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He was the founder and first director of the Institute of Atomic Energy, the chief scientific director of the atomic problem in the USSR, as well as one of the founders of the use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. All this is about the famous Igor Vasilyevich Kurchatov.

Today we decided to remember and illustrate for you the biography of the “father” of the Soviet atomic bomb.

Igor Vasilyevich was born on January 12, 1903 in the village of the Simsky plant in the Southern Urals in the family of a land surveyor and a teacher. At the age of 12 he entered the gymnasium, from which he graduated with a gold medal, despite the great need for his family.

After school, he studied at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of the Crimean University in Simferopol (graduated in 1923).

Igor Kurchatov(left) with his high school friend

After graduating from Crimean University. In the center is I.V. Kurchatov. 1923

In the spring of 1925, Kurchatov was invited by A.F. Ioffe to the Leningrad Institute of Physics and Technology. Since 1933, he worked on problems of atomic nuclear physics.

IgorVasilevich Kurchatovin Baku. 1924

Together with a group of colleagues, he studied nuclear reactions caused by fast and slow neutrons; discovered the phenomenon of nuclear isometry in artificially produced radioactive bromine.

I. V. Kurchatov is an employee of the Radium Institute. Mid 1930s.

Kurchatov is one of the creators of the first uranium-graphite reactor, which was launched in December 1946.

IgorVasilevich Kurchatov

Students of A.F. Ioffe at the Physics and Technology Institute. From left to right: D. N. Nasledov, A. P. Alexandrov, L. M. Nemenov, Yu. P. Maslakovets, I. V. Kurchatov, P. V. Sharavsky, O. V. Losev. 1932

Soviet physicist Igor Kurchatov (sitting on the right) among the staff of the Leningrad Institute of Physics and Technology

A special role belongs to Kurchatov in the formation and development of nuclear energy. He led the creation of the atomic bomb in the USSR. Work began during the Great Patriotic War(1943).

IgorVasilevich Kurchatov

Then, at the Academy of Sciences, Kurchatov created a closed laboratory where research was conducted aimed at obtaining a nuclear chain reaction. The atomic bomb was created in 1949, the hydrogen bomb in 1953, the world's first industrial nuclear power plant in 1954.

A. Sakharov and I. Kurchatov (right), photograph from 1958

In 1955, the laboratory was transformed into the Institute of Atomic Energy (since 1960 it has been named after Kurchatov).

The most atomic guys of the USSR: Igor Kurchatov(left) and Yuli Khariton

An academician since 1943, Kurchatov received many awards, including five Orders of Lenin.

In 1957 he became a Lenin Prize laureate. Kurchatov's contemporaries note that Igor Vasilyevich was a man of enormous intelligence, talent and hard work.

Academician Igor Kurchatov (left) talks with Marshal of the Soviet Union Andrei Eremenko (right)

Igor Kurchatov

M.A. Lavrentiev and I.V. Kurchatov (on vacation in Crimea). 1958

IgorKurchatov on the podium of the Extraordinary XXI Congress of the CPSU (1959)

He was happy to support jokes, loved to come up with nicknames for his comrades, and he himself readily responded when he was called “Beard.”

Monument to Igor Kurchatov on the square named after him in Moscow

Kurchatov’s favorite word was “I understand.” It was this that became the last thing on his lips when, on February 7, 1960, he died right at the moment of a conversation with a colleague, sitting on a bench in Barvikha, near Moscow.

What was the chief scientific director of the atomic problem in the USSR and the “father” of the Soviet atomic bomb - Igor Vasilievich Kurchatov.

Igor Vasilyevich Kurchatov was born on January 12, 1903 in the family of an assistant forester in Bashkiria. In 1909, his family moved to Simbirsk.


In 1912, the Kurchatovs moved to Simferopol, where little Igor entered the first grade of the gymnasium. In 1920 he graduated from high school with a gold medal.

Igor Kurchatov (left) with his schoolmate
In September of the same year, Kurchatov entered the first year of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of the Crimean University. In 1923, he completed a four-year course in three years and brilliantly defended his thesis.

Igor Kurchatov - employee of the Leningrad Institute of Physics and Technology of the USSR Academy of Sciences


Soviet physicist Igor Kurchatov (sitting on the right) among the staff of the Leningrad Institute of Physics and Technology
The young graduate was sent as a physics teacher at the Baku Polytechnic Institute. Six months later, Kurchatov left for Petrograd and entered the third year of the shipbuilding faculty of the Polytechnic Institute.

