REMARKS BY ANDREW SESSLER ON RECEIVING A FERMI AWARD (2013)

Thanks for the kind introduction and the warm welcome. This is a very happy day for me and I want to thank all of you who made it happen.

Now I am supposed to make some Remarks. I did draft some and showed it to a member of the family. That was my mistake. He crossed out some and added some. Then I passed it along to the next person, and she did the same thing. So it went. Pretty soon I couldn’t even find one word of my original draft. It was not what I wanted to say, but what the family thought I should say. So I started over again and this time I didn’t show anybody.

I am not used to having something around my neck while I talk. If it interferes with the PA system then I will remove it. But it has to interfere a lot. Wonder if I can sleep with it on.

The training of a scientist is a long process. My own history shows that clearly, and perhaps this is a proper occasion to describe how I got here. At the same time I will be paying tribute to those who did so much for me. Most any scientist could tell a similar story.

In the beginning it was my parents, who interested me in science at an early age; even pre-school age. In later years my Dad, a high-school science teacher, brought home science demonstrations and a set of science texts for high school courses, so I could study them while still in elementary school.

Then I profited from some outstanding elementary school teachers who encouraged my interest in science. My 5th grade teacher let me talk to the class for a half hour each week on some scientific topic of my choosing. My science teacher in the 7th and 8th years was especially encouraging. Not, however, a mathematics teacher who refused to recommend me to a special science high school, and told my 12 year- old-self, “You are so poor in arithmetic that you can never become a scientist”.

Don’t worry. I took arithmetic seriously, taught myself algebra, and got admitted anyway.

In high school I was fortunate enough to have some wonderful teachers like Dr. Paul Brandwein, who turned my dream of becoming a scientist into reality, by convincing me to get good grades and starting me on various age-appropriate scientific projects.

My college tutor at Harvard, Dr. George Mackey, helped me become a researcher, by having me write an honors thesis in mathematics that was rather difficult, but was a wonderful introduction to real research.

My experiences in graduate studies, at Columbia University, were beyond excellent. I had lectures from seven professors who either had, or would soon get, Nobel Prizes. I saw the many different ways of successfully doing physics. My PhD thesis advisor, Dr. Henry Foley, taught me atomic and nuclear physics, but also educated me in all aspects of being a physicist, from research into a number of topics, reading journals, evaluating other’s contributions, and even how to write a scientific paper.

My post-doc experience was with Dr. Hans Bethe, where I did high- energy physics, and then with Donald Kerst where I learned accelerator physics. Furthermore I have enjoyed the support of my immediate family: children and now deceased wife, Gladys, (who tolerated late hours, much moving, a very modest salary, and much more). Also I have worked for the last 50 years at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory with its wonderful libraries and laboratories, intellectual strength, and a work ambience conducive to research. There is a delegation, here, from my Laboratory, led by James Symons.

There are about 9 people and I certainly appreciate their attending. Come to think of it, perhaps they were concerned that I would say bad things about the Lab and they wanted me to understand that I was outnumbered.

Through the years I have had hundreds of collaborators – and despite what my critics say, the sharing was exactly fair: they did all the work and I got all the credit.

In short you can see what a wonderful education I enjoyed. An education like mine, with its individual attention and encouragement, is needed for each future scientist (and the world surely needs scientist).

I am pleased that my contributions have been formally recognized and appreciated. Actually it has been great fun developing all these things. I had more fun doing that – through the years -- than I am enjoying even now on this happy day. Most importantly, this event shows to the general public that not only movie stars and athletic heroes are recognized. It provides young scientists with the understanding that scientific work is appreciated, valued, and even rewarded.

(Touch medal)

I am pleased that this Award recognizes the activity of accelerator and beam scientists. I was fortunate to be in, almost at the beginning, when the power of theoretical physics was first brought to bear on accelerators. Supported by High Energy Physics, we developed colliders and learned how to manipulate beams in and out of machines. The work of accelerator scientists – and it is real science -- not only influenced high energy and nuclear physics, but has made possible the great facilities of basic energy science: synchrotron rings and free electron lasers, and spallation neutron sources.

