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about

- Soviet atomic research ©

@ Canadian daily papers —
are screaming “impos-
sible” at Vishinsky’s state-
ment that in the USSR at-
omic explosions are mov-
ing mountains, changing
the courses of rivers and
blasting new channels for
their waters to revive des-
erts. The same writers and.
politicians who held the
_ “limitless power” of the
» atom bomb for destruction
as a threat ‘to maintain a
Shrill war hysteria now
Suddenly discover that its
Power for construction is
limited. Not all the experts
agree on this, of course,
but only the sceptics and
the sneerers get the head-

lines,

Thus, New York Herald
Tribune writer ‘Stephen
White maintains that

mountains can’t be moved
because, while an atomic
blast could “lift a million

—MOSCOW

OTHING is. further from the truth than the propagandist as
sertions of the spokesmen of American warmongers that Soviet
research in the field of atomic energy only began on an important
scale after the bomb’s’ explosion. Indeed, an objective study of pub-
lished documents léads the layman to the conclusion that during the

period when American atomic
scientists were concentrating on
the atom bomb, Soviet science,
true to its great tradition, was
already wel] in advance of the
rest of the world in studying ways
of releasing atomic energy for
constructive purposes.

Although the knowledge that
the Soviet Union has had atomic
weapons at its disposal for some

_.two years has only become pub-
tie recently, the Soviet public has
been prepared for the “atomic
age” by books, popular science
lectures, and the wireless. In-

deed, wise after the event, it is
difficult to conceive how, with all

“this evidence before one, there
could have been any doubt about
the results of research.

‘As far back as 1944, Academ-
ician A, E. Fersman in a booklet
entitled Twenty-five Years of So-
viet Natural Science, published
by the Foreign: Languages Pub-
lishing House, wrote: |
. “The tremendous energy pent
wp in matter does not yet seem
to all to be.a real source of
indusrial power of the future,
and heated scientific debates:
are even taking place about the
_ esuntries, perhaps particularly on

-account of the war, enormous
research work is being done in
that direction. Eleven special
laboratories are working on this
problem in America, and in our
‘country too it is being widely
investigated. Perhaps _ not too
soon, and yet perhaps tomorrow,

‘it may supply humanity with an —

‘absolutely new and immeasurable

source of energy.”

" In conditions of war-time se-
curity, this leading Soviet scien-

‘tist could obviously go no fur-

‘ther than this, but one can now
‘read /between the lines the clear
‘hint that fully a year before the
first atomic bomb was exploded,
‘the Soviét Union was devoting
‘very great attention to the prob-
lem of harnessing atomic energy,
primarily for industrial purposes.

butions made by Russian and
Soviet scientists to atomic phys-
ics, this research and the suc-
cess with which it has been at-
tended are in no way surpris-
ing. And only the most scien-
tifically illiterate and politically
dense will believe the ravings of

\

In view of the great contri-

those propagandists who are at-
tributing Soviet success to leak-
ages from America or else-.
where, and who argue that the
efforts involved would lay an
over-severe strain on the Soviet
economy, —

The contemporary work of the’
Soviet nuclear physicists is in
the direct line of development
.frem the principles evolved by
that great all-round scientist Mik-
hail Vasilievich Lomonsov, who
may be described .as the first
physical chemist. Though he did
not use the terms “molecules”
and “atoms,” his concepts of the
nature of matter were identical
with those that led others to
name his “particles” molecules
and his “corpuscles” atoms.

In 1748 Lomonsoy published his
epoch-making law on the con- i
servation of substance and , en-
ergy, establishing that energy

_ does not arise by itself nor dis-

appear’ without leaving a trace.
“When one moving body sets an-
other into movement it loses
just that amount of movement
that it transfers to the other.
,And further, energy of one kind

can be transformed into energy

of another kind, for example
from mechanical movement into
heat.’ z ;

On February 10, 1834,:69 years —
after the death of Lomonsov,
Dmitri Mendeleyey was born,
the seventeenth child of the fam-
ily of a Tobolsk school teacher.
In 1865 he graduated with a
master’s degree in organic chem-
istry, _a science at that time

_ largely devoted to seeking an

answer to the question what it
was that bound together. the
atomic structure of the elements.
The most outstanding Russian
organic chemist studying this

problem was M. G _ Pavlov of _

Moscow University, and, some-
‘what later, when Mendeleyev be-
gan his researches, A.M. Butler-
joy of Kazan University,. who
established the law of the dif-

_ ferent valences of atoms. Class-

ifying the elements in order. of
their atomic weights, Mendeleyev
in 1869 announced his discovery
of the law of periodicity and
shortly afterwards established
the atomic weight of uranium at
240 Rais
In’ 1886;°A: M. Butlerov wrote:
“Atoms. are ‘not. indivisible in

: ig
their nature but indivisible only
by the methods available to us

» .. they may be divided! by new

processes to-
the future.”

be discovered in

All subsequent work leading
to the splitting of the atom—
whether by Rutherford, Henry

‘Mosley, Nils Bor or others—was

based on the application of Men-
deleyev’s law.

