The UMD Department of Physics cordially invites you to the

John S. Toll
Endowed Lecture in Physics

with

Roald Sagdeev
Distinguished University Professor Emeritus of Physics
University of Maryland

on

"The Science of Sakharov"

Tuesday, November 15, 2022
3:30 p.m. Light Refreshments
4 p.m. Lecture
John S. Toll Physics Building, Room 1410

Parking is available in the Regents Drive Garage. Additionally, the free #104 ShuttleUM bus runs between the College Park Metro Station and Regents Drive at about 12-minute intervals.

Questions? Contact the Department of Physics at physchair-rsvp@umd.edu or 301-405-5946.

About the Talk
Andrei Sakharov's outstanding contribution covers a wide area of applied and fundamental physics, despite the fact that he regretted that he was only doing great physics "on the sidelines." In 1950, Sakharov and Tamm came up with the concept of controlled fusion, which led to the major international ITER project under construction in France. Then he took up the old important unsolved problem of matter distribution non-uniformities in the Universe and, as a solution, proposed that the remnants of quantum fluctuations in the early phases after the Big Bang play a key role. Baryon asymmetry has been another grand challenge in which Sakharov's name has been known since 1967, when he published the famous three conditions that the basic laws of physics and cosmology must satisfy in order to explain the dominance of matter over antimatter in our Universe.

About the Speaker
Roald Sagdeev is a UMD Distinguished University Professor Emeritus of Physics. He earned his Ph.D. in 1966 from Moscow State University and served for 15 years as director of the Space Research Institute, the Moscow-based center of the Russian space exploration program, where he holds the title of director emeritus. Prior to his work with the Soviet space exploration program, he had a distinguished career in nuclear science with international recognition for his work on the behavior of hot plasma and controlled thermonuclear fusion. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Royal Swedish Academy, the Max Planck Society and the International Academy of Aeronautics. Sagdeev has received the American Astronautical Society's Carl Sagan Memorial Award and the American Physical Society's James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics.

About the Lecture
Chuan-Sheng Liu and Jingyi Liu established the John S. Toll Endowed Lecture in Physics at the University of Maryland to honor the enormous legacy of John Toll (1923-2011) and bring some of the brightest physicists to UMD's campus to share their talent and enthusiasm with the community. The Lius' generous gift was followed by a contribution from Toll’s widow, Deborah Toll, who was thrilled to see her husband being honored in this way.

John Toll served as chair of UMD's Department of Physics and Astronomy from 1953 to 1965, recruiting dozens of top-tier scientists and catapulting the department onto an international stage. As president of UMD from 1978 to 1988 and founding chancellor of the University System of Maryland from 1988 to 1989, Toll helped grow the system and elevate its reputation.

Chuan Liu is a professor emeritus of physics who joined UMD in 1974 and served as department chair from 1985 to 1990 and 1993 to 1994. His wife, Jingyi Liu (M.S. '83, communications; Ph.D. '91, radio/tv/film), was a cross-cultural communication consultant, educator and TV producer for educational programs, and she served as a contract interpreter for the U.S. Department of State.