Gradsky composed and performed the song "Памяти А. Д. Сахарова" ("In memory of Andrei Sakharov"), featured on his album Live In "Russia" 2.
• In the PC game S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl and its prequel S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky, a scientist character named Professor Sakharov serves as the faction leader of the Ecologists.

10.1. Books

• Sakharov Speaks (1974)
• My Country and the World (1975)
• Alarm and Hope: The World-Renowned Nobel Laureate and Political Dissident Speaks Out on Human Rights, Disarmament, and Détente (1978)
• Collected Scientific Works (1982)
• Memoirs (1990, originally published in Russian in two volumes in 1996 as Воспоминания)
• Moscow and Beyond: 1986 to 1989 (1991)

10.2. Articles and interviews

• "Thoughts on Progress, Peaceful Coexistence, and Intellectual Freedom" (1968, published in Foreign Affairs Publishing Company and The New York Times)
• "Here and There: The Threat of Nuclear War" (1969, American Scientist)
• "On Alexander Solzhenitsyn's 'A Letter to the Soviet Leaders'" (1974, in Russian)
• "USSR. The Chronicle of Current Events" (1974, Index on Censorship, with Andrei Tverdokhlebov and Vladimir Albrecht)
• "The Need for an Open World: Andrei Sakharov Calls on Scientists to Intensify the Campaign for a Nuclear Weapons Ban and Full Disarmament" (1975, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists)
• "The Need for Democratization" (1970, The Saturday Review, with Valentin Turchin and Roy Medvedev)
• "An Open Letter" (1970, Survey, with Valentin Turchin and Roy Medvedev)
• "Memorandum" (1972, Survey)
• "Statement by the Human Rights Committee" (1973, Survey)
• "Interview with Swedish RTV" (1973, Index on Censorship)
• "The Deputy Prosecutor-General and I" (1973, Index on Censorship)
• "Press Conference" (1973, Index on Censorship)
• "Reply to Critics" (1973, Index on Censorship)
• "Reply to Oppression" (1974, Rivista di Studi Politici Internazionali)
• "How I Came to Dissent" (1974, The New York Review of Books)
• "In Answer to Solzhenitsyn" (1974, The New York Review of Books)
• "Sakharov's Statement on Jackson Amendment" (1975, Index on Censorship)
• "Peace, Progress and Human Rights" (1976, Index on Censorship)
• "The Death Penalty" (1978, The New York Review of Books)
• "Letter from Sakharov and Meiman" (1978, Nature)
• "The Human Rights Movement in the USSR and Eastern Europe: Its Goals, Significance, and Difficulties" (1978, Trialogue)
• "USSR: Sakharov's Plea for Poets" (1980, Index on Censorship)
• "The Responsibility of Scientists" (1981, Nature, Physics Today)
• "An Autobiographical Note" (1981, The Partisan Review)
• "Letter to My Foreign Colleagues" (1982, The New York Review of Books)
• "The Plight of Yuri Orlov" (1982, Harvard International Review, with Naum Meiman)
• "An Appeal" (1982, The Partisan Review)
• "A Message from Gorky" (1983, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists)
• "The Danger of Thermonuclear War: An Open Letter to Dr. Sidney Drell" (1983, Foreign Affairs)
• "A Reply to Slander" (1983, The New York Review of Books)
• "A Letter to My Scientific Colleagues" (1984, The New York Review of Books)
• "Of Arms and Reforms" (1987, Time)
• "On Accepting a Prize" (1987, The New York Review of Books)
• "A Man of Universal Interests" (1988, Nature)
• "On Gorbachev: A Talk with Andrei Sakharov" (1988, The New York Review of Books)
• "Al Simposio de Madrid Sobre las Relaciones Comerciales y Económicas Este-Oeste" (1989, Política Exterior, with Elena Bonner, in Spanish)
• "A Speech to the People's Congress" (1989, The New York Review of Books)
• "We Cannot Do Without Nuclear Power Plants, But..." (1990, World Marxist Review)
• "Sakharov and Solzhenitsyn: A Difference in Principle" (1990, Time)
• "Sakharov: Years in Exile" (1990, Time)
• "Lecture in Lyons: Science and Freedom" (1999, Physics Today)