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"Sakharov, Andrey Dmitriyevich," Microsoft(R) Encarta(R) 97 Encyclopedia. (c) 1993-1996 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.  |
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"Sakharov, Andrey Dmitriyevich," Microsoft(R) Encarta(R) 97 Encyclopedia. (c) 1993-1996 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. |
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Sakharov,
Andrey Dmitriyevich (1921-89), Soviet nuclear physicist, political
dissident, and Nobel laureate. Born in Moscow, he graduated from Moscow
State University in 1942 and continued his studies during World War II,
taking his doctorate in physics at the P. N. Lebedev Institute in 1947.
From 1948 to 1956 he did research in controlled nuclear fusion, and with
the Soviet physicist Igor Tamm, made a proposal that led to the construction
of the Soviet hydrogen bomb. In 1953 he became a member of the Academy
of Sciences of the Soviet Union. After 1961, when he made a formal protest
against the atmospheric testing of a hydrogen bomb by the USSR, his activities
were increasingly directed toward political questions and less toward science.
By 1968, he had virtually abandoned scientific research, becoming instead
a spokesman for civil liberties in the USSR and for international disarmament
and nuclear weapons control. For these activities Sakharov was awarded
the 1975 Nobel Peace Prize, but the Soviet government would not permit
him to go to Norway to accept it. Because of his political activities,
he was exiled to Gorkiy in 1980. Sakharov was permitted to return to Moscow
in December 1986. Elected to the new Congress of People's Deputies in April
1989, he remained a leading spokesman for human rights and political and
economic reform until his death on December 14, 1989.