Igor Vasilyevich Kurchatov in Baku. 1924
In the spring of 1925, when classes at the Polytechnic Institute ended, Kurchatov left for Leningrad to the Institute of Physics and Technology in the laboratory of the famous physicist Ioffe.




Soviet physicist Igor Kurchatov
Accepted as an assistant in 1925, he received the title of first-class researcher, then senior physics engineer. Kurchatov taught a course in dielectric physics at the Faculty of Physics and Mechanics of the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute and at the Pedagogical Institute.


I.V. Kurchatov is an employee of the Radium Institute. Mid 1930s
In 1930, Kurchatov was appointed head of the physics department of the Leningrad Institute of Physics and Technology. And at this time he began to study atomic physics.

Igor Kurchatov and Marina Sinelnikova, who later became his wife
Having begun to study artificial radioactivity, Igor Vasilyevich already in April 1935 reported on a new phenomenon he had discovered together with his brother Boris and L.I. Rusinov - isomerism of artificial atomic nuclei.

Lev Ilyich Rusinov
At the beginning of 1940, the program of scientific work planned by Kurchatov was interrupted, and instead of nuclear physics, he began to develop demagnetization systems for warships. The installation created by his employees made it possible to protect warships from German magnetic mines.


Igor Kurchatov
Kurchatov, together with his brother Boris, built a uranium-graphite boiler in their Laboratory No. 2, where they obtained the first weight portions of plutonium. On August 29, 1949, the physicists who created the bomb, seeing dazzling light and the mushroom cloud extending into the stratosphere breathed a sigh of relief. They fulfilled their obligations.

Almost four years later, on the morning of August 12, 1953, before sunrise, an explosion was heard over the test site. Successfully tested, now the first in the world hydrogen bomb.
Igor Vasilievich is one of the founders of the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. At an international conference in England, he spoke about this Soviet program. His performance was sensational.

N.S. Khrushchev, N. A. Bulganin and I. V. Kurchatov on the cruiser "Ordzhonikidze"


The most atomic guys of the USSR: Igor Kurchatov (left) and Yuli Khariton


1958. Garden of Igor Kurchatov. Sakharov convinces the director of the Institute of Atomic Energy of the need for a moratorium on thermonuclear weapons testing
Citing the idea of ​​the peaceful use of nuclear energy, Kurchatov and his team began working on a nuclear power plant project back in 1949. The result of the team’s work was the development, construction and launch of the Obninsk Nuclear Power Plant on June 26, 1954. It became the world's first nuclear power plant


Nuclear physicist Kurchatov I.V.
In February 1960, Kurchatov came to the Barvikha sanatorium to visit his friend Academician Yu. B. Khariton. Sitting down on a bench, they started talking, suddenly there was a pause, and when Khariton looked at Kurchatov, he was already dead. Death was due to cardiac embolism with a thrombus.


Monument to Kurchatov in Chelyabinsk on Science Square

Monument to Igor Kurchatov on the square named after him in Moscow


Monument to Kurchatov in the city of Ozyorsk
After his death on February 7, 1960, the scientist’s body was cremated, and the ashes were placed in an urn in the Kremlin wall on Red Square in Moscow.

The Armenian top-secret nuclear brain of Russia is the godfather of the atomic bomb Shchelkin Kirill Ivanovich - Metaksyan Kirakos Ovanesovich. A thrice Hero who remained secret, an Armenian whom the people did not know, remained unknown. Legendary person. Secret leader and organizer defense industry, creator of a great power's secret atomic weapon. Almost the only person who was trusted to test the first, second, third and all other atomic bombs. It is noteworthy that when Shchelkin reported to Kurchatov on August 29, 1949 that the atomic bomb was loaded and ready for testing, Kurchatov said: “Well, the bomb already has a name, so let there be a godfather - Shchelkin.” But let’s return to the Armenian origin of Kirill Ivanovich Shchelkin. I have read several dozen more or less detailed biographies of the nuclear scientist, but not one of them even briefly mentions his Armenian origin. Perhaps many of his biographers simply did not know about it. But it is equally likely that some of them were aware of this and deliberately avoided the topic. Of course, the fact that Shchelkin was an Armenian was known in the highest echelons of power. Suffice it to say that the work on creating an atomic bomb was carried out under the general patronage of Lavrentiy Beria, and he knew everything about everyone. And I dare to express my conviction that if Shchelkin had not been so needed in the nuclear team, his fate would have turned out completely differently.

