On December 12, 1995, it was announced that the United States has chosen Martin D. Kamen to receive the Enrico Fermi award. Dr. Kamen will travel to Washington, DC, to receive a gold medal from the President, a reception at the White House, and a check for $100,000 (part of which he must return in income taxes).

The Fermi prize, America's highest award in science, is given to only a few very distinguished and accomplished scientists. In this unusual case, it is a double honor - it is an honor to Dr. Kamen and it is an honor to the United States.

The award will undoubtedly mention that Martin Kamen was the first man to synthesize Carbon 14, the first (with his co-worker Sam Reuben) to make a qualitative characterization of its properties, and the first to estimate its half-life (2,000 to 4,000 years in his initial work - now known to be 5,730 years). The award may also mention that the discovery of ¹⁴ C was no accident.

In the fall of 1939, Dr. Kamen devised a series of experiments using the 37-inch and 60-inch cyclotrons at Berkeley and including essential modifications in the cyclotron apparatus that he had made. His experiments were specifically designed to synthesize a long-lived isotope of carbon. Less than six months later, on February 27, 1940, he succeeded.

The synthesis was considered so important that it was announced at the Nobel Prize ceremony for E.O. Lawrence a few days later -even though Kamen's co-worker, Sam Reuben, was so worried about error that he did not attend. (There was plenty to worry about, since, even after the experiments were completed, J. Robert Oppenheimer held to the opinion that such a long-lived isotope of carbon could not exist - for theoretical reasons.) Later, Martin Kamen was the first man to use carbon 14 as a tracer in a biological system. His subsequent work, with many coworkers, laid an essential cornerstone of modern biochemistry - which depends upon the ability to label and then trace carbon atoms through chemical processes by means of carbon 14. Kamen's book, Isotopic Tracers in Biology, in its several editions was so influential with two generations of biochemists and so widely read that the publishers, Academic Press, called it their "Gone With the Wind.'' With radioactive tracers and with a wide variety of other techniques, Dr. Kamen pursued a life-long fascination with the biochemistry of photosynthesis. The hundreds of research papers that he and his colleagues published on this subject made possible much of our current understanding of photosynthetic processes. Always generous, almost to a fault, Kamen shared the fruits of his brilliance so completely with his many coworkers that a great many scientists owe their careers and fame largely to his extraordinary help.

Martin Kamen would have received the Nobel Prize for the synthesis of carbon 14. Later, he would have received serious consideration for a second Nobel award based on the tracer and photosynthesis work. In over 50 years he has, however, received neither.

Responding to his country's needs in 1941, he joined the Manhattan Project along with most of the physicists and chemists with whom he worked before World War II. He made valuable contributions to that project. Suddenly, however, in July 1944, he was forced off the project on the basis of an erroneous security report that he was not allowed to see until ten years later.

Officials of the United States Government then commenced a deliberate program to drive him out of science, smear him in the public media, prevent him from working with colleagues abroad by passport denial, and, in a plan that was fortunately dropped, to murder him.

For an entire decade, he was tracked and smeared continually by government spooks and so harassed, both personally and professionally, that he finally attempted suicide.

From this low point, he fought his way back, cleared his name in successful lawsuits against the government and their fellow travelers in the press, recovered his passport, and finally cleared himself of all official suspicion in 1955. His wife Beka, whose steadfast help was essential to Martin Kamen's victory in this 10-year battle, died from the effects of depression brought on by this ordeal.

Martin Kamen was always a patriotic American who rigorously kept America's secrets. There is not a shred of evidence otherwise - although it took years of litigation to force the government to allow a comprehensive look at their files on him.

It is remarkable that Kamen managed such a brilliant research career in the midst of this turmoil and under the clouds that federal government thugs cast over him.

In one particular, however, his enemies have won - so far. They smeared Kamen with so much mud during the apex of his career and the years after his greatest accomplishments that he was not awarded the deserved Nobel Prize.

Now, it is finally over. With the award of the Fermi prize, the United States government has not only correctly honored his scientific achievements, it has lifted the last vestiges of the cloud it placed over his character and patriotism. Martin Kamen is honored by the receipt of this award. The United States is honored by its choice and by his acceptance.

Martin Kamen is 82. It is too late to restore the years that he and Beka lost. It is not too late, however, for intellectual justice - the award to him of a Nobel Prize.

There is no living candidate more worthy of this award.

