On 26 October 2018, staff members of the Museum of History of Science and Technology of JINR Kozubskiy K.E. and Rastorguev A.A. visited the V.G. Khlopin Radium Institute (St. Petersburg) and met with Director of the Museum of the Institute S.V. Khlebnikov.

JINR and the V.G. Khlopin Radium Institute have a long and fruitful history of cooperation. It should be reminded that the Radium Institute was the first organization in Russia in which atomic science and technology emerged and developed. The founding father of Dubna and the first JINR Director Mikhail G. Meshcheryakov was a post-graduate student at the Radium Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences in 1936 – 1939. Together with his scientific leader I.V. Kurchatov, he launched the first USSR cyclotron the construction of which was initiated by L.V. Mysovskiy, the first Head of the Physical Department of the Radium Institute.

The Dubna delegation visited the Institute to exchange the experience in the museum area and consider opportunities for further cooperation. So, the meeting was held in the format of a seminar at which key events of domestic atomic science were discussed. The discussion touched upon the construction of the first cyclotron in Europe under the supervision of L.V. Mysovskiy in 1937, discovery in 1940 by young K.A. Petrzhak and G.N. Flerov of spontaneous uranium fission, as well as controversial issues and lacking facts of biographies of outstanding scientists, which can be restored only by joint work with historical archives. For this aim, the representatives of the JINR Museum and the Museum of Radium Institute agreed to develop integration of museum collections of the institutes as well as cooperate in the fields of organization of joint events.

As the result of the visit, a staff member of the JINR Museum A.A. Rastorguev published the article “Khlopin passion” in the JINR Weekly Newspaper.

Photo © The Khlopin Radium Institute