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To the 70th anniversary of the Atomic
Project of the USSR. Essay 1. Threshold: Nuclear physics
researches in the USSR, in 1930s |
B.S. Gorobets
To begin with 1920s, the first researches of nuclear physics commenced in the USSR, and to 1940 their level approached the one achieved by the advanced West countries. The birth and successive development of nuclear physics and radiochemistry relates, first of all, to the names of academicians Alexander Leipunskii, Vladimir Vernadskii, Vitalii Khlopin, Abram Ioffe, Sergei Vavilov, professors Igor Kurchatov, Yulii Khariton, Yakov Zeldovich. In 1932, in Kharkov (Ukrainian Institute of Physics and Technology), nucleus of lithium was splitted in the proton accelerator. In 1935, in Leningrad, the first cyclotron gave powerfull neutron bunch. In 1939-1940, Khariton and Zeldovich forecasted by calculations the possibility of nuclear chain reaction of fission of uranium-235, placed in heavy water/ Its deuterium has to make much more slow fast neutrons emitted by uranium-235 after fission. These neutrons, 2,5 per one fission in average, after being slow, collide new uranium-235 nucleus, split them and so on. As an enormous energy is liberated in every act of fission, powerful nuclear explosion can be produced within half of microsecond. Keywords: Alexander Leipunskii, Vladimir Vernadskii, Vitalii Khlopin, Igir Kurchatov, Yulii Khariton, Yakov Zeldovich, uranium-235, nuclear chain reaction.
Contacts: E-mail: bgorobets@rambler.ru
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