In the fall of 1939, it was generally believed that no long-lived radioactive isotope of carbon existed. In fact, Harold Urey, who had discovered the stable hydrogen isotope deuterium, and who was the foremost proponent of the use of stable isotopes in biological research, was promoting his research program partly on the basis that no long-lived radioactive isotopes existed for any of the elements of primary biological importance - hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen.

Tritium, ³H, was believed to be stable and therefore not radioactive. The longest-lived known radioactive isotopes of the other three elements were ¹¹C, ¹³ N, and ¹⁵O, with half-lives of 21 minutes, 10 minutes, and 2 minutes, respectively.

The superscript in these symbols designates the atomic mass of each atom. The nuclei of hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen contain 1, 6, 7, and 8 protons. Each of these positively-charged protons is accompanied by a negatively-charged electron moving in a cloud throughout the atom. Most of the chemical characteristics of each atom are determined by these charged particles.

The stabilities of the atomic nuclei are, however, determined by both the protons and the neutrons of which they are composed. (This is now understood in far more detail than will be mentioned here.) Each neutron has a mass approximately the same as each proton, but the neutrons are not charged and are not, therefore, associated with the overall chemical properties.

11C, which has 6 protons and 5 neutrons, has about the same chemical properties as ¹²C, which has 6 protons and 6 neutrons. The two can be used interchangeably in chemical systems - except that ¹¹C is radioactive and spontaneously self-destructs with half of the atoms disappearing every 21 minutes. ¹²C is completely stable. The lack of a sixth neutron confers a fundamental instability on the ¹¹C nucleus.

Since most of the atoms in naturally occurring substances are stable, scientists are able to label specific atoms in molecules by introducing radioactive atoms into the molecular positions of interest. Those atoms can then be followed along through chemical processes by measuring the radiation that is emitted when they self-destruct. Each unstable atom has a constant probability of death depending upon its nuclear structure, so a steady amount of radiation is produced, which gradually decreases as the atoms disappear.

This is illustrated by Figures 1 and 2 from Isotopic Tracers in Biology, Third Edition by Martin D. Kamen, Academic Press, New York (1957). Figure 1 shows the molecular structure of cholesterol, where the "m''s and "C''s are carbon atoms. By labeling the carbons of acetate, CH3CO2^- - the first carbon being the "methyl'' (m) carbon and the second being the "carboxyl'' (C) carbon, biochemists were able to show that cholesterol is synthesized in animals from acetate and to determine which cholesterol carbons originate as acetate methyl carbons and which as acetate carboxyl carbons. Through many tracer experiments of this sort, a complete understanding of the biochemistry of the production of cholesterol was obtained. This has been of great importance to biochemistry and to medicine.

After a complex molecule has been radioactively labeled, there is often a substantial amount of organic chemistry required for the complete interpretation of the experiment. The molecule must be degraded atom by atom through procedures that keep track of where each atom was located in the intact molecule. Figure 2 summarizes some of this degradative chemistry in the case of radioactive carbon tracer experiments on the biosynthesis of heme - the red, oxygen-carrying molecules within the protein hemoglobin in blood. Heme is shown in the figure with its central iron atom removed and its carbon atoms numbered for reference through the degradative procedure.

Without the knowledge gained by radioactive carbon tracer experiments of this sort, modern biochemistry would have been delayed at least 50 years. Only recently have mass spectrometers capable of meeting the demands of this research by quickly and reliably measuring the amounts of stable isotopes at high sensitivity come into existence. These machines are still not available to many biochemists.

In 1939, however, these experiments were not possible. The short half-life of ¹¹C made it unsuitable for most of the needed experiments. Kamen and Reuben were trying to use ¹¹C in experiments to understand the first biochemical steps in photosynthesis. Kamen had initiated some experiments to find a longer-lived isotope, but could not obtain enough cyclotron time and resources for this work.

The Berkeley cyclotrons had been built under the direction of E. O. Lawrence to accelerate atomic particles to energies necessary for nuclear reactions. Kamen was a member of the team of scientists who kept these particle accelerators in operation and improved and modified them for various purposes. Of special importance was the obtaining of continued financial support of the research, for which Lawrence needed to demonstrate practical uses for the new isotopic materials. This requirement and the competition with Urey ultimately caused Lawrence to give Kamen the cyclotron priority and resources he needed. Six months later, the results changed the history of biochemistry.

