2/1/2013 Siv Schwink
Arms control expert Sidney Drell, a theoretical high-energy particle physicist and U. of I. alumnus, was awarded the nation’s highest scientific prize today in a ceremony at the White House. The citation reads: for contributions to quantum field theory and quantum chromodynamics, application of science to inform national policies and security and intelligence, and distinguised contributions as an advisor to the United States Government.
Longtime friend and colleague Illinois physicist Charles Slichter said, “Sid is a magnificent human being, great scientist, and great patriot who has made enormous contributions to nuclear arms control. He deserves the National Medal of Science for any one of his many accomplishments.”
Drell said it is a responsibility of the scientific and technical community to participate in the political dialogue with respect to applications of new technologies for national defense or military intelligence.
“Many scientists have felt this responsibility, and it’s been a great asset to our nation,” said Drell. “The scientific and technical community is creating innovations that affect the conditions of life. There are great advances, as with medical technologies, but there are also dangers that come with it. How do we best apply this for peace and for the good of people?”
Watch the White House ceremony: http://www.whitehouse.gov/photos-and-video/video/2013/02/01/president-obama-honors-countrys-top-innovators-and-scientists-2011
Written by Siv Schwink
Arms control expert Sidney Drell, a theoretical high-energy particle physicist and U. of I. alumnus, was awarded the nation’s highest scientific prize today in a ceremony at the White House. President Barack Obama presented Drell and 11 other eminent researchers with the National Medal of Science; at the same ceremony, 11 inventors received the National Medal of Technology and Innovation.
The citation reads: for contributions to quantum field theory and quantum chromodynamics, application of science to inform national policies and security and intelligence, and distinguised contributions as an advisor to the United States Government.
"I am proud to honor these inspiring American innovators," said President Obama. "They represent the ingenuity and imagination that has long made this nation great—and they remind us of the enormous impact a few good ideas can have when these creative qualities are unleashed in an entrepreneurial environment."
Drell is a longstanding and still active member of JASON, an elite group of scientists that advises the government on technical and highly classified national security matters. Since the 1960s, Drell has served on numerous advisory panels to Congress, the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy, and the Central Intelligence Agency. He is currently a professor emeritus of physics at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, having retired as its deputy director in 1998, and is a senior fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution.
Longtime friend and colleague Illinois physicist Charles Slichter said, "Sid is a magnificent human being, a great scientist, and a great patriot, who has made enormous contributions to nuclear arms control. He deserves the National Medal of Science for any one of his many accomplishments."
Drell said it is a responsibility of the scientific and technical community to participate in the political dialogue with respect to applications of new technologies for national defense or military intelligence.
"Many scientists have felt this responsibility, and it’s been a great asset to our nation," said Drell. "The scientific and technical community is creating innovations that affect the conditions of life. There are great advances, as with medical technologies, but there are also dangers that come with it. How do we best apply this for peace and for the good of people?"
Drell said as a young professor, he had imagined his career would center on academics, but colleagues encouraged him also to contribute more broadly to issues of national security. He in turn has encouraged his own students to be mindful of how new technologies will be applied in the best interests of the nation.
Since the 1960s, Drell has been a key voice against nuclear arms proliferation, and he helped to develop the verification methods for the world's first nuclear arms control treaty, among many other important contributions.
"I thought this would be the total focus of my life, the realization of a dream to be a high-energy particle physicist: to understand what energy is made of, what are the building blocks of matter, and what are the forces that bind them," said Drell. "But I also had to realize how to deal with the potential nightmare of a nuclear holocaust. In the 1960s, the world situation was one of great turmoil."
"Once I realized the importance, I felt that it was an important call to try to help in the areas of arms control and technologies related to national defense. So that is how my life bifurcated into two parts, basic research—the subject I loved best—and the opportunity to work on national technical issues to help us decide, based on what we were learning was the threat and what was the good science that we could do, how to prevent a second holocaust."
Drell at Illinois
Drell earned his master’s degree and doctorate in physics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1947 and 1949 respectively.
After earning his bachelor’s degree from Princeton in 1946, Drell set his sights on the Department of Physics in Urbana for his graduate studies. He very nearly took the long way to campus. Drell, who had never traveled west of the Delaware River, had inadvertently booked a train ticket to Urbana, Ohio. A couple of weeks later—before boarding the train—he noticed the error and corrected it.