In Soviet times, there was a theory about the origin of Kirill Ivanovich Shchelkin... It was a legend based on the fact that Kirill Ivanovich in early childhood lived with his parents in Transcaucasia and that is why he spoke Armenian fluently. It was alleged that Kirill Ivanovich’s father was Ivan Efimovich Shchelkin, his mother was Vera Alekseevna Shchelkina, a teacher... Thus, for many years his Armenian origin was denied... The Armenian trace in nuclear construction Kirill Shchelkin is a man who knew everything about the anatomy of an explosion. After testing the first hydrogen bomb on August 12, 1953, the idea arose to create a research institute, a second weapons center. It is clear that this was a classified object, the usual Soviet citizens there was no way to know about him. At the suggestion of I. Kurchatov, Kirill Ivanovich Shchelkin was appointed scientific director and chief designer of the new institute. Now this name is already well known to many, but then, with all its regalia and high government awards, only narrow specialists, nuclear weapons specialists, knew about it. A characteristic feature of the Soviet formation: Kirill Shchelkin was in the same group as Yuri Khariton, Igor Kurchatov, Yakov Zeldovich, Andrei Sakharov, together with them he received the Stalin Prize and the gold stars of the Hero of Socialist Labor and at the same time remained unknown. Legendary person. The secret leader and organizer of the defense industry, the creator of the secret atomic weapons of a great power. This is how NII-1011 was created, an object without a name, a “mailbox”. Today it is declassified and known as the Russian Federal Nuclear Center - VNII of Technical Physics. The ascent to the atomic Olympus has taken place. By that time, Kirill Shchelkin held the position of first deputy chief designer and head of the creation of atomic weapons, Yuri Khariton, and was practically the only person in the Soviet Union who knew absolutely everything about the internal mechanisms of an explosion, about the anatomy of an explosion. He was a Doctor of Science, the author of a large number of important studies that had enormous applied and theoretical significance. In his doctoral dissertation, brilliantly defended in 1946, he substantiated and put forward a theory of the occurrence of detonation. The work was called: “Rapid combustion and gas detonation.”

Shchelkin's father Hovhannes Metaksyan...

Mother - Vera Alekseevna... This research of his opened the way for the creation of powerful jet and rocket engines. Without the results of his work, according to the scientist’s colleagues, the development of nuclear weapons would simply be impossible. Looking ahead, I will say that for many years Shchelkin remained an outstanding scientist whose works could not be referenced. The theory existed, this theory had an author, the author had a name, and it was quite famous in the world of nuclear scientists, but it was impossible to refer to this name... In 1947-1948. K. Shchelkin led a wide research area. The first nuclear reactor in Europe was put into operation in the Soviet country. The team headed by Shchelkin began to design and create an atomic bomb. Prominent scientists of that time were involved in the work - Mstislav Keldysh, Artem Alikhanyan, Yakov Zeldovich, Samvel Kocharyants, and other specialists. General management of the work was entrusted to Igor Kurchatov. He was even forbidden to visit nuclear centers, the very ones in which he worked almost his entire adult life. Without good reason, this is not done to specialists of such a high rank. The worst thing was that such strange things continued. The last of them can be considered that after the death of Kirill Ivanovich Shchelkin, some people came and, without going into explanations, took away from the family all his government awards, laureate insignia, even the stars of the Hero of Socialist Labor. Let us note in this regard that only those who, without knowing it, stepped on the “sore spot” of the System, received such close attention from the supreme partyocracy. Why? What's happened? Why did the outstanding scientist not please the Soviet partyocracy? With a very high degree of probability, it can be argued that Shchelkin made powerful enemies for himself because, together with Academician Andrei Sakharov and other creators of super-powerful weapons, he opposed nuclear madness. Let me remind you that these were the years when the Cold War could have spilled over into the Third World War from any careless spark. The Soviet Union was intensively working on a 100-megaton bomb, several thousand times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The appearance of this charge brought the planet to the brink of nuclear disaster during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Only the voice of one of the creators of Soviet nuclear weapons, Kirill Ivanovich Shchelkin, sounded dissonant, who dared to assert that for defense purposes it was enough to have small nuclear charges. The creator of the atomic monster rebelled against his own creation, against the testing of powerful and super-powerful nuclear charges. For the sake of objectivity, I note that this is the most likely and convincing version, but it does not find documentary evidence. Thus, even such an informed specialist as Academician L. Feoktistov, who was very close to the “Atomic Project,” believes that the question of the reasons for the repressions that befell Kirill Shchelkin is still not completely clear.

