29 Facts About Sakharov Prize

1. In 1975, Sakharov Prize was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on nuclear disarmament and promoting human rights.

2. In 1945, Andrei Sakharov Prize entered the Lebedev Institute of Physics and in 1948 was recruited by nuclear physicist Igor Tamm to work on the Soviet nuclear program.

3. In 1980, Sakharov Prize was stripped of all Soviet awards for "anti-Soviet activities".

4. In March 1989, Sakharov Prize was elected to the new parliament, the All-Union Congress of People's Deputies and co-led the democratic opposition, the Inter-Regional Deputies Group.

5. Sakharov Prize was named the 1980 Humanist of the Year by the American Humanist Association.

6. Sakharov Prize was not allowed to leave the Soviet Union to collect the prize.

7. In 1973, Sakharov Prize was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and in 1974 was awarded the Prix mondial Cino Del Duca.

8. Sakharov Prize married a fellow human rights activist, Yelena Bonner, in 1972.

9. Since the late 1950s Sakharov Prize had become concerned about the moral and political implications of his work.

10. Sakharov Prize proposed the idea of induced gravity as an alternative theory of quantum gravity.

11. Sakharov Prize was the first scientist to introduce twin universes he called "sheets".

12. Sakharov Prize never felt that by creating nuclear weapons he had "known sin", in Oppenheimer's expression.

13. In 1974, Andrei Sakharov Prize received an international literary award called the Prix Mondial Cino Del Duca.

14. Sakharov Prize wrote the Soviet leadership to argue that the moratorium proposed by the United States on ABM work would benefit the Soviet Union, because an arms race in this new technology would increase the likelihood of nuclear war.

15. Sakharov Prize was proud of his contribution to the 1963 test ban treaty, which stopped atmospheric nuclear testing of the United States, the USSR, and the United Kingdom.

16. Sakharov Prize represented him at the Nobel Sakharov Prize ceremony in 1975.

17. Sakharov Prize married fellow human rights activist Yelena Bonner in 1972.

18. Sakharov Prize became involved in the emerging human rights movement, cofounding the Moscow Human Rights Committee in 1970.

19. Sakharov Prize began to support victims of political oppression as early as 1951 when he sheltered a Jewish mathematician fired from the Soviet weapons program.

20. Toward the end of the 1970s Sakharov Prize became increasingly alarmed about the Soviet arms build-up, which he saw as a reflection of aggressive plans.

21. At this time Sakharov Prize published his best-known and most persuasive and forceful political essay, Reflections on Progress, Peaceful Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom.

22. Toward the end of the 1970s Sakharov Prize became increasingly alarmed about the Soviet arms build-up.

23. Sakharov Prize never felt that by creating nuclear weapons he had "known sin", in Oppenheimer's haunting expression.

24. Sakharov Prize was the only one who openly objected to the Soviet leader.

25. Sakharov Prize made the key contribution to the fully fledged H-bomb design, tested in the USS.

26. Sakharov Prize was rewarded with full membership in the Soviet Academy of Sciences at age 32 and accorded the privileges of the Nomenklatura, or elite members of the Soviet Union.

27. Sakharov Prize joined Tamm's group and, with his colleagues Vitaly Ginzburg and Yuri Romanov, worked on calculations produced by Yakov Zeldovich's group at the Institute of Chemical Physics.

28. Sakharov Prize was patriotic, and believed it was important to break the American monopoly on nuclear weapons.

29. Sakharov Prize was deprived of all his Soviet honorary titles, and the couple was for several years kept under strict surveillance in the town of Gorkij.