Jorge E. Hirsch

Jorge E. Hirsch is a physics professor (Ph.D., University of Chicago, 1980) who does research and teaching at the University of California, San Diego, United States. He became famous worldwide in 2005-2006 with his public warnings about the increasing risk of nuclear war due to what he claims is an unnecessarily aggressive military nuclear policy of the United States. He is also known for developing the "h"-index in 2005, an index for quantifying a scientist's publication productivity.

Research

Hirsch's scientific work is involved with understanding collective, large-scale properties of solids, such as superconductivity and ferromagnetism, based on explanations starting from the small-scale mechanisms.

Nuclear war analyses

Some examples of Hirsch's claims during early 2006 were that :"Multiple pieces of independent evidence suggest that America is embarked in a premeditated path that will lead inexorably to the use of nuclear weapons against Iran in the very near future" [http://www.antiwar.com/orig/hirsch.php?articleid=8359 How to Stop the Planned Nuking of Iran: Congress should enact emergency legislation] , January 9, 2006, Jorge Hirsch] and that :"neither the media nor Congress are bringing up the inconvenient little fact that the military option will necessarily lead to the use of nuclear weapons against Iran." [http://www.antiwar.com/orig/hirsch.php?articleid=8577 America and Iran: At the Brink of the Abyss - We can stop a "preemptive" nuclear strike] , February 20, 2006, Jorge Hirsch]

He also speculated that in order to justify an attack on Iran using nuclear weapons, US authorities might make a false, but difficult to disprove, claim that Iranian biologists are trying to develop a strain of the H5N1 avian flu virus which would be transmissible from human to human, and which would be transported to Europe by birds migrating north with the onset of the northern summer of 2006. [http://www.antiwar.com/orig/hirsch.php?articleid=8701 Iran and Bird Flu: The Perfect "Casus Belli"?] , March 15, 2006, Jorge Hirsch] Later, a human to human transmissible strain was found to have emerged in Southeast Asia and is documented by WHO. [http://www.recombinomics.com/News/02050503/Human_Transmission_One_Third.html Human Transmission in One Third of Bird Flu Cases ] ]

In April 2006, Hirsch initiated a [http://physics.ucsd.edu/petition/physicistsletter.html letter] to President George W. Bush, co-signed by twelve other physicists, warning of the dangers of using tactical nuclear weapons against Iran. The letter, dated April 17, was in response to articles in "The New Yorker" and "The Washington Post" that indicated the Pentagon was actively considering such options.

References

External links

* [http://physics.ucsd.edu/~jorge/jh.html Hirsch's research and public service page]