Andhra Pradesh

‘Avoid grandiose scientific projects’

— PHOTO: P.V. SIVAKUMAR

Noble science: Nobel laureate Martin Perl at Loyala Academy in the city on Monday

HYDERABAD: Criticising advanced countries like the United States of America for wasting money and resources for ‘grandiose’ scientific projects, Nobel laureate Martin Lewis Perl urged countries to avoid such projects.

Prof. Perl was in the city to address students of Loyola Academy Degree and PG College as part of their college day celebrations.

The Nobel Prize winner in Physics in 1995 (for his discovery of sub-atomic particle ‘Tau Lepton’) opposed grandiose projects like International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) which involves a total cost of 20 billion Euros and felt that the money could be better spent on solar energy research.

Incidentally, India too is part of this project, which aims at controlled nuclear fusion in a laboratory.

Saying that it was impossible to judge the various implications of scientific discoveries, he gave the example of the discovery of black hole by Indian Nobel laureate Subramanyan Chandrashekar. “The work he did was out of his pure thought and had no bad consequences.” However, the work done by Madame Curie, another Nobel laureate, in radioactivity, he said, though wonderful on many counts had its own implications.

Appreciating India’s efforts to reach to the Moon, he said that it was time nations like India take the lead in finding inexpensive ways of carrying out space research like it did in its recent moon mission.

“Old people know a lot of things and have lot of wisdom, but they generally don’t get new ideas. New ideas come from young people,” he told the gathered students, encouraging them to take up research activities.

Condemning the amount spent by USA and other countries on military research, he said how the same amount could be spent in better ways.

“USA has the strongest navy. It spends about eight billion dollars to build one aircraft carrier. The same amount can be used to clothe and feed many people,” he said.

Brushing aside the traditional hierarchy of learning where a philosopher is placed above an engineer, Mr. Perl said that both had equal intellectual capacity and were discovering something which would benefit the humanity. “Whether it be the discovery of new cotton cloth or about the stars, both are equally important,” he said.

Roger Hansell and Biswajit Ganguly, Directors of Noble Institute for Environmental Peace (NIEP) were the guests of honour.

Loyola Academy has entered into research collaboration with the NIEP.

Later, Mr. Perl gave away prizes to the toppers and prize winners in academics as well as other events.

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