Alexander Shlyakhter

Alexander Isaakovich Shlyakhter (Russian: Александр Исаакович Шляхтер, died June 2000) was a Russian nuclear physicist and risk analyst.

Shlyakhter is best known for discovering empirical evidence for the constancy of fundamental constants. While still a student in Leningrad, he observed that the products of past nuclear reactions at a natural nuclear fission reactor at Oklo, Gabon demonstrate that the fine-structure constant α has changed less than 10−17 per year over the last two billion years.[1][2][3] He published the finding in a letter to Nature in 1976.[4] Freeman Dyson later wrote that Shlyakhter had "revolutionized the subject" of variation in physical constants.[5]

In 1987 Shlyakhter became a research fellow in Richard Wilson's laboratory at Harvard University.[6] His later work was in risk assessment, and included notable analyses of global warming,[7] nuclear security[8][6] and the Chernobyl disaster.[9][10] He died of cancer in June 2000.[1]

References

  1. 1 2 Barrow, John D. (2003). The Constants of Nature: From Alpha to Omega. London: Vintage Books. pp. 239–245. ISBN 9780099286479.
  2. ↑ Uzan, Jean-Philippe; Leclercq, Bénédicte (2010), The Natural Laws of the Universe: Understanding Fundamental Constants, Springer, p. 84, ISBN 9780387740812
  3. ↑ Fujii, Yasunori (2004). "Oklo Constraint on the Time-Variability of the Fine-Structure Constant". In Karshenboim, Savely G.; Peik, Ekkehard. Astrophysics, Clocks and Fundamental Constants. Berlin: Springer-Verlag. pp. 167–184. ISBN 9783540219675.
  4. ↑ Shlyakhter, Alexander (1976). "Direct test of the constancy of fundamental nuclear constants". Nature. 264 (5584): 340–340. Bibcode:1976Natur.264..340S. doi:10.1038/264340a0.
  5. ↑ Dyson, Freeman J. (1996), Selected Papers of Freeman Dyson with Commentary, Collected Works Series, 5, American Mathematical Society, p. 45, ISBN 9780821805619
  6. 1 2 Wilson, Richard (2011). Physics is Fun: Memoirs of a Life in Physics. ISBN 9780615421582.
  7. ↑ Shlyakhter, Alexander; Kammen, Daniel M. (1992). "Sea-level rise or fall?". Nature. 357 (6373): 25–25. Bibcode:1992Natur.357Q..25S. doi:10.1038/357025a0.
  8. ↑ Shlyakhter, Alexander; Wilson, Richard (1991). "Radiation doses and cancer". Nature. 350 (6313): 25–25. Bibcode:1991Natur.350...25S. doi:10.1038/350025b0.
  9. ↑ Shlyakhter, Alexander; Wilson, Richard (1992). "Chernobyl: the inevitable results of secrecy". Public Understanding of Science. 1 (3): 251–259. doi:10.1088/0963-6625/1/3/002.
  10. ↑ Osnos, Evan (2011-10-12). "Faust, China, and Nuclear Power". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2017-01-25.


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