NATO HQ 10 March 2005

Video interview with the Italian representative on the Science Committee, Professor Antonino Zichichi Multimedia Audio file .MP3/6028Kb Video interview Q: Professor Zichichi, you are the Italian representative on the Science Committee. Thank you for joining us today. I understand that the partner countries have been invited to inform the Science Committee of their highest priorities for science collaboration. Can you give some examples of the issues which they find to be of greatest concern? PROF. ZICHICHI: The partner countries of the former Soviet Union as well as those of the Mediterranean Dialogue need to enhance their capabilities in science and technology. Why? Because they have problems of decontamination of nuclear weapons testing in Kazakhstan for example and all the problems which are part of what we call the Planetary Emergencies. The planetary emergencies are not only the two well-known ones like the ozone hole and the climate story--there are sixty-three. And the partner countries, all these countries, have problems which are belonging to this enormous number of emergencies which we have started in some cases we've realized specific projects and they need to solve these problems. How can you solve these problems? There is no solution to planetary emergencies without advanced science and advanced technology so what they need is exactly this which is also what we need but we have advanced science and technology--they don't. The planetary emergencies have to be solved because sooner or later an emergency which is 10,000 kilometres away from us will become our emergency so it is in the interest of all countries in the world to have a strong collaboration in science and technology because the number of planetary emergencies are very many--are sixty-three--belonging to different classes like water, food, energy, pollution, climatic problems, so what they want is a legitimate task and we - those countries who belong to the developed part of the world are in a position to help them. Q: The Security Through Science website refers to other threats to security besides the terrorist threat. Why would it be important to consider other threats and what are some of these threats? ZICHICHI: In our modern view of the problems which exist in this world we realize that we belong to a description of this real situation where we are which is totally different from what has been considered so far in the rigorous analysis of the world itself. I give you an example. Science has been created, discovered by Galileo Galilei 400 years ago and the basic point was to - out of the big series of problems, pick up one and try to solve it. This is called reduction. But reduction does not explain the world where we live in fact, if you now in our present understanding, if you want to describe in a rigorous way our world you need a set of different non-linear equations strongly coupled in mathematics which is normally the solution. In other words you can solve this problem in a series of approximations but the specific characteristic of this problem is that if there is small perturbations anywhere in the reality, it can't produce enormous effects. Terrorism is an example of this and all those threats exist in our super-organized society because there are very weak points which can be disturbed (inaudible) creating tremendous consequences. In fact, the new approach to understand the world is called (inaudible), in other words, you must try to see what is the real meaning of complexity. Beethoven could compose masterpieces of music but he did not know the laws acoustics. If you take off the law of acoustics, music cannot exist. This is an example of where complexities come in. In our (inaudible) for example if you have a living cell, the living cell has his laws, his regularities, but the basic laws which govern the living cells is quantum electrodynamics. The living organ could not care less about quantum electrodynamics but if I switch off the electromagnetic forces there could not be life. In our society the same thing, if you study traffic problems, endemic traffic, social, economic or political structures you find out that there are links, there are structures which can indeed be destroyed with a very small perturbation at the right point. So the terrorism we are talking and the danger that people are worried about belong to a problem which science needs to address in a rigorous way and in a modern way. Terrorism is one component of the instabilities of our world but we need to understand all these instabilities and we need to realize that a new approach to understand this problem is needed and this is in a general sense called complexity. We have no idea at present what complexity is because even in the basic characteristics of this new field of science, there are difficulties in the understanding of how to define this enormous series of problems which the life we are in is an example. Q: Some have suggested that the NATO science activity actually contributes to the brain drain which drives bright young scientists from their home/partner countries towards the richer NATO-member countries. Do you have any comments about that? ZICHICHI: It is a very serious problem because we want to avoid this. On the other hand, you cannot just forbid a fellow to do what he would like to do. So the best is to have these bright new talents to go back home. How can you help them? By giving them subsistence for say three years and putting them in such an environment, technological and scientific environment at home, that is of interest for his intellectual capabilities because a smart guy is not going to stay home if he can do nothing when he goes back. So the NATO Science Committee has