The exciting history of this whole era is vividly described in Martin Kamen's autobiography, Radiant Science, Dark Politics, A Memoir of the Nuclear Age, published by University of California Press (1985), which is in print and available from U. C. Press at 1-800-822-6657. See also "Reflections on the First Half-Century of Long-Lived Radioactive Carbon (¹⁴C)'' by Martin D. Kamen, Proceedings of the Ameri-can Philosophical Society 138, pp 48-60 (1994).

The most efficient procedure for the synthesis of ¹⁴C turned out to be bombardment of nitrogen, ¹⁴N, with slow neutrons. Even with this, the amounts of ¹⁴C that could be made with the Berkeley cyclotrons were quite small - although they did provide material for the first ¹⁴C tracer experiments.

In his autobiography, Kamen tells of the unusual way in which he learned that this limitation on the amounts of ¹⁴C would cease to exist.

Although the existence of the atomic piles, the first built at Chicago under the direction of Enrico Fermi and the second at Oak Ridge, was vaguely known about by many scientists within the Manhattan Project, the operating parameters of these machines were very closely guarded secrets. It happened that arrangements were made for the production of a small amount of ²⁴Na in the pile at Oak Ridge for Kamen's use in work he had been assigned in the isotope purification effort there. He was officially told that 5 grams of sodium chloride would be put into a

"machine'' for several hours. This apparently involved a misunderstanding of his requirements or of the capabilities of the pile, but not knowing the parameters, Kamen could only take what he was given.

That turned out to be a huge lead container which he opened to reveal a sample that, to his astonishment, emitted a purple glow. Shocked by the realization that the pile neutron flux must be millions of times greater than that achievable in the cyclotron at Berkeley and realizing the revolution this would make possible in the synthesis of radioisotopes including ¹⁴C, Kamen excitedly told E. O. Lawrence the news in the presence of Lawrence's Army guard.

The result was a security investigation to try to find a nonexistent person who had given Kamen this secret information. The security people knew too little physics to understand that Kamen had been able to calculate it himself from the information at hand.

Fifty years later Kamen, the man who first synthesized carbon 14, is being honored in the name of Fermi, who built the first atomic pile.

Carbon 14 has turned out to be of fundamental importance in many different sciences as is summarized in Figure 3 reproduced from the

Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society as cited above.

Part of this importance arises from the fact that it is continuously synthesized in the atmosphere by the bombardment of atmospheric nitrogen with secondary neutron radiation from cosmic rays. This produces a steady-state concentration of ¹⁴C in the atmosphere that has been relatively constant for thousands of years.

14C-containing atmospheric carbon dioxide is incorporated in the tissues of plants and animals and thereby contributes some of the background radiation which is contained in the bodies of all living things including humans.

Once trapped in living tissue, the ¹⁴C can no longer mix with the atmosphere, and it begins to disappear with its characteristic half-life of 5730 years. By making assumptions about the atmospheric concentration of ¹⁴C in earlier years - assumptions that can be checked over the past two millennia by reference to the ¹⁴C concentration in the tree rings of living trees - it is possible to calculate the age of tissue samples that are recovered by archaeologists.

Alternatively, by reference to fluctuations in ¹⁴C as revealed by the tree ring record, it is possible to study prior solar activity. A controversy arose, for example, regarding a nineteenth century report by G. Sporer and E. W. Maunder that astronomical records from 1645 to 1715 showed a marked absence of sunspot activity, which was at variance with the records from other periods.

Sunspots interfere with cosmic radiation, so it was predicted that cosmic radiation and, therefore, atmospheric ¹⁴C would increase if sun spots had actually decreased. Tree ring studies showed that an increase in ¹⁴C between 1650 and 1700 occurred, which was exactly as predicted from the Maunder minimum. Moreover, another increase occurred between 1450 and 1550, giving rise to the suggestion that the sun undergoes long periodic fluctuations as well as those of the well-known 11-year solar cycle.

For more ancient times, preceding those for which atmospheric ¹⁴C concentrations can be directly checked by techniques such as tree ring analysis, assumptions about atmospheric ¹⁴C concentration and other factors can contain significant errors. Sample contamination also becomes a serious source of error in less well-defined artifacts.

As a result of nuclear weapons tests, atmospheric ¹⁴C increased from the early 1950s to a maximum in about 1963 and has since decreased with an atmospheric half-time of about 10 years. This short atmospheric half-time has been cited by Frederick Seitz as evidence that the increase in atmospheric CO2 during the past century may not have been entirely caused by human activity, since it is equilibrating so rapidly with huge terrestrial reservoirs having CO2 contents that dwarf human production (see Access to Energy 22-1, September 1994, p 3).

