Resolution

of the March Session of the Academy of Sciences on the Reports of Academicians A. F. Ioffe, D. S. Rozhdestvensky, and S. I. Vavilov

I

The great proletarian revolution provided conditions, unprecedented anywhere, for the development of science. Under the leadership of the Communist Party and Soviet power, science in the USSR has acquired exceptional scope.

Physics, which in old Russia had been in an embryonic state, has developed into a powerful branch of science. Already during the years of the civil war the principal physical centers were created—the Leningrad Physico-Technical Institute, the State Optical Institute, and others.

The rapid development of physics is of enormous importance for the entire national economy of the Union. Significant successes have already been achieved by it and have received universal recognition. However, in a number of the most important fields—nuclear structure, theoretical physics, low-temperature physics—the work of Soviet physicists has not yet taken a leading place in world science.

In the development of Soviet physics over the past ten years, three schools of physicists have emerged: the school of Academician A. F. Ioffe (Leningrad Physico-Technical Institute), the school of Academician D. S. Rozhdestvensky (State Optical Institute), and the school of Academician Mandelstam (Moscow State University).

The work of these schools has, in the main, determined the development of all Soviet physics.

II

The Work of Academician A. F. Ioffe and the LPTI

Having heard the report of Academician A. F. Ioffe on his work and on the work of the Physico-Technical Institute, and the debate on this report, the session considers it necessary to note that a major role in the development of physics in the USSR belongs to Academician A. F. Ioffe and to the Leningrad Physico-Technical Institute, which he has directed from the very beginning of its foundation.

Under the leadership of Academician A. F. Ioffe a network of physico-technical institutes was developed, serving as the principal breeding ground for

...of physical science in our country and a school for a considerable part of our physicist-researchers.

Along with the physico-technical institutes, with the active participation of Acad. A. F. Ioffe, the Leningrad, Kharkov, and Sverdlovsk physico-mechanical faculties were created; they trained a significant part of the Soviet researchers working in the field of physics and its applications in scientific-research institutes of industry and in factory laboratories.

The scientific work of the physico-technical institutes enjoys deserved recognition both in the USSR and abroad. A number of investigations by Acad. A. F. Ioffe and his pupils constitute a major contribution to science. Of special importance are the works on the plasticity and strength of solid bodies, on the electrical properties of crystals and amorphous bodies, dielectrics and semiconductors, on ferroelectricity, X-rays and the photoelectric effect, on spectra and phenomena of scattering of fast electrons and positrons, and on nuclear reactions.

At the initiative of Acad. A. F. Ioffe, broad investigations on the application of physics in agriculture were begun for the first time in the USSR, and the Physico-Agronomic Institute was created.

III

Along with the achievements indicated, the work of the Leningrad Physico-Technical Institute has serious shortcomings, the elimination of which is a necessary condition for the further successful development of physical research and for its better use in the national economy of the USSR.

The Institute in a number of cases confined itself to the first stage of research, without consistently developing the work it had begun. Thus, important investigations on plastic deformation were abandoned for several years, and work on roentgenographic investigations, in which the institute occupied a leading place in science, was discontinued. As a result, initiative in these works passed to Western European physicists.

The connection between theoretical work and experimental work was insufficient, which lowered the general level of the institute’s work.

In the work of the institute there were also individual serious errors (high-voltage accumulators, thin-layer insulation).

The most important shortcoming in the work of Acad. A. F. Ioffe and the school he headed is the failure to establish proper relations between physical science and the practice of the national economy. Physicists did not know to a sufficient degree the needs of the national economy and did not clearly understand the complex path separating the establishment of a physical regularity from its technical utilization. A considerable part of the investigations was limited exclusively to theoretical—

abstract side of the matter, which, without further development, often did not make possible the industrial use of the results of scientific work.

Thus, for example, despite many years of work on semiconductors and the photoelectric effect, in practical results we have sharply lagged behind advanced foreign technology, which has created a technically perfected type of solid rectifiers. A number of important inventions made by us earlier or almost simultaneously with foreign researchers were developed and applied abroad earlier than here (for example, the transmission of images).

Technical problems whose solution played a significant role in the technical progress of a number of branches of industry in Western Europe and America were not developed to the proper extent.

A number of the most important demands of Soviet industry were not satisfied in good time (magnetic defectoscopy, X-rays), and those genuinely technically important works that were carried out (styrol, acetylcellulose, rotor casting, work on heat transfer) found application with great delay or were not applied at all.