PHOTO: Kirill Ivanovich with his sister Irina, 1929 And only in the post-Soviet era, in the brochure “Pages of the History of the Nuclear Center”, published in 1998, the real name and surname of Kirill Ivanovich Shchelkin was named - Kirakos Ovanesovich Metaksyan. This is followed by publications in the Armenian republican press, in Armenian newspapers in Lebanon and the USA. But even today very few people know about it. Grigor Martirosyan, in his attempt to intrigue the reader, entitled his book in an emphatically catchy manner: “Shchelkin Kirill Ivanovich. Metaksyan Kirakos Ovanesovich. Three times Hero, an Armenian who remained secret and is not known to the people.” IN National Archives The RA stores documentary materials about the parents of Kirakos Metaksyan, about himself and about his sister Irina, which clearly confirm the Armenian origin of the outstanding Soviet nuclear scientist. From them we learn that Kirakos Metaksyan was born on May 17, 1911. in Tiflis, in the family of land surveyor Hovhannes Epremovich Metaksyan. In 1915, the Shchelkin family moved to Erivan. In 1918, Hovhannes Metaksyan (renamed Ivan Efimovich Shchelkin) and his family moved to the city of Krasny, Smolensk region. There, the life of the Armenian family changed radically and began with a blank page. Over the years, they began to write a new, “Russian” biography of Kirill Ivanovich Shchelkin. Of course, Kirill Shchelkin belongs Soviet history. Just like Russian history belong to other great Armenians - Alexander Suvorov, Ivan Aivazovsky, Admiral Lazar Serebryakov (Kazar Artsatagortsyan), Admiral Ivan Isakov, Air Marshal Sergei Khudyakov (Khanferyants), many, many others.

“I am not the simplest person,” American physicist Isidor Isaac Rabi once remarked. “But compared to Oppenheimer, I am very, very simple.” Robert Oppenheimer was one of the central figures of the twentieth century, whose very “complexity” absorbed the political and ethical contradictions of the country.

During World War II, the brilliant man led the development of American nuclear scientists to create the first atomic bomb in human history. The scientist led a solitary and secluded lifestyle, and this gave rise to suspicions of treason.

Atomic weapons are the result of all previous developments of science and technology. Discoveries that are directly related to its occurrence were made in late XIX V. The research of A. Becquerel, Pierre Curie and Marie Sklodowska-Curie, E. Rutherford and others played a huge role in revealing the secrets of the atom.

At the beginning of 1939, the French physicist Joliot-Curie concluded that a chain reaction was possible that would lead to an explosion of monstrous destructive force and that uranium could become a source of energy, like an ordinary explosive. This conclusion became the impetus for developments in the creation of nuclear weapons.

Europe was on the eve of World War II, and the potential possession of such powerful weapons pushed militaristic circles to quickly create them, but the problem of having a large number of weapons was a brake. uranium ore for large-scale research. Physicists from Germany, England, the USA, and Japan worked on the creation of atomic weapons, realizing that without a sufficient amount of uranium ore it was impossible to carry out work, the USA purchased a large number of the required ore according to false documents from Belgium, which allowed them to carry out work on the creation of nuclear weapons in full swing.

From 1939 to 1945, more than two billion dollars were spent on the Manhattan Project. A huge uranium purification plant was built in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. H.C. Urey and Ernest O. Lawrence (inventor of the cyclotron) proposed a purification method based on the principle of gas diffusion followed by magnetic separation of the two isotopes. A gas centrifuge separated the light Uranium-235 from the heavier Uranium-238.

On the territory of the United States, in Los Alamos, in the desert expanses of New Mexico, an American nuclear center was created in 1942. Many scientists worked on the project, but the main one was Robert Oppenheimer. Under his leadership, the best minds of that time were gathered not only in the USA and England, but in almost all of Western Europe. A huge team worked on the creation of nuclear weapons, including 12 Nobel Prize laureates. Work in Los Alamos, where the laboratory was located, did not stop for a minute. In Europe, meanwhile, the Second World War, and Germany carried out massive bombings of English cities, which endangered the English atomic project “Tub Alloys”, and England voluntarily transferred its developments and leading scientists of the project to the United States, which allowed the United States to take over leading position in the development of nuclear physics (creation of nuclear weapons).

“”, he was at the same time an ardent opponent of American nuclear policy. Bearing the title of one of the most outstanding physicists of his time, he enjoyed studying the mysticism of ancient Indian books. Communist, traveler and staunch American patriot, very spiritual person, he was nevertheless willing to betray his friends in order to protect himself from attacks by anti-communists. The scientist who developed the plan to cause the greatest damage to Hiroshima and Nagasaki cursed himself for the “innocent blood on his hands.”

