Scientist Jan Hladký

With characteristic panache, Jan Hladký proves the adage that looks can be deceiving.

Seeing him on the street, you might be tempted to give this rail-thin gentleman whose eyes twinkle with private laughter a few crowns for one of his pen-and-ink sketches or even invite him to lunch, just to get in on his joke. (He would decline, of course, patting his pocket and saying, "I carry my own.")

And if you came across Hladký eating said lunch - thick slices of bread, fruit and a round of cheese - on one of Prague's park benches, or taking his daily dip in the Berounka River, you would never guess he works at the Czech Academy of Sciences' Institute of Physics and teaches particle physics at Charles University and the Technical University in Prague. Nor would you look for him or his artwork at the European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN) in Geneva, or the Deutsches Elektronen Synchrotron (DESY) Institute in Hamburg. That's the way Hladký wants it. In his long life, he's learned the value of underplaying his hand.

"If you don't ask for anything, they can't take anything away from you," he says.

THE HLADKÝ FILE

Born: 1934 in Bečváry, near Prague
Greatest scientific accomplishments: 1968 Soviet prize for helping discover the decay of vector meson phi into electrons and positrons, and getting his doctorate in mathematics and physics
Greatest artistic accomplishments: 1987 acceptance into the Syndicate of Czechoslovak Fine Artists and numerous international exhibitions

Born in 1934, Hladký grew up in the Bečváry Chateau, where he says he got the foundation for his Spartan lifestyle, which kept the family in good stead when they were evicted in 1949.

"My father was the town doctor. The chateau belonged to my mother's family. Money was a necessary evil: We bought what was needed and tried not to need too much."

Later, the local Communist Party Committee sent him to study at the Faculty of Mechanics of Agriculture. Hladký wanted to study physics, but he says, "They needed someone to keep their tractors running, so they sent me to tractor school." Hladký obliged, but on his own terms, studying at the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics at the same time as he was learning the mechanics of tractors, which would stand him in good stead later.

Hladký got both diplomas in 1957 and 1962, respectively. But, because of his refusal to join the Communist Party, it took him another 37 years and a peaceful revolution to get his professorship. But paradoxically, it was the technical degree that gave him his career edge.

"Not too many physical scientists know how to fix their own machines," Hladký says.

From 1963 to 1970, Hladký took part in research at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR), near Moscow. There, in 1968, he and his team won the Soviet prize when they discovered the decay of vector meson phi into electrons and positrons. The discovery is mentioned in Particle Physics, One Hundred Years of Discoveries, a 1996 publication from the American Institute of Physics, along with those of Roentgen and Einstein.

While Hladký's stay at JINR put him on the map among physicists, it also got him on both the KGB and StB blacklists: After the 1968 invasion, he was suspected of organizing a strike of Czechoslovak scientists in Moscow. At this time, the scientist says, he had the opportunity to emigrate to the West but decided against it.

"I was never a big fan of that golden calf," he says. "Besides, my parents were here."

In 1970, when Hladký returned to Czechoslovakia, the door slammed shut: He wasn't allowed to leave the country for 16 years.

"They hauled me off the train to Moscow, where I was going to collect that prize," he says. "Even the Soviet Union didn't want me."

Thanks to his Soviet prize, he didn't lose his post as researcher at the Institute of Physics. But because of the tenuous nature of his situation, Hladký never knew when he would be fired and marked a "social parasite," so he added the freelance profession of artist to his résumé. His pen-and-ink sketches and sculptures on particle physics themes made, characteristically, of recycled pieces of old experimental apparatuses, were an escape from the petty battles at the institute.

"Art was my mouse-hole into another world," he says.

He was also good at it: In 1987, he was accepted into the Syndicate of Czechoslovak Fine Artists. Art also helped him develop two qualities essential for a scientist. One is creativity.

"It's like walking into a dark room," Hladký says. "Without creativity, you just stare into space, but with it you go bumping around and maybe even find something worthwhile."

The other, intuition, helped him choose his projects wisely.  

"I was lucky to join projects that went somewhere, unlike a lot of my colleagues who pursued hypotheses that fizzled out. … When you're in a field long enough, you just develop a sense for what fits and what doesn't."

The Velvet Revolution freed Hladký from his inner exile, and since 1990 he's been commuting between Prague, DESY and CERN. At DESY, he helps build new equipment - skills he learned at JINR.

"He told me about it once," says Hladký's colleague in Hamburg, Jörg Gayler. "Back then, some equipment was much bigger, with huge accelerator magnets they sometimes had to climb inside."

At CERN, as a member of the ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) team, Hladký recreates matter that existed at the start of the universe itself. It is as if, at 76, he is making up for lost time.

"He works like a young man," says Hladký's erstwhile DESY colleague Pedro Waloschek. "He does night shifts. … In my group, people over 50 were not asked to do night shifts anymore."

Still, Hladký does not let research rule his life, even when he is abroad.

"It was very important for him to take a dip in the Elbe, even though the weather was poor," Gayler said. "And he always makes a point of visiting concerts, including those put on by my own little orchestra."

Of course, Hladký hasn't turned his back on his art. His latest show took place at CERN this spring, and proceeds went to support victims of the Japanese earthquake. Despite the ups and downs of his professional life, Hladký doesn't regret the "lost" years of Normalization.

"That travel restriction was a blessing in disguise," he says. "At least it made me stay home and focus on what was important."

Eva Munk can be reached at
features@praguepost.com