LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Andrei Sakharov: Man
built 199 days ago
In 1958 Sakharov calculated the number of casualties that would result from an atmospheric test of the "cleanest" H-bomb: 6,600 victims for 8,000 years per megaton. "What moral and political conclusion must be drawn from these numbers?" he asked. Sakharov was proud of his contribution to the 1963 Test Ban Treaty, which saved the lives of many people who would have perished had testing continued in the atmosphere. In the 1960s he started his return to pure physics. The most successful consequence was his 1966 explanation of the disparity of matter and antimatter in the universe, or baryon asymmetry.
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The letter was dated August 3, 1964 and can be found in the Andrei Sakharov Archives (Brandeis), folder S.III.1.2.28.4. Medvedev's manuscript appeared in the West under the title The Rise and Fall of T. D. Lysenko (New York, 1969).
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Typical of saintly individuals, Sakharov brought out the best in those he dealt with. His love and respect for humanity was constantly on display. Tatyana Velikanova, another dissident who benefited from Sakharov's support, reflects upon his magnanimity: "I saw him talk to many people. He approached them with what I call 'the presumption of decency.' He decided ahead of time that the person he was talking to was decent and not lying, and he said what he truly thought, and that there was a need to understand him. It was an astonishing characteristic — such an absolutely unbiased and open mind."
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The article presents information about the book "Memoirs," by Andrei Sakharov. Sakharov's Memoirs, completed just a few months before his fatal heart attack last year, gives a fascinating and at times overwhelming, picture of the man. It is a vast sprawling monster of a book, some 800 pages long. A glossary of names mentioned in the text, added by the publishers, runs more than a dozen pages by itself. The book could have used considerable editing. Despite the sprawl, the flood of names and passages on high energy physics, there is a sweep and majesty to this book.
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