Writing about this controversial man is not an easy task, but it is an interesting one, and the twentieth century is marked by a number of books about him. However, the scientist’s rich life continues to attract biographers.

Oppenheimer was born in New York in 1903 into a family of wealthy and educated Jews. Oppenheimer was brought up in a love of painting, music, and in an atmosphere of intellectual curiosity. In 1922, he entered Harvard University and graduated with honors in just three years, his main subject being chemistry. Over the next few years, the precocious young man traveled to several European countries, where he worked with physicists who were studying the problems of studying atomic phenomena in the light of new theories. Just a year after graduating from university, Oppenheimer published scientific work, which showed how deeply he understands new methods. Soon he, together with the famous Max Born, developed the most important part quantum theory, known as the Born-Oppenheimer method. In 1927, his outstanding doctoral dissertation brought him worldwide fame.

In 1928 he worked at the Universities of Zurich and Leiden. The same year he returned to the USA. From 1929 to 1947, Oppenheimer taught at the University of California and the California Institute of Technology. From 1939 to 1945, he actively participated in the work on creating an atomic bomb as part of the Manhattan Project; heading the Los Alamos laboratory specially created for this purpose.

In 1929, Oppenheimer, a rising scientific star, accepted offers from two of several universities vying for the right to invite him. He taught the spring semester at the vibrant, young California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, and the fall and winter semesters at the University of California, Berkeley, where he became the first professor of quantum mechanics. In fact, the polymath had to adjust for some time, gradually reducing the level of discussion to the capabilities of his students. In 1936, he fell in love with Jean Tatlock, a restless and moody young woman whose passionate idealism found outlet in communist activism. Like many thoughtful people of that time, Oppenheimer studied the ideas of the left movement as one of the possible alternatives, although he did not join the Communist Party that made him younger brother, sister-in-law and many of his friends. His interest in politics, like his ability to read Sanskrit, was a natural result of his constant pursuit of knowledge. According to him in my own words, he was also deeply alarmed by the explosion of anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany and Spain and invested $1,000 a year of his $15,000 annual salary in projects related to the activities of communist groups. After meeting Kitty Harrison, who became his wife in 1940, Oppenheimer broke up with Jean Tatlock and moved away from her circle of left-wing friends.

In 1939, the United States learned that Hitler's Germany had discovered nuclear fission in preparation for global war. Oppenheimer and other scientists immediately realized that the German physicists would try to create a controlled chain reaction that could be the key to creating a weapon far more destructive than any that existed at that time. Enlisting the help of the great scientific genius, Albert Einstein, concerned scientists warned President Franklin D. Roosevelt of the danger in a famous letter. In authorizing funding for projects aimed at creating untested weapons, the president acted in strict secrecy. Ironically, many of the world's leading scientists, forced to flee their homeland, worked together with American scientists in laboratories scattered throughout the country. One part of the university groups explored the possibility of creating a nuclear reactor, others took up the problem of separating uranium isotopes necessary to release energy in a chain reaction. Oppenheimer, who had previously been busy with theoretical problems, was offered to organize a wide range of work only at the beginning of 1942.

The US Army's atomic bomb program was codenamed Project Manhattan and was led by 46-year-old Colonel Leslie R. Groves, a career military officer. Groves, who characterized the scientists working on the atomic bomb as "an expensive bunch of nuts," however, acknowledged that Oppenheimer had a hitherto untapped ability to control his fellow debaters when the atmosphere became tense. The physicist proposed that all the scientists be brought together in one laboratory in the quiet provincial town of Los Alamos, New Mexico, in an area he knew well. By March 1943, the boarding school for boys had been turned into a strictly guarded secret center, with Oppenheimer becoming its scientific director. By insisting on the free exchange of information between scientists, who were strictly forbidden to leave the center, Oppenheimer created an atmosphere of trust and mutual respect, which contributed to amazing success at work. Without sparing himself, he remained the head of all areas of this complex project, although his personal life. But for a mixed group of scientists - among whom there were more than a dozen then or future Nobel laureates, and of whom it was a rare individual who did not have a strong personality - Oppenheimer was an unusually dedicated leader and a keen diplomat. Most of them would agree that the lion's share of the credit for ultimate success the project belongs to him. By December 30, 1944, Groves, who had by then become a general, could say with confidence that the two billion dollars spent would produce a bomb ready for action by August 1 of the following year. But when Germany admitted defeat in May 1945, many of the researchers working at Los Alamos began to think about using new weapons. After all, Japan would probably have soon capitulated even without the atomic bombing. Should the United States become the first country in the world to use such a terrible device? Harry S. Truman, who became president after Roosevelt's death, appointed a committee to study possible consequences use of the atomic bomb, which included Oppenheimer. Experts decided to recommend dropping an atomic bomb without warning on a large Japanese military installation. Oppenheimer's consent was also obtained.