To this work of the physicists
Russia made great ‘contributions,
One need mention only Acade-
micians V. I. Vernadsky and A.
£. Fersman, creators of the new
science of geo-chemistry for the
study of the history of chemical
elements on the earth’s surface
in the light of the law of
periodicity. i

Their work, as that of foreign
scientists, towards ‘the releasing
of atomic energy derived direct-
ly from the Mendeleyev principle
that atoms have no. everlasting
life, since there is nothing perm-
anent in their weight or energy;
that atoms may be transferred
and split with changes in their
weight and energy. Thus almost
80 years ago Mendeleyev showed
the way to thesrelease of atomic
energy. :

And ‘thus Soviet research on
atomic energy has followed a
constant course, exploring many
paths opened up by Russian
scientists of the past,

Writing in a popular scientific
handbook at the beginning of
1949, B. Stepanov said:

“Following the course that
Mendeleyev spoke of, contemp-
orary science, , has discovered the
possibility of making’ direct use
of nuclear energy:... Nuclear
energy, isolated in apparatus for
splitting uranium and plutonium,
is useable for transforming water
into *high pressure steam for
driving the turbines of electro-
stations. paps

“And there is no doubt that
in the future simple chains of
energy will be discovered, The

successes achieved by contemp- |

orary science permit the hope
that in the future mankind will

‘use atomic energy released not

only by the process of splitting

_the uranium and plutonium nuc-
‘leus, but as the result of other

Processes still richer in the pro-
duction of energy.”

And the writer goes on to en-
visage the use of atomic energy
for providing the motive force
for airplanes, for influencing
the weather and for medical pur-
poses.

Nearly six years have passed

since Academician
wrote that the building of the
first Soviet cyclotron in the Ra-
dium Institute had led to the

discovery. of the disintegration.
- Of uranism, and that the prob- |
‘lem of the atom and the utiliza-

tion” of the energy contained
within it was the first of the
seven main problems of natural
scrence On which Soviet scientists
were working, at

Paying tribute to Mendeleyev’s
brilliant Periodic Law, he de-
scribed how the physicists of
Joffe’s school and of the Radium
Institute had joinéd forces to
work out solutions of this prob-

lem. “Joffe was able to ascer-_

tain the distribution of uranium
atoms over the territory of the
Soviet Union,” he wrote. “On
the basis of his advanced theor-
etical knowledge he devised prac-
tical methods of extracting them
in their scattered conditions.”

“And,” he continued, “the So-
viet radiologist Peterzhak suc-

ceeded in observing a phenom-.

enon which is called forth ar-
tificially in uranium atoms “by
bombarding them with neutrons”
-—the destruction of the atom of
uranium simultaneously with its
conversion into a series of radio-

elements by its disintegration in- alt

to séparate electromagnetic’ clus-
ters, new full-fledged elements
of the Mendeleyev table.

What it. is important to note
is that this research, backed by
all the vast resources of the

_ Soviet Union and given the full-

est official support, as well as
the successes achieved by | it,
happened long before the ex-

plosion of the first American | _

atom bomb.

Fersman

cubic feet of rock a qua'rter
of a°mile in the air,” the
rock “would be disagree-
able enough to fall back
to earth again.” But any
construction worker knows
that blasts can be direc-
tional, and that rock can
be blown sideways and
leave a hole where needed.

In reply, William Mandel,
New York Compass writer,
cites a Soviet magazine ar-

_ticle dated January 1947
which said: “Power of ex-
Plosive materials may be
used successfully not for
destruction but for erection
of structures such as dams,
dikes and embankments.”
The article, indicative of
customary technical prac-—
tices in Russia, further de-
scribes how debris blown
upward by a main ‘explo-
sion is made to fall wher-
€ver required by another
explosion immediately af-
terwards. From the auth-
or’s phrasing and what we
know to be true now, it is
clear he was writing about
‘Such use of the atom al-
most two full years ago.

isAs° for: radioactivity — at
atomic explosion sites,
which is also used to ar-
gue the “impossibility” of
Such work, U.S. scientists
testify that the active area
after the New Mexico blast
was only a mile or so
Square, and that the area
was safe after a few
weeks, White says happily
that radioactivity would
Make it too hot for any-
one immediately “to move
in with a shovel,” Couldn’t
they wait a few weeks?
The blown-up mountains,
_ after all, were there con-
siderably longer,

‘

4 New Gulf Stream |

A® extraordinarily interesting

book is very popular in the
USSR. It is called New Gulf
Stream, by Podsosov. f

It is one of those scientific ad-
children.

an artificial “Gulf Stream” to car-
ry warm water to the Soviet
Arctic. The power for this am-
bitious proposal is to be supplied
by atomic fuel. | sii

_ Besides melting the Arctic ice,
the artificial current will improve
the climate in the Soviet Central
Asian fepublics situated in the
hot desert zones, for huge reserves
of water collect in large lakes

\

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — DECEMBER 2, 1949 — PAGE 4

will make’ it possible to turn all
the Central Asian deserts into
fertile lands, '
What a contrast is this idea of
using atomic energy for peaceful

; . Purposes—incidentally 1
venture stories so beloved of older Sari re THR! HOA

The hero of the story
‘is at work on a project to create

was written before the war—to
‘the numerous “atomic horror”
stories with which book markets
in the U.S. and Canada are be-.
ing flooded. Even those written
in fictional form envisage nothing’
.but disaster and misfortune from
the use of atomic power.

In the Soviet Union they think
differently. Atomic power like
that created by the hero of this
book, will be utilized to provide
finer living conditions for the
whole people.

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