Frank N. von Hippel
The growing dangers of the current arms race is the subject of the next Kameshwar C. Wali Lecture in the Sciences and Humanities, hosted by the 黑料不打烊 Humanities Center in the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S).
, a Princeton professor and former science adviser to President Clinton, will discuss on Thursday, Nov. 29, at 4 p.m. in Shemin Auditorium in the Shaffer Art Building. The event is free and open to the public.
The Department of Physics sponsors the annual Wali Lecture, with support from the Humanities Center and the Wali Lecture fund. American Sign Language (ASL) interpretation and Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) will be provided. To request accommodations, contact聽Yudaisy Salom贸n Sargent贸n at聽phyadmin@syr.edu聽or 315.443.5960 by Monday, Nov. 19. For more information about the event, contact Simon Catterall, professor and associate chair of physics, at smcatter@syr.edu or 315.443.5978.
A professor emeritus of public and international affairs in Princeton鈥檚 Woodrow Wilson School, von Hippel is a national authority on nuclear arms control and proliferation, energy, and science and technology.
In the Nov. 29 event, he will address the United States鈥 two separate, but related, nuclear arms races with Russia and China, along with recent developments in the 鈥渞ogue states鈥 of North Korea and Iran.
鈥淔rank von Hippel is a seasoned policy veteran鈥攁 scientist who has written extensively about nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament initiatives, the future of nuclear energy and improved automobile fuel economy. He understands the full import of science literacy on society,鈥 Catterall says.
A former assistant director of national security in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, von Hippel will examine the 鈥減erverse dynamics鈥 underlying the current nuclear arms race and discuss ways to mitigate the situation.
He says that although there are similarities in the U.S. political climates of today and 40 years ago, one marked difference persists. 鈥淭he effect of the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Movement has worn off,鈥 says von Hippel, referring to the 1980s campaign that put political pressure on the United States and Russia to stop testing, producing and deploying nuclear weapons. 鈥淭he effectiveness of the activist-citizen, teaming up with up scientists to educate Congress, as was the case during the Freeze movement, must be recounted.鈥
Von Hippel鈥檚 lecture also will consider the advantages of implementing a U.S.-led no-first-use policy (i.e., resorting to such weapons only in response to a nuclear attack); restoring limits on ballistic missile defenses; putting a cap on China鈥檚 arms buildup; and banning plutonium separation and uranium enrichment, processes vital to the development of nuclear warheads.
鈥淎 nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought,鈥 says the senior research physicist at Princeton, where he founded and co-directed the Program on Science and Global Security (SGS) from 1974 to 2006.
Upon stepping down from leadership of SGS, von Hippel founded the International Panel on Fission Materials, co-chairing the organization until 2015.
Kameshwar C. Wali
He is a recipient of the American Physical Society (APS)鈥檚 Leo Szilard Lectureship Award and Joseph A. Burton Forum Award (the latter for his co-authorship of the book 鈥淎dvice and Dissent: Scientists in the Political Arena鈥), the George F. Kennan Distinguished Peace Leadership Award and The MacArthur Fellowship. Von Hippel earned a Ph.D. in theoretical physics at Oxford University.
Entering its second decade, the Wali Lecture series bears the name of the world-renowned theorist who turned 91 last month. A member of 黑料不打烊鈥檚 physics department since 1969, Wali studies the fundamental constituents of matter and their interactions. Such work, he says, has applications in biology, chemistry, materials science and computer science.
The Steele Professor emeritus also is a prolific author, as evidenced by his two books, 鈥淐remona Violins: A Physicist鈥檚 Quest for the Secrets of Stradivari鈥 (World Scientific, 2010) and 鈥淐handra: A Biography of S. Chandrasekhar鈥 (The University of Chicago Press, 1991), and dozens of chapters, essays and papers.
Wali is a fellow of APS, whose India Chapter named him Scientist of the Year, and a recipient of the Chancellor鈥檚 Citation at 黑料不打烊 for exceptional academic achievement.