created a specific program to help these young fellows. In fact we have financed in the year 2004 sixty-four new talents to go back home after having been in the super-specialized laboratories of our countries. So the NATO Science Committee is especially aware of the problem and in no case we want to help the brain drain. We want these fellows to go back home because it is in our interest that smart guys go back in order to help their own countries to solve problems. Q: What is your impression of the benefits of this new integrated mechanism? ZICHICHI: It has been extremely successful and it should be improved - in the sense of becoming more quantitatively interesting. But as I said before 64 grants have been given and the results are very positive. Q: Many of us have heard of the virtual "Virtual Silk Highway" project. Could you tell us a little bit about this initiative and how it is helping in NATO and the partner countries? ZICHICHI: It is a very important point, is (inaudible) the invention of how to (inaudible). The communication is essential for development of culture so what NATO has done, NATO has financed the installation of the technology in many countries--in the Caucasus, in East Asia and in Afghanistan--in order to allow those people to be connected to Internet. This means that they can interact with highly qualified scholars in a very simple way. The exchange of knowledge means improvement in culture and the crisis of our time is a culture crisis. So this specific program of the NATO Science Committee is extremely important and it has been one of the most popular actions of the NATO Science Committee in all of these countries. Q: Could you give us some insight on the attitude of the Italian leaders in the scientific community on the value and relevance of the NATO Security Through Science program? ZICHICHI: The Italian scientific community is convinced that this component of NATO should be given more power for a very simple reason; we should not forget that for 50 years we have been going on with the so-called balance of terror--60,000 H-Bombs with one one-megaton power each in the superpower arsenals. The scientific community has been successful in contributing the end of this 50 years of balance of terror. The new phenomena which we are dealing with now are totally unexpected and in terms of technological weapons problems it is corresponding to a very high position, low-power weapon, which you cannot easily defend yourself from. So it appears that science has nothing to do. But this is not the case because science should be able to understand whatever phenomenon is coming even the totally unexpected like the terrorism. I feel that terrorism is coming after 50 years of balance of terror where science has been extremely useful and at first sight seems to be of no concern to science, no competence. Science has nothing to do with this new totally unexpected phenomenon. Q: Prof. Zichichi, I understand that you have some specific and one might even say passionate ideas on the relevance of science in the efforts to counter the international terrorist threat. Can you say a few words about that? ZICHICHI: The answer is really two-fold: The first part is purely technological, there is no limit to what can be invented in order to overcome a defence system and therefore thinking in a rigorous way is needed, in terms of scientific and technological solution of problems in order to see how to avoid the impossibility of the defence system to go on. For example, the detection of new materials, the so-called T-rays is- just to give you an example, is one thousand billion hertz. These are electromagnetic waves which are between radio and light. With these rays you can detect non-metallic weapons which can be very dangerous. So this is an example of how a technology can be developed to see how the defence system can be improved. And this is the first part of my answer: technology. But technology is not enough. There is another component which is more subtle and extremely important where scientific rigour is leader again, we want to understand how it happened that part of a society turns to terrorism. How this can happen and now in the year 2005, after 400 years of science and technological development, what is the reason why this kind of phenomena does take place? And this can be understood if we see how our society- we live as if science had never been discovered because people confuse technology and science. When you see the enormous of number of little phones- portable phones in use, it seems that people know the advancement of science and technology. This is not the case. Scientific culture practically does not exist. So people get from science the technological development but the cultural values of science are totally ignored. For example, suppose somebody now would call me and tell me that a fellow had discovered the superworld. The superworld is the frontier of modern science. I will not ask the colour of the skin of this fellow or what are his ideas or his reliogous thinking. No. I would only ask to let me know what has he discovered. So, scientific culture means that the basic value of science is (inaudible). Science cannot be (inaudible). If we would live in an era of science, in the era of science there would be neither the 63 planetary emergencies which I've quoted before, no terrorism. Terrorism is a cultural emergency and this is why we need the diffusion of cultural science. The values of science are an enormous component in order to make our life more adequate to the great discovery of our intellect which is science. Our society really ignores the existence of science. This is one of the reasons why there are so many problems. Q: Thank you for your time professor.