All these worries would, of course, be moot if the bomb had not gone off. The world's first atomic bomb was tested on July 16, 1945, approximately 80 kilometers from the air force base in Alamogordo, New Mexico. The device being tested, named "Fat Man" for its convex shape, was attached to a steel tower installed in a desert area. At exactly 5:30 a.m., a remote-controlled detonator detonated the bomb. With an echoing roar, a giant purple-green-orange fireball shot into the sky across an area 1.6 kilometers in diameter. The earth shook from the explosion, the tower disappeared. A white column of smoke quickly rose to the sky and began to gradually expand, taking on the terrifying shape of a mushroom at an altitude of about 11 kilometers. The first nuclear explosion shocked scientific and military observers near the test site and turned their heads. But Oppenheimer remembered the lines from the Indian epic poem "Bhagavad Gita": "I will become Death, the destroyer of worlds." Until the end of his life, satisfaction from scientific success was always mixed with a sense of responsibility for the consequences.

On the morning of August 6, 1945, there was a clear, cloudless sky over Hiroshima. As before, the approach of two American planes from the east (one of them was called Enola Gay) at an altitude of 10-13 km did not cause alarm (since they appeared in the sky of Hiroshima every day). One of the planes dived and dropped something, and then both planes turned and flew away. The dropped object slowly descended by parachute and suddenly exploded at an altitude of 600 m above the ground. It was the Baby bomb.

Three days after "Little Boy" was detonated in Hiroshima, a replica of the first "Fat Man" was dropped on the city of Nagasaki. On August 15, Japan, whose resolve was finally broken by these new weapons, signed an unconditional surrender. However, the voices of skeptics had already begun to be heard, and Oppenheimer himself predicted two months after Hiroshima that “mankind will curse the names Los Alamos and Hiroshima.”

The whole world was shocked by the explosions in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Tellingly, Oppenheimer managed to combine his worries about testing a bomb on civilians and the joy that the weapon had finally been tested.

Nevertheless, the following year he accepted an appointment as chairman of the scientific council of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), thereby becoming the most influential adviser to the government and military on nuclear issues. While the West and the Soviet Union led by Stalin were seriously preparing for cold war, each side focused its attention on the arms race. Although many of the scientists who were part of the Manhattan Project did not support the idea of ​​​​creating new weapons, former employees Oppenheimer Edward Teller and Ernest Lawrence believed that US national security required the rapid development of the hydrogen bomb. Oppenheimer was horrified. From his point of view, two nuclear powers and so they were already confronting each other, like “two scorpions in a jar, each capable of killing the other, but only at the risk of their own life.” With the proliferation of new weapons, wars would no longer have winners and losers - only victims. And the “father of the atomic bomb” made a public statement that he was against the development of the hydrogen bomb. Always feeling out of place under Oppenheimer and clearly envious of his achievements, Teller began to make efforts to lead new project, implying that Oppenheimer should no longer be involved in the work. He told FBI investigators that his rival was using his authority to keep scientists from working on the hydrogen bomb, and revealed the secret that Oppenheimer suffered from bouts of severe depression in his youth. When President Truman agreed to fund the hydrogen bomb in 1950, Teller could celebrate victory.

In 1954, Oppenheimer’s enemies launched a campaign to remove him from power, which they succeeded after a month-long search for “black spots” in his personal biography. As a result, a show case was organized in which many influential political and scientific figures spoke out against Oppenheimer. As Albert Einstein later put it: “Oppenheimer’s problem was that he loved a woman who didn’t love him: the US government.”

By allowing Oppenheimer's talent to flourish, America doomed him to destruction.

Oppenheimer is known not only as the creator of the American atomic bomb. He owns many works on quantum mechanics, relativity theory, physics elementary particles, theoretical astrophysics. In 1927 he developed the theory of interaction of free electrons with atoms. Together with Born, he created the theory of the structure of diatomic molecules. In 1931, he and P. Ehrenfest formulated a theorem, the application of which to the nitrogen nucleus showed that the proton-electron hypothesis of the structure of nuclei leads to a number of contradictions with the known properties of nitrogen. Investigated the internal conversion of g-rays. In 1937 he developed the cascade theory of cosmic showers, in 1938 he made the first calculation of a neutron star model, and in 1939 he predicted the existence of “black holes”.

