Accepted articles

Conferences and symposia. On the 80th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War


The Role of the Academy of Sciences in the Atomic Project


Russian Federal Nuclear Center - All-Russian Research Institute of Experimental Physics, prosp. Mira 37, Sarov, Nizhny Novgorod region, 607188, Russian Federation

The review is an expanded version of the report at the Department of Physical Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War and the 80th anniversary of the Nuclear Industry. The author hopes that the article will be useful to a wide range of readers, especially the younger generation; it describes how in the most difficult political and economic conditions of complete isolation from the other countries and any help, after losing 27 million of its citizens in the Great Patriotic War and having suffered huge losses, our country was able to solve the tasks of modernization in a surprisingly short time, and it brought our country to the leaders of world development. In 1957, our country launched a satellite, and in 1961, Yu.A. Gagarin was the first to fly into space... The achievements of our Atomic Project of those years are an outstanding example of what scientific and technical heights can be achieved in Russia when three main conditions are combined: a vital super-task, creative work of specialists of various professions united in the final unique product and, finally, powerful state support. These were the greatest advances in high technology - technology based on entirely new scientific knowledge. The leaders of the country and the leaders of the Atomic Project managed to organize the work by creating multidisciplinary groups of specialists, closely linking the solution of scientific, engineering, experimental and technological work into a single system of work aimed at creating an atomic bomb during 2-3 years. The rapid implementation of the achievements of fundamental science due to the correct choice of priorities and focusing the resources on them, the selection and education of talented personnel, the highest responsibility and enthusiasm of all nuclear weapons specialists has allowed and allows our country for many decades, with significantly less financial and economic resources of our country compared to the USA, to effectively maintain strategic balance in the world and thereby ensure peace.

Keywords: Atomic Project of the USSR, the role of the Academy of Sciences, the development of the first nuclear and thermonuclear devices
DOI: 10.3367/UFNe.2025.05.039982
Citation: Chernyshev A K "The Role of the Academy of Sciences in the Atomic Project" Phys. Usp., accepted

14th, May 2025

Оригинал: Чернышев А К «Роль Академии наук в Атомном проекте» УФН, принята к публикации; DOI: 10.3367/UFNr.2025.05.039982

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