Alongside this, Acad. A. F. Ioffe at times put forward insufficiently urgent technical proposals (inclined windows, city-houses, roofs made of thermoelements). These proposals were of an accidental character, were oriented mainly toward the technology of the future, and overlooked contemporary demands, the solution of which alone would have created the necessary prerequisites for the technology of the future.

IV

WORKS OF ACAD. D. S. ROZHDESTVENSKY, ACAD. S. I. VAVILOV, AND THE STATE OPTICAL INSTITUTE

Having heard the reports of Academicians S. I. Vavilov and D. S. Rozhdestvensky on their scientific work and the work of the Optical Institute, and the debates on these reports, the session of the Academy of Sciences considers it necessary to note the undoubted merits of the State Optical Institute in the development of theoretical and technical optics in the USSR.

Special note should be made of the systematic, remarkable in precision and thoroughness of execution, many-years-long work on anomalous dispersion by Acad. Rozhdestvensky and his collaborators; work on the optical excitation of atoms, molecular spectra, and photochemistry; the method for solving the theoretical problem of calculating the structure of atoms and molecules; investigations in the field of light scattering; work on the investigation of small intensities of light; successful work on astronomical optics and crystallo-optical data.

Along with this, the following should be noted: the development of technological methods for manufacturing optical glass; clarification of the nature of glass annealing and the establishment of optimal conditions for it; work on the theory and practice of grinding and polishing glass and metals, which served as the basis for new methods widely introduced at various factories; methods for calculating optical systems, which became the basis of opto-techno-computational work in the country; the development of control methods for opto-mechanical production and instrument making; the rationalization of the illumination of darkrooms in the photographic industry, and work on photographic gelatin and precision photography.

The Optical Institute, one of the few physics institutes in our country, from the very beginning of its activity established a permanent connection with industry. At the same time, alongside work in optics, the institute created a large chemical laboratory, in which cadres of chemists were trained who mastered optical problems and methods.

V

Along with the achievements indicated above, it is necessary to note a number of important shortcomings in the work of the Optical Institute.

A major omission in the institute’s activity is its insufficient attention to the question of creating cadres both in the optical industry and in scientific-research institutes and educational institutions. Being a large institution with a substantial staff of qualified workers, the institute did not engage in systematic training of workers for the optical industry and higher educational institutions.

Despite the fact that the institute limited the range of technical applications of its research mainly to the optical industry, the institute’s achievements in this area cannot be considered exhaustive.

Finally, in certain sectors, the institute’s work did not yield substantial results (gas-discharge lamps, photoelements).

VI

Conclusions

The scientists of the Soviet Union face the historic task of broadly developing science in order to assist the further building of a classless socialist society.

While raising in every way the theoretical level of their work, setting themselves broad goals of investigating general physical laws and solving the most important problems of modern physics, Soviet physics institutes must combine this work with the maximum use of discov—

engaged at every stage of scientific research with possibilities for the practice of economic construction and the strengthening of the defense of our great homeland.

The development of modern physics is accompanied by a fundamental revision of the basic concepts and laws that lie at its foundation (space, time, causality). Alongside the most important and extraordinarily valuable achievements that advance the fundamental scientific development of these categories, in modern physics there is also a place for a number of idealistic currents that make it difficult to choose the correct path of research and thereby hamper the development of science.

Under these conditions, the guiding role of dialectical materialism is especially important, as the only genuinely scientific worldview, representing a synthesis of all the scientific-theoretical and practical activity of humanity.

Taking into account the enormous significance that physics has in the development of the general worldview, the session of the Academy of Sciences considers one of the most important tasks to be raising to the proper level the development of the basic fundamental questions and categories of physics, which must find its reflection in the plan of work of the Academy of Sciences for 1936.

Deepening theoretical work and persistently striving for a leading place in world science, each of the Soviet physical institutes must concentrate its work on a strictly limited number of problems closely connected with one another in content or in method of work.

In particular, the Leningrad Physico-Technical Institute must concentrate its work on the following questions: the atomic nucleus, plasticity and strength, the electrical properties of dielectrics and semiconductors, the amorphous body, gas discharge, theoretical physics.

In working out scientific topics, it is necessary to strive for the maximum realization of the technical possibilities opened up by scientific research. The development of concrete physico-technical problems must be in accord with the basic complex of the institute’s scientific work. Physico-technical work must be conducted in close connection with the interested economic organizations and brought to the stage at which the direct practical use of its results becomes possible.

