Dr. Vikram Vyas
International Centre for Theoretical Physics
Trieste, Italy
and
Jaipur, India
28 June 2000
Marc Brodsky
(via e-mail)
CEO and
Executive Director
American
Institute of Physics
One Physics
Ellipse
College
Park, Maryland 20740
Daniel Kleppner, Chair
Physics
Today Advisory Committee
Department
of Physics
Massachusetts
Institute of Technology
Cambridge,
MA 02139
Dear Dr. Marc Brodsky and Prof. Daniel Kleppner,
Recently a
friend informed me of the firing of Jeff Schmidt. After reading the relevant material available to me I strongly
feel that this act goes against everything that we as physicists stand for.
It reminded
me of physicist Richard Feynman's Caltech commencement address of 1974:
"So I
have just one wish for you — the good luck to be somewhere where you are free to
maintain the kind of integrity I have described, and where you do not feel
forced by a need to maintain your position in the organization, or financial
support, or so on, to lose your integrity.
May you have that freedom."
I do appeal
to you that Jeff, too, may have the freedom that Feynman wished for all of us.
Yours
sincerely,
Vikram Vyas