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The Life and Work of Behram Kursunoglu The Life and Work of Behram Kursunoglu ARNOLD PERLMUTTER Department of Physics, University of Miami Coral Gables, Florida, 33124 Behram Kursunoglu was born in a small town near Trabzon, close to Turkey’s eastern border with the Caucasus, on March 14, 1922 (Einstein’s birth date). When he was about eleven years old, the Governor General of that region addressed his class and asked them to state the principles of the Turkish state. Several students quoted the Koran, but Behram stood up and recited the essence of Kemal Ataturk’s speech to the nation. Upon hearing that, the Governor General ordered that a suit be made for Behram, of the best blue serge material. He graduated from the University of Istanbul in 1945, and then went on scholarship to Edinburgh University, where he studied under Max Born and Nicholas Kemmer, receiving his B Sc in 1949. He then attended Cambridge University where he studied with P A M Dirac, A Papapetrou, H Bondi and others, and received his PhD. in 1952. Among his classmates were Abdus Salam, John Ward, Denis Sciama, and Angas Hurst. He was a post-doctoral fellow under Hans Bethe at Cornell University during 1952-1954. He then helped found and served as an adviser to the Turkish Atomic Energy Commission, in 1957. Ultimately, he came to the University of Miami, in 1958. Behram’s first published research was based on his PhD thesis in 1952, which was his proposal to modify the Einstein-Schrödinger unified field theories. Around this time, and later on, he corresponded frequently with Einstein and Erwin Schrödinger. He worked throughout most of the rest of his life on the physical and mathematical aspects of his theory, despite some detours in the intervening years. During his stay at Cornell he used Tamm-Dancoff methods to study the nature of the nuclear forces, and also to study bremsstrahlung due to high energy protons. His most prescient work during this period was the proposal, in 1953, to make use of high energy electron scattering to study the distribution of charge in protons and neutrons. This was the experimental technique used by Robert Hofstadter during 1956 – 1960, who used electrons of up to 600 MeV in energy to study the charge distribution of the protons and many of the heavier nuclei, thereby also inferring the charge distributions of the neutron. In 1962 Behram wrote a classic text, “Modern Quantum Theory,” to the acclaim of many critics, starting with Werner Heisenberg. During the 1960’s he also wrote a large number of papers on diffusion in relativistic plasmas, and beginning with the First Coral Gables Conference on Symmetry Principles at High Energy, in 1964, he introduced a new wave equation and a new symmetry group for elementary particles, work that he continued until the 1970’s. But still, Behram’s long meeting with Albert Einstein in 1953 was a high point in his life, after which he never lost sight of his principal ambition, which 1 was to create a viable unified field theory. Some of the consequences of his work were the prediction, in 1959, of the existence of four kinds of neutrinos, and in 1975, his proposal that neutrinos have mass. The theory, which was −1 based on a non-symmetric complex field of the form g µν + iq Φ µν , where the antisymmetric tensor, Φ µν , differs from the ordinary electromagnetic tensor by not being expressible as the curl of a vector potential, and q is a very large electric field. By means of the correspondence principle, there exists a 2 G fundamental length such that r q 2 = , and this theory reduces to 0 2c 4 Einstein’s 1916 theory when r0 becomes zero. He was then led to his depiction of an elementary particle, which he named “orbiton,” as comprised of an infinite number of spherical layers of magnetic charge separated by layers of electric charge, such that the total magnetic charge vanishes and the total electric charge is zero or one. Hence, there are no free magnetic monopoles in his theory. More recently, he demonstrated that his theory predicts four different kinds of gravitational forces – long range attractive (conventional), long range repulsive (accounting for accelerated expansion), short range attractive (nuclear), and short range repulsive (weak). Behram was tireless in his devotion to the study of fundamental aspects of the universe, and of the social and political ramifications of science. The thirty- two famous Coral Gables Conferences on high energy physics and cosmology, including this one, the twenty-five conferences throughout the world on the production and use of energy, his innovative course on Nuclear War/Nuclear Peace and associated seminars for college instructors, along with his creation of the Center for Theoretical Studies at the University of Miami, all bear testimony to his tenacity in the service of his ideals. We are all beneficiaries of his effectiveness. Relevant selections from his collected works are as follows. 1. B. Kursunoglu, “Velocity of light in generalized theory of gravitation ,” Phys. Rev. D 14 , 1518-1523 (1976). 2. B. Kursunoglu, “Consequences of nonlinearity in the generalized theory of gravitation,” Phys. Rev. D 13 , 1538-1560 (1976) 3. B. Kursunoglu, “Gravitation and magnetic charge,” Phys. Rev. D 9, 2723-2745 (1974); Erratum, Phys. Rev. D 12 , 1850 (1975) 4. B. Kursunoglu, “Theory of Relativistic Supermultiplets. II. Periodicities in Hadron Spectroscopy,” Phys. Rev. D 2, 717-735 (1970) 2 5. B. Kursunoglu, “Theory of Relativistic Supermultiplets. I. Baryon Spectroscopy ,” Phys. Rev. D 1, 1115-1132 (1970) 6. B. Kursunoglu, “Dynamical Theory of Hadrons and Leptons,” Phys. Rev. 167 , 1452-1461 (1968) 7. B. Kursunoglu and C. A. Hurst, “Space-Time and Origin of Internal Symmetries ,” Phys. Rev. 155 , 1663-1671 (1967) 8. B. Kursunoglu, “New Symmetry Group for Elementary Particles. I. Generalization of Lorentz Group Via Electrodynamic s,” Phys. Rev. 135 , B761-B768 (1964) 9. B. Kursunoglu, “Brownian Motion in a Magnetic Field,” Phys. Rev. 132 , 21-26 (1963) 10. B. Kursunoglu, “Proton Bremsstrahlung,” Phys. Rev. 105 , 1846-1853 (1957) 11. B. Kursunoglu, “Transformation of Relativistic Wave Equations,” Phys. Rev. 101 , 1419-1424 (1956) 12. B. Kursunoglu, “Tamm-Dancoff Methods and Nuclear Forces ,” Phys. Rev. 96 , 1690-1701 (1954) 13. B. Kursunoglu, “Derivation and Renormalization of the Tamm-Dancoff Equations ,” Phys. Rev. 92 , 1069-1070 (1953) 14. B. Kursunoglu, “Expectations from a Unified Field Theory ,” Phys. Rev. 92 , 506-507 (1953) 15. G. Rickayzen and B. Kursunoglu, “Unified Field Theory and Born- Infeld Electrodynamics ,” Phys. Rev. 89 , 522-523 (1953) 16. B. Kursunoglu, “Gravitation and Electrodynamics,” Phys. Rev. 88 , 1369-1379 (1952) 17. B. Kursunoglu, “On Einstein's Unified Field Theory,” Phys. Rev. 82 , 289-290 (1951) 3 .
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