Oppenheimer owns a number of popular books, including Science and the Common Understanding (1954), The Open Mind (1955), Some Reflections on Science and Culture (1960) . Oppenheimer died in Princeton on February 18, 1967.

Work on nuclear projects in the USSR and the USA began simultaneously. In August 1942, the secret “Laboratory No. 2” began working in one of the buildings in the courtyard of Kazan University. Igor Kurchatov was appointed its leader.

In Soviet times, it was argued that the USSR solved its atomic problem completely independently, and Kurchatov was considered the “father” of the domestic atomic bomb. Although there were rumors about some secrets stolen from the Americans. And only in the 90s, 50 years later, one of the main characters then, Yuli Khariton, spoke about the significant role of intelligence in accelerating the lagging Soviet project. And American scientific and technical results were obtained by Klaus Fuchs, who arrived in the English group.

Information from abroad helped the country's leadership make a difficult decision - to begin work on nuclear weapons during a difficult war. The reconnaissance allowed our physicists to save time and helped to avoid a “misfire” during the first atomic test, which had enormous political significance.

In 1939, a chain reaction of fission of uranium-235 nuclei was discovered, accompanied by the release of colossal energy. Soon after, articles on nuclear physics began to disappear from the pages of scientific journals. This could indicate the real prospect of creating an atomic explosive and weapons based on it.

After opening Soviet physicists spontaneous fission of uranium-235 nuclei and determination of the critical mass, a corresponding directive was sent to the station on the initiative of the head of the scientific and technological revolution L. Kvasnikov.

In the FSB of Russia (formerly the KGB of the USSR), 17 volumes of archival file No. 13676, which document who and how recruited US citizens to work for Soviet intelligence, are buried under the heading “keep forever.” Only a few of the top leadership of the USSR KGB had access to the materials of this case, the secrecy of which was only recently lifted. The first information about the work to create an American atomic bomb Soviet intelligence received in the fall of 1941. And already in March 1942, extensive information about the research ongoing in the USA and England fell on I.V. Stalin’s desk. According to Yu. B. Khariton, in that dramatic period it was safer to use the bomb design already tested by the Americans for our first explosion. “Taking into account state interests, any other solution was then unacceptable. The merit of Fuchs and our other assistants abroad is undoubted. However, we implemented the American scheme during the first test not so much for technical, but for political reasons.

The message that the Soviet Union had mastered the secret of nuclear weapons caused the US ruling circles to want to start a preventive war as quickly as possible. The Troian plan was developed, which envisaged starting fighting January 1, 1950. At that time, the United States had 840 strategic bombers in combat units, 1,350 in reserve, and over 300 atomic bombs.

A test site was built in the area of ​​Semipalatinsk. At exactly 7:00 a.m. on August 29, 1949, the first Soviet nuclear device, codenamed RDS-1, was detonated at this test site.

The Troyan plan, according to which atomic bombs were to be dropped on 70 cities of the USSR, was thwarted due to the threat of a retaliatory strike. The event that took place at the Semipalatinsk test site informed the world about the creation of nuclear weapons in the USSR.

Foreign intelligence not only attracted the attention of the country's leadership to the problem of creating atomic weapons in the West and thereby initiated similar work in our country. Thanks to foreign intelligence information, as recognized by academicians A. Aleksandrov, Yu. Khariton and others, I. Kurchatov did not big mistakes, we managed to avoid dead-end directions in the creation of atomic weapons and create an atomic bomb in the USSR in a shorter time, in just three years, while the United States spent four years on it, spending five billion dollars on its creation.

As academician Yu. Khariton noted in an interview with the Izvestia newspaper on December 8, 1992, the first Soviet atomic charge was manufactured according to the American model with the help of information received from K. Fuchs. According to the academician, when government awards were presented to participants in the Soviet atomic project, Stalin, satisfied that there was no American monopoly in this area, remarked: “If we had been one to a year and a half late, we would probably have tried this charge on ourselves.” ".
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The first test of a nuclear charge occurred on July 16, 1945 in the United States. The nuclear weapons program was codenamed Manhattan. The tests took place in the desert, in a state of complete secrecy. Even the correspondence of scientists with relatives was under close attention intelligence officers.

It is also interesting that Truman, while serving as vice president, knew nothing about the ongoing research. He learned about the existence of the American atomic nuclear project only after being elected president.

