A Brief Biography

Born in 1932 on the Ute mountan reservation in Colorado, Fred Begay was educated from an early age in Navajo First Nation traditions. His parents didn't speak English and so when he was sent away to a federal vocational school they did not have any say in what he studied. He was trained in farming and taught that the Navajo language and culture was inferior.

In 1955, after serving with the US military in the Korean war, Mr. Begay, with funding from the US department of Veteran Affairs, enrolled in the University of New Mexico. He had take extra classes to make up for his lack of education in mathematics, physics and english, which he was never taught before. After a lot of hard work, he earned his PhD in nuclear physics and began to conduct research at the Los Alamos national laboratory.

His Work

Currently, Mr. Begay is investigating thermonuclear fusion that he believes may be the reason why fusion is not working. This research may help in making fusion a viable energy source that could replace fossil fuels and reduce CO2 emissions. This is significant because of the potential impact his research could have on helping to reduce the effects of anthropogenic CO2 emissions on our climate.

In addition, Mr. Begay seeks to draw parallels between Navajo traditional knowledge and modern science and has investigated the similarities and connections between the two.

I find his work inspiring not only because of my own interest in nuclear physics but also because of the parallels he draws between traditional and scientific knowledge. It is amazing that scientific knowledge has a spiritual counterpart with similar conclusions but produced with different methods.

https://www.physicscentral.com/explore/people/begay.cfm