Special attention of the Leningrad Physico-Technical Institute must be directed to this.

As for the State Optical Institute, it, without limiting itself to the needs of the opto-technical industry, must more broadly stimulate the penetration of optical methods into other branches of technology and industry, just as this has been done, for example, by the Physico-Technical Institute in questions of agrotechnics. With respect to the opto-technical industry, however,

...it is necessary for the Optical Institute to penetrate more deeply and directly into production by studying difficult questions of technological processes, developing new and improving old methods suitable for introduction into the practice of both optical and mechanical and assembly shops.

Alongside this, the GOI must accelerate the pace of work of a preparatory nature, so that work on the solution of specific optical problems (infrared rays, molecular spectra) occupies a larger place in its program.

Through the Physics Group and the Technical Division of the Academy of Sciences, thorough elaboration must be ensured of physical questions connected with the solution of national-economic tasks advanced in the Academy’s main program of work; at the same time, special attention must be devoted to solving questions of defense significance.

In order to eliminate the sharp lag in the use of scientific achievements in industry, it should be recognized as expedient to send a number of major physicists to industry for permanent work and, at the same time, to practice, especially along the lines of the Leningrad Physico-Technical Institute, long-term assignments of engineers from production to carry out physico-technical work, primarily for the development of technical conclusions from the institutes’ scientific research.

Recommend to the State Optical Institute that it involve workers of factory laboratories and shops for long periods as trainees, and also resort to long-term assignments of its highly qualified staff for work in optical enterprises and in higher educational institutions, especially provincial ones.

At the same time, it is necessary to strengthen the work of the theoretical departments of the institutes, linking it as closely as possible with the experimental research conducted by the institutes, and to pay special attention to training new theoretical personnel in the institutes, to raising the theoretical level of experimentalists, and to the selection and training of young people.

In view of the especially important significance of the work of highly qualified physicists both in industrial laboratories and in departments of technical colleges and higher educational institutions, it should be recognized as expedient to expand postgraduate study at leading physics institutes, so that postgraduate students, after completion, are as a rule directed to the above-mentioned institutions. Special attention should be paid to the necessity of significantly increasing the number of postgraduate students at the State Optical Institute.

Instruct the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences to raise before the appropriate organizations the question of revising the teaching...

physics in universities and higher technical schools with a view to raising the level of physical knowledge, improving programs and the organization of teaching, and assisting in every possible way the implementation of the necessary measures.

In view of the special importance of training cadres of physicists for work both in the economic and in the pedagogical sphere, to instruct the Physical Group to convene a special conference devoted to this question, with the participation of representatives of economic organizations and of the largest universities and higher technical schools.

For the solution of complex scientific and technical problems, to recognize as necessary a broader practice of forms of collective scientific work by specialists in various fields of knowledge: physicists, chemists, technicians. In particular, the session considers it necessary to strengthen and coordinate work on gas-discharge light sources, and instructs the Presidium of the Physical Group, jointly with the Presidium of the Group of Technical Physics, to outline practical measures for organizing this work.

To recognize as necessary the active assistance of physical institutes in the development of other branches of knowledge that use physical methods of research (agronomy, biology).

In view of the special importance for the development of physics of scientific communication and mutual criticism of scientific works, the work being carried out by the Physical Group on convening periodic meetings of groups and conferences devoted to individual special questions of physics must be more broadly developed.

To strengthen ties with world science, to expand the practice of sending Soviet physicists abroad, especially young scientists, and of inviting foreign scientists to the USSR.

For the deepening of scientific work and the improvement of its quality, the activity of each of the leading scientific workers must be concentrated in one institution and on one circle of questions, with the complete cessation of plural appointments and of diversion from direct scientific and educational work.

VII

Instructions to the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR

To propose to the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences:

a) taking into account the special importance of physical apparatus both for experimental research and for control-and-measurement work, to petition the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR for the organization in the USSR of broad production of physical apparatus and measuring instruments, in particular making use of the fruitful experience of the Institute of Applied Physics of Leningrad State University, headed by Comrade Ulitovsky;

b) taking into account the importance that radium has for physical research, especially for the study of the atomic nucleus, and the absence-

the lack of radium in the principal institutes of the USSR, to petition the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR for the allocation of the necessary quantity of radium for the main nuclear laboratories;

c) to petition the People’s Commissariat of Heavy Industry with a proposal to organize and finance expeditions to search for fluorite, Iceland spar, and quartz, necessary for the manufacture of scientific optical instruments.