I decided to put this letter here, and in a couple of other places. very, very interesting things have been going on during the past few weeks. Certain individuals have apparently decided to call me lots of names and make a lot of criticism, because I call myself a conservative and yet prior to 2009 I was supportive, or shall I say, hopeful, of what could come from a serious change in Administration (i.e., Obama being elected). Well, you know the expression, “stick and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” Not exactly that simple, but pretty much the case.
The fanfare got me to remembering this letter, and I think it is worth sharing. Please note that despite several attempts via mail and email and fax, it never did get a response. And yes, in advance to those who may notice some similarities, I did consciously try to write it in the style and structure of Albert Einstein’s 1939 letter to then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Well, there is still time for Pres. Obama to reply and act upon my letter in some fashion…
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Martin Dudziak
February 25, 2009
B. H. Obama,
President of the United States,
White House
Washington, D.C.
Sir:
Some seventy years ago a very well-known physicist wrote to your predecessor in office regarding a great potential and a grave risk, with critical implications for our national security, energy production, and economy. At that time the United States was not at war, but our economy and indeed our entire society was still suffering the extended consequences of a major depression. Moreover, the threats of war loomed clearly across two oceans which were at that time still considerable barriers to military aggression. Terrorism was a rare phenomenon and the notion of large-scale biological or nuclear threats was almost inconceivable. The risk of a rapidly spreading pandemic, in spite of the influenza outbreaks of some twenty years earlier, was minimal compared to the risk today with our high degree of global interconnectivity. The risks of a major power-grid infrastructure collapse, or a backwards-slide in our educational prowess, or a catastrophe from asteroid collisions with Earth, were in some cases not even imaginable to our leaders or the scientific community of that era.
Today, Mr. President, all of these considerations and risks are not only imaginable but quite real and they have clearly been receiving the attention of many well-known experts and persons who are involved in the administration of government. For that reason I feel strongly that you and your administration can be responsive to both the urgent needs we share as well as the appearance and emergence of unexpected, unusual and worthy potentials for solutions to some of these problems.
In my work as a physicist and theoretician, and simply as an observer and participant alike in the business of innovative technologies, I have come across certain works and results that offer clear and distinct benefits to our nation for some of the critical problems we face and that I have mentioned here. In particular there is the potential for an extraordinary synergy between certain of these developments that can clearly make a positive step forward for our nation’s energy independence and renewability, and simultaneously for our security with respect to threats from both man-made sources on this planet and natural origins in space. It is perhaps anecdotal but an interesting coincidence that one of the persons who aided in the events leading to Dr. Einstein authoring his famous letter of Aug. 2, 1939 was Dr. Edward Teller; much later in life he had an inceptional and catalytic role in the development of some of the synergetic work of which I speak.
The confluence and synergy of hybrid energy systems, space-based remote sensing, and asteroid collision deterrence may strike you and others in your administration as being far-fetched as Dr. Einstein’s remarks in 1939 regarding uranium and nuclear fission. The notion that mathematics derived from and used in such diverse applications as high-energy physics, ultrasound, sonar, and cancer treatment could make a major positive difference in how we generate power, regulate and optimize power- and also track and respond to potential threats both man-made and natural, including terrorists, pandemic outbreaks, and panic-driven mass-market behavior – all this may strike you and your advisers as being totally out of keeping with traditional, conventional, accepted scientific thinking. I am certain that you can find the recognized experts who will state that there is nothing to this, and that it is neither important nor critical enough for you to spend any time further on the matter.
However, Mr. President, I ask you to not do what your predecessor did, seventy years ago. Had actions been taken, had investigations and meetings occurred earlier rather than much later, the course of World War Two could have been different, with an earlier victory and peace, with perhaps many millions of lives spared worldwide, and without the need for dropping bombs upon inhabited cities as they had been in 1945. Those “officialdom” delays that occurred from 1939-1942 cost the United States over two years in the development of practical nuclear power; the result could have been a first strike nuclear weapon being deployed by the Nazis over an Allied city instead, even one in the USA.
My aim here is not to rattle the cages of fear and anxiety but instead to motivate you, Mr. President, to be decisive and to investigate the possibilities. Powerful things can come sometimes “out of the blue” and from persons, institutions, and groups that are not as highly known and ranked as those that receive the greater attention from both the media and many government officials. My objective is simple. I want to bring these things to your direct attention, and to suggest that a unique but simple action on your part, with almost zero cost and definitely zero risk, can perhaps be a catalytic spark of tremendous value, comparable to what nuclear physics and the Manhattan Project brought to our country during the short years of 1942 through 1945.
My request is, in fact, not so dissimilar from that expressed by Dr. Einstein in his now-famous letter. Above and beyond all of the departments, agencies, councils, and other organizations that exist in our government and which ultimately report to you, the Congress, and the Judiciary as our three branches of government, please consider this. A selection of a special person, an ombudsman of sorts, who will serve with a task of being a communicator and facilitator for the type of unique (but mostly and relatively unknown) works that can make a remarkable difference for security, energy, health, and economy, the works to which I allude and that are principally stemming from fundamental mathematics, physics, complexity theory and bioinformatics.
This person could serve in an “unofficial capacity,” acting in your trust and confidence, to provide the following:
(a) acting as a go-between among various government departments, both providing and receiving information with a view toward synthesis and symbiosis of particular technologies and findings that can be moved faster, more expediently and economically, toward wide-scale implementation. This is as much an economic task as scientific problem. This is not something that can be done well by yet another committee or agency or by someone who has vested interests in one school of thought only.
(b) acting as a catalyst among private individuals and companies for generating and indeed focusing funds and resources to accelerate the process of bringing the most synergetic, complementary developments into fieldable, testable use and deployment. This is again a task that cannot be done well except by an individual and an exceptional individual at that, one with the breadth of knowledge and experience not only in the sciences but in the realms of actual operations and public utilization.
Respectfully, Sir, we are in a very difficult situation on many fronts and we have even greater risks ahead of us on all. I propose to you that my recommendations here, and the further substance that can be brought to bear upon the matters at hand, can bring definite benefits for our country’s future.
Yours Very Truly,
(Martin Dudziak)