The Americans were the first to develop and test nuclear weapons, but similar work was carried out by other countries. The American scientist Robert Oppenheimer and his Soviet colleague Igor Kurchatov are considered the fathers of the new deadly weapon. It is worth considering that they were not the only ones working on the creation of a nuclear bomb. Scientists from many countries around the world worked on the development of new weapons.

German physicists were the first to solve this problem. Back in 1938, two famous scientists Fritz Strassmann and Otto Hahn for the first time in history performed an operation to split the atomic nucleus of uranium. A few months later, a team of scientists from the University of Hamburg sent a message to the government. It reported that the creation of a new “explosive” is theoretically possible. It was separately emphasized that the state that receives it first will have complete military superiority.

The Germans made serious progress, but were never able to bring their research to its logical conclusion. As a result, the Americans seized the initiative. The history of the Soviet atomic project is closely connected with the work of the intelligence services. It was thanks to them that the USSR was eventually able to develop and test nuclear weapons of its own production. We'll talk about this below.

The role of intelligence in the development of an atomic charge

About existence American project The Soviet military leadership learned about “Manhattan” back in 1941. Then our country’s intelligence received a message from its agents that the US government had organized a group of scientists working on the creation of a new “explosive” with enormous power. What was meant was a “uranium bomb”. This is what nuclear weapons were originally called.

The story of the Potsdam Conference, at which Stalin was informed of the successful American test of an atomic bomb, deserves special attention. The reaction of the Soviet leader was quite restrained. In his usual calm tone, he thanked for the information provided, but did not comment on it in any way. Churchill and Truman decided that the Soviet leader did not fully understand what exactly was being reported to him.

However, the Soviet leader was well informed. The Foreign Intelligence Service constantly informed him that the Allies were developing a bomb of enormous power. After talking with Truman and Churchill, he contacted the physicist Kurchatov, who headed the Soviet atomic project, and ordered the development of nuclear weapons to be accelerated.

Of course, the information provided by intelligence contributed to the rapid development of new technology by the Soviet Union. However, to say that it was decisive is extremely incorrect. At the same time, leading Soviet scientists have repeatedly stated the importance of information obtained through intelligence.

Throughout the development of nuclear weapons, Kurchatov has repeatedly given the information received high marks. The Foreign Intelligence Service provided him with more than a thousand sheets of valuable data, which certainly helped speed up the creation of the Soviet atomic bomb.

The creation of the bomb in the USSR

The USSR began conducting research necessary for the production of nuclear weapons in 1942. It was then that Kurchatov gathered big number specialists to conduct research in this area. Initially, the atomic project was supervised by Molotov. But after the explosions in Japanese cities, a Special Committee was established. Beria became its head. It was this structure that began to oversee the development of the atomic charge.

The domestic nuclear bomb was named RDS-1. The weapon was developed in two types. The first was designed to use plutonium, and the other uranium-235. The development of the Soviet atomic charge was carried out on the basis of available information about the plutonium bomb created in the United States. Most of the information was received by foreign intelligence from the German scientist Fuchs. As mentioned above, this information significantly accelerated the progress of research. More detailed information you will find it at biblioatom.ru.

Testing of the first atomic charge in the USSR

The Soviet atomic charge was first tested on August 29, 1949 at the Semipalatinsk test site in the Kazakh SSR. Physicist Kurchatov officially ordered the tests to be carried out at eight in the morning. A charge and special neutron fuses were brought to the test site in advance. At midnight the RDS-1 assembly was completed. The procedure was completed only at three o'clock in the morning.

Then at six in the morning the finished device was lifted onto a special testing tower. As a result of worsening weather conditions, management decided to postpone the explosion one hour earlier than the originally scheduled date.

At seven o'clock in the morning the test took place. Twenty minutes later, two tanks equipped with protective plates were sent to the test site. Their task was to conduct reconnaissance. The data obtained indicated that all existing buildings were destroyed. The soil is contaminated and has turned into a solid crust. The charge power was twenty-two kilotons.

Conclusion

The successful test of a Soviet nuclear weapon marked the beginning of a new era. The USSR was able to overcome the US monopoly on the production of new weapons. As a result, the Soviet Union became the world's second nuclear state. This contributed to strengthening the country's defense capability. The development of the atomic charge made it possible to create new balance strength in the world. The contribution of the Soviet Union to the development of nuclear physics as a science is difficult to overestimate. It was in the USSR that technologies were developed that later began to be used throughout the world.