This increase of ¹⁴C has also been used by antinuclear activists in support of their claims that nuclear weapons testing has caused worldwide increases in cancer and that accidents in nuclear power plants could potentially make this problem worse.

Actually, in view of the growing amount of experimental data about hormesis (see numerous past issues of Access to Energy and included references), it appears most likely now that these small increases in background radiation have actually had a beneficial influence on human health. There is no direct evidence whatever in support of claimed harmful effects. These claims depend upon arbitrary and probably erroneous extrapolations from effects of very high radiation doses.

Although some scientists involved in early research on radioactivity were harmed by high doses of radiation before the dangers were clearly known, most were apparently not adversely affected. In Martin Kamen's case, he was forced to leave operation of the laboratory counting apparatus to his co-worker, because Kamen himself was often so radioactive that he disrupted the counters. Fifty years later, he shows no ill affects from the many cyclotron-produced nuclear isotopes that were induced in his clothing and body tissues.

Amid our current plague of swarming pseudoenvironmentalists, the story of carbon 14 also provides a lesson in true environmental science - the study of the actual physical realities of our environment by means of the phenomena we find within it.

With every breath, we ingest substantial amounts of this radioactive substance. It is in our water, in our food, and in the rocks, plants, animals, and people around us. The most recent results of health physics indicate that we have learned to live harmoniously in the sea of radiation to which ¹⁴C is a contributor, and (although this work is ongoing and not yet complete) there is a growing indication that we actually benefit from it.

Moreover, by understanding ¹⁴C and learning to manipulate it, we have learned a great amount about chemistry, biochemistry, and other sciences, and have greatly increased our own personal benefits from medical science. Through biochemistry, we have also enriched the beauty of our lives. We no longer see only the forests and the trees. We are able to see inside these and other living things and understand them on a molecular level. The incredible molecular beauty of our environment is a wonder that has been hidden from all human beings who have lived on earth before this century.

Contrast this knowledge with the fear of the ignorant who still believe that "radiation'' is an evil and that there is no safe dose - who interfere with the life-giving and life-saving energy that flows from nuclear power plants because it is associated with "radiation.'' Ignorance is a debilitating handicap, fear a terrible master, and the true story of ¹⁴C is a great place to start in the elimination of both.

Does Price Matter? The Importance of Cheap Electricity for the Economy, January 1995 edition, a monograph prepared for the Western Fuels Association, 1625 M Street N.W., Washington, DC, 20036 by Mills, McCarthy & Associates, 6900 Wisconsin Avenue, Suite 700, Chevy Chase, MD 20815, provides an analysis that concludes that the delivered price of electric power in the United States will fall from its present average of 7 cents per kWh to less than 5 cents per kWh by the year 2010 (in 1992 cents).

This analysis includes the effects of competition, improved technology, fuel costs, and other factors including inefficiencies from government regulation and enviro agitation. It is at variance, however, with conventional belief that real electricity costs will remain about constant during the next 15 years. In an aside, Mills, et al., point out that 1980 Department of Energy predictions of real cost changes between 1980 and 1990 for electricity, coal, natural gas, and oil were for increases of 30%, 30%, 350%, and 90%, respectively, whereas the actual changes as of 1993 had been decreases of 10%, 10%, 10%, and 60%.

Most inflation-corrected long-term commodity prices show a steadily decreasing price trend primarily as a result of improvements in technology. Electricity, the most important commodity in terms of dollar amounts purchased, will probably join this trend for similar reasons regardless of the debilitating efforts of antitechnologists.

This is not to suggest, however, that the average American will always enjoy a better life as a result of these technological advances. Notes, a 133 page compendium of economic data, published by H. F. Langenberg, Smith, Moore & Co., 400 Locust Street, St. Louis, MO 63102, provides an exhaustive look at the other side of the power equation - government power.

More than half of the earnings of individual Americans are now seized by government. In addition, government printing presses assure that the natural deflation in prices that should result from technological advance is erased by inflation and the savings thereby confiscated.

The real price of electricity will probably, as predicted, be lower in 2010. Unfortunately, the real purchasing power of productive Ameri-cans is also on a downtrend caused by endemic socialism and economic fascism. For two decades, the price of government power in the United States has been rising faster than can be compensated for by the aggregate accomplishments of technology.

