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. 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, Bibcode:2008nlu..book.....U, ISBN 9780387740812
  3. Fujii, Yasunori (2004). "Oklo Constraint on the Time-Variability of the Fine-Structure Constant". In Karshenboim, Savely G.; Peik, Ekkehard (eds.). 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. Bibcode:1976Natur.264..340S. doi:10.1038/264340a0. S2CID 4252035.
  5. Dyson, Freeman J. (1996), Selected Papers of Freeman Dyson with Commentary, Collected Works Series, vol. 5, American Mathematical Society, p. 45, ISBN 9780821805619
  6. 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. Bibcode:1992Natur.357Q..25S. doi:10.1038/357025a0. S2CID 4318279.
  8. Shlyakhter, Alexander; Wilson, Richard (1991). "Radiation doses and cancer". Nature. 350 (6313): 25. Bibcode:1991Natur.350...25S. doi:10.1038/350025b0. PMID 2002841.
  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. S2CID 17490019.
  10. Osnos, Evan (2011-10-12). "Faust, China, and Nuclear Power". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2017-01-25.


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