Atomic project. Life behind the "Iron Curtain". Pontecorvo B.M.

The student of the great E. Fermi, an employee of F. Zholio-Kuri, an honorary member of the Italian Academy dei Bruno Pontecorvo was born in Italy, worked in France, USA, Canada, England, and lived in Russia in most of his life. Bruno Pontecorvo is known as one of the leading physicists of the Cold War. While the heads of state dreamed of world domination that nuclear weapons would give them, the best scientists around the world fought for “nuclear equilibrium” and tried not to break out of strong scientific relations in all possible ways that helped to move science forward. Until the last days of his life, Pontecorvo maintained friendship with his teacher, one of the leading scientists of the Manhattan Project Enrico Fermi, and also corresponded with other project participants. The memories of this scientist are full of unusual details describing a closed and even classified life of nuclear physicists in the mid -twentieth century. Interesting and filled with bright events, fate, an exceptional mind and independent views allowed the scientist to create a number of articles describing the world from a simple and understandable point of view of a physicist. It was they, along with the memories of life in the States and the USSR, and formed the basis of this book.