• "Hour of Lead'' and "Our Family's Story'' by Amity Shlaes in The Wall Street Journal for Wednesday, December 20, 1995 p A14, tells of the attack on her family by New York City lead bureaucrats.

As a result of playing with a vacuum cleaner with lead dust contamination, her two-year-old son's blood levels rose to 25 micrograms per deciliter - higher than the 10 µ/dl now considered acceptable by lead bureaucrats, but not higher than the national average for American children in the 1960s and lower than the 1960s median level of 30 µ/dl in Chicago. Her son's level dropped back below 10 µ/dl after he was no longer allowed to play with the vacuum cleaner.

Nevertheless, the family is being required to do tens of thousands of dollars of work rebuilding their house to the satisfaction of city officials. Amity Shlaes also relates other similar stories of the activities of the burgeoning lead-in-children industry. This industry has been made possible by recent lowering of acceptable lead standards to enviro correct levels which include the blood levels of a great many children.

Events are following a now familiar pattern: Some lead levels in a few children are much too high, and the causes need to be corrected. For "safety'' reasons, standards are set far below the scientifically determined harmful quantities. Then, with a profuse outpouring of crocodile tears, the usual gaggle of opportunists takes over.

• "Geniuses From Abroad'' by George Gilder in The Wall Street Journal for Monday, December 18, 1995, p A14, discusses Congressional efforts to reduce legal immigration into the United States.

As Gilder illustrates, a large part of current American technology has been brought into existence by foreign-born scientists and engineers. Many of our past accomplishments, such as the moon program and the nuclear energy industry, depended upon immigrants. The entire history of the United States teaches the incredible productive power of a melting pot of the world's best and brightest people - especially those with the personal ambition to seek the best national environment. Nevertheless, Congress seems determined to interfere.

Perhaps Congress isn't "mad.'' The politics of this may help keep them in power, and we get to pay for their pensions when they retire. We, however, are "stark raving mad'' to let them do it.

• "Cargo Cult Science'' by Richard P. Feynman, Engineering and Science, June 1974, pp 10-13, available from Engineering and Science, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA.
  
  We based an Access to Energy editorial on this but did not give the reference. This was the Caltech commencement address of 1974 and is a superb discussion of the distinction between science and pseudo -science - a distinction much more relevant today than in 1974.
  
  
• "Maverick Mark Twain's Exhilarating American Individualism'' by Jim Powell, The Freeman, November 1995, pp 728-733, available from The Foundation for Economic Education, Inc., 30 South Broadway, Irvington-on-Hudson, NY 10533.
  
  
• "A Home Cure for School-Induced Funk'' by Sarah B. Miller in The Wall Street Journal for Wednesday, December 13, 1995, p A14. Home schooling is spreading throughout the United States in all divisions of society and at remarkable speed. This phenomenon, coupled with the decentralization made possible by computers and digital communications, is solving the problem of our dying socialist schools - by creating a marvelous and superior new educational system.
  
  
• "Complex Questions: The New Science of Spontaneous Order'' by William Tucker, Reason, January 1996, pp 34-38. Although the philosophical implications of this subject are an intellectual mine field, the science is especially important as refutation of the utter nonsense published by Jeremy Rifkin and others claiming that the earth and universe are running down - citing the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
  
  The Second Law, which deals with entropy, is entirely inapplicable to a nonequilibrium, open system such as the earth. It is also inapplicable to the universe, which is not at equilibrium and may also (not now known) be an open system, too.
  
  
• "Laser Is a Guiding Light for Atoms'' by Robert F. Service, Science 270, p 914 (1995), describing a new technique for channeling a beam of atoms through a hollow optical fiber. By tuning the laser just below a resonant frequency of the atoms and directing the laser down the hollow fiber, the atomic beam can be made to follow the loops of the fiber. Moreover, the device acts as an atomic filter, since only those atoms of the appropriate resonant frequency follow the path.
  
  
• "Use of Therapeutic Radionuclides in Medicine'' by P. J. Early and E. R. Landa, Health Physics 69, pp 677-694 - especially the short section about Marie Curie. This issue of Health Physics is devoted to papers about the history of medical uses of radiation and is good reading in its entirety.
  
  
• "'Nanotechnology' Promises Endless Abundance - Courtesy of Molecule-Manipulating Robots. Is That Nuts? And Do We Want It?'' by Ed Regis, Reason, December 1995, pp 28-34.

  It is not nuts, and we definitely do.