Also the work of accelerator physicists has resulted in the 25,000 machines employed in industry and medical therapy. Millions of cancer patients have been treated with external X-Ray and particle beams. Every computer, cell phone, auto, etc. has chips made by ion implantation accelerators. Accelerators make medical prosthesis, treat the tires on your car, sterilize spices and medical equipment, and even make shrink-wrap. (Well, you take the good with the bad, but maybe you haven’t had the trouble I have had opening one of those packages.) Needless to say, there is still much science that is being done, and needs to be done, to make ever better machines and ever better beam delivery systems. I am enthusiastic about accelerator applications, and if you share my enthusiasm you might want to look in the book Ted Wilson and I have written, “Engines of Discovery” whose second edition will be released this month.

This Award also recognizes the change from the AEC (which was interested only in nuclear things) to the DOE (with a broad pallet of energy, environmental, and societal important activities.). Once again, I was fortunate to be active just before, and then through, this transition. It was really a change from mostly curiosity driven research – and we still need that very much – to what is often called Jeffersonian Science; that is basic, or applied, science, but with the long term goal of the research being something clearly of societal importance.

The Award doesn’t mention my action on arms control, but I think of Star Wars studies at the American Physical Society and the Union of Concerned Scientists, and my being Chairman of the Federation of American Scientists for three years. I am rather proud of this work as we did important studies that had an impact on the US and even, I like to believe, upon the rest of the world.

I also recall the many societal problems that we addressed as I served on dozens of national committees.

The Award also notes my ever-going-on concern, and action, to help our colleagues who are in trouble. In this regard, I co-founded Scientists for Sakharov, Orlov, and Sharansky, an international human-rights group, that exposed the former Soviet Union’s policies that made open scientific inquiry difficult, if not impossible — to say nothing of the physical harm done to dissidents and refuseniks. I also served on the APS Committee on International Freedom of Scientists, the National Academy of Sciences Human Rights Committee and have been involved with the Committee of Concerned Scientists and Amnesty International.

This is probably my last visit to Washington and in a nostalgic mode I remember the first. (I’ll skip the few hundred in between.) It was 1945 and I was a senior in high school and one of the Westinghouse Talent Search finalists. My project was on small bugs, pill bugs, that normally look like any other bug, but when frightened they curl up into perfect spheres.

This sounds pretty silly, but it sufficed to make me a finalist.

Between us, the most difficult part of the research was that at crucial moments in the investigation the little buggers would turn themselves into perfect spheres and roll off the table. It was about that time that I decided biology was not for me and I went into physics.

The Talent Search brought 40 kids, from all over the country, to spend a few days in Washington seeing wonderful things and meeting some distinguished scientists. Those few days in 1945 gave me confidence, and showed each of us that we could reach high scientific goals. We were even received at the White House by Vice-President Truman. My second visit to the White House was this very afternoon. Soon after the Talent Search Award I was accepted at Harvard (despite its 10% Jewish quota), and fortunately my family could afford the tuition of $400 a year.

It is events like this, the Westinghouse Science Talent Search, now the Intel Talent Search, that serve to inspire the future generation of scientists. Of course we need to do more, much more, to educate and prepare the next generation of scientists. For example, the ratio of R&D budget over Gross Domestic Product—the driving force in advanced education – has decreased in this country 25% in the last decade while, for example, in China, it is increasing more than 10% per year. Much is being done, but much more needs to be done.

Finally, thanks to all – that have contributed so much to my scientific career and brought me to this Event. And thanks to those who actually organized this Event, and, certainly, thanks to my immediate and extended family, friends, and colleagues who are here in the audience, and all serve to make this a celebratory and memorable event for me.

The family must have slipped that in when I wasn’t looking. But it is a good thought and, certainly, one they could have trusted me to make by myself….

Thank you.