When he arrived at the U. of I. campus in 1946, it was teaming with new students, many of whom were veterans who had taken advantage of the educational benefits offered under the 1944 G.I. Bill.
"It was exciting—the G.I. Bill was a great piece of legislation that brought millions to a college education. The campuses in the country were buzzing like they’d never buzzed before. They were marvelous times," said Drell.
Since there was not enough housing to accommodate the great throngs of young scholars, Drell and his 299 roommates made the most of makeshift arrangements for well over a year.
"I have very fond memories of the University of Illinois. Getting a bed to sleep in was the hardest part," Drell remembers. "The first 15 months of my life there were spent in half of a double-decker bunk in a basketball court in the Men’s Old Gym. To get a bed wasn’t easy, and I felt quite fortunate that I got a bed. Of course, when you’re young, these things don’t matter."
The rough accommodations notwithstanding, Drell describes his time at Illinois as four of the greatest years of his life. Drell said he enjoyed the rich culture that had grown up around the university.
Drell said he felt privileged to play in the university orchestra under guest conductors Igor Stravinsky and Aaron Copland. And it was during his time at the U. of I. that he met his wife, Harriet Drell, who earned her master’s degree in German languages and literature from the U. of I. in 1950.
"Urbana was an exciting town. The university created a fantastic culture," he said.
Drell grew to be fast friends with two of his fellow graduate students who would become lifelong colleagues, Charles Slichter and John Blair. Slichter remembers: “We were three bachelors, though Sid and John had girlfriends at the time whom they eventually married. The three of us were very good friends and we did everything together. We went to all the football games, and at that time, you couldn’t have alcoholic beverages at the stadium, so we had to smuggle in liquid refreshments.
After the game, we would go to one of the pubs on Wright Street and we would check to see which Ivy League team had won that day. Since Sid had attended Princeton as an undergraduate, John had attended Yale, and I had been a Harvard man, whichever team lost, that person would pick up the tab that night. I remember Harvard lost quite frequently in those days.
"The three of us had a great time together. Sid is a wonderful, warm human being and he has a great sense of humor. He’s a sunbeam wherever he is, warm, with a magnetic smile. And he’s a brilliant theoretical physicist."
Drell said he found a great mentor in Sidney Dancoff, an Illinois physicist whose career was cut short by lymphoma.
"I had an excellent education," said Drell. "My thesis adviser, Sidney Dancoff, was a brilliant young theorist—a student of Robert Oppenheimer. I was his only student because he died of cancer the next year. He was a wonderful person and a brilliant, brilliant scientist. Everyone loved him. I give him enormous credit for my achievements."
Drell has received numerous awards, including the Enrico Fermi Award, a fellowship from the MacArthur Foundation, the Heinz Award, the Rumford Medal from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medal, and the National Nuclear Security Administration Administrator's Gold Medal of Excellence for Distinguished Service. He was honored by the US National Reconnaissance Office as one of the "founders of national reconnaissance as a space discipline." Drell was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society and was president of the American Physical Society in 1986.
Drell has served on the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, the President’s Science Advisory Committee, the Panel on Nuclear Weapons Safety of the House Armed Services Committee, the Technology Review Panel of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and the Senior Review Board of the Intelligence Community’s Technology Innovation Center. He is a retired member of the Board of Governors for both Lawrence Livermore National Security LLC (LLNS) and Los Alamos National Security LLC (LANS), the managing contractors for the Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos national laboratories. And he served as the founding co-director of Stanford’s Center for International Security and Arms Control.
The National Medal of Science was created by statute in 1959 and is administered for the White House by the National Science Foundation. Awarded annually, the medal recognizes individuals who have made outstanding contributions to science and engineering. A committee of Presidential appointees selects nominees on the basis of their extraordinary knowledge in and contributions to chemistry, engineering, computing, mathematics, or the biological, behavioral/social and physical sciences.
Watch the White House ceremony: http://www.whitehouse.gov/photos-and-video/video/2013/02/01/president-obama-honors-countrys-top-innovators-and-scientists-2011