At the time of his death from a heart attack on 14 December 1989, Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov was recognized both as a great scientist and as a persistent and uncompromising fighter for human rights and political freedom for all. He lived to see his Russian homeland start on the path toward implementing the principles of democracy to which he had devoted the last two decades of his life. His leadership in the struggle of conscience and principle against raw political power earned him worldwide accolades as the conscience of humanity. Gentle and modest in person, but of unconquerable persistence in his commitment to principle and opposition to injustice, he had become, in the memorial words of a Russian commentator, both “the saint and martyr of perestroika.” With the end of his life, the curtain fell on a morality play with the dimensions of a historical epic.
Skip Nav Destination
Article navigation
August 01 1990
Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov
‘Like a gleam in fhe darkness, we have appeared for an instant from the black nothingness of the ever‐unconscious matter, in order to make good the demands of Reason and create a life worthy of ourselves and of the Goal we only dimly perceive.’
Sidney Drell;
Sidney Drell
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
Search for other works by this author on:
Lev Okun
Lev Okun
Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Physics, Moscow
Search for other works by this author on:
Physics Today 43 (8), 26–36 (1990);
Citation
Sidney Drell, Lev Okun; Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov. Physics Today 1 August 1990; 43 (8): 26–36. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.881252
Download citation file:
Citing articles via
The lessons learned from ephemeral nuclei
Witold Nazarewicz; Lee G. Sobotka
FYI science policy briefs
Lindsay McKenzie; Jacob Taylor