Interview Given by JINR Director V.G.Kadyshevsky
to the "Tribune de Geneve"
1. How did the idea of this exhibition come into being?
This year has seen the anniversary of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research
(JINR). On 26 March 1996 we celebrated the 40th anniversary of its existence. The
Institute is called "Joint", since it comprises 18 member states. This is an international
intergovernmental organization. The idea of holding the exhibition in Geneva came
into being during the discussion of the programme of commemorating the 40th
anniversary of the Institute. All of a sudden we have become aware of the need to
highlight in a clear and expressive way the importance of the fundamental science for
the progress of mankind and its role in promoting the rapprochement and mutual
understanding of peoples, using for this purpose the world forum. In this connection
the United Nations Office at Geneva has been chosen. This choice has been well
grounded, since the world-known European Organization for Nuclear Research
(CERN) is situated near Geneva, with which our Institute has been closely
collaborating for many years. It goes without saying that the inhabitants and numerous
visitors of Geneva are well aware of the activities of CERN. This international research
organization exists as long as for 42 years and comprises 19 member states. This
exhibition will make it possible for its visitors to get familiar with an international
centre which, on the one hand, looks like CERN in terms of its structure, but from the
other hand, it has its own very peculiar individual features.
The organizers of the exhibition were facing quite a difficult task - from a great
variety of photos showing the most important events in the history of JINR,
sophisticated physics installations, scientists and engineers of the Institute, they had to
select those pictures which would be the most representative and expressive. In my
opinion, they have coped with this task. The photos presented at the exhibition
recreate the atmosphere of the scientific quest, and in the centre of this quest is a Man
making a purposeful and creative search ... Our Institute is of international nature as
science itself tends to be international. It could be quite appropriate to recall the words
of the famous Russian writer Anton Chekhov: "Science cannot be national, in the
same way that a multiplication table cannot be national".
During the scientific conferences, walks in the picturesque environs of Dubna,
in the research Laboratories, in every day life and during the holidays the camera fixed
the various stages of the creative activities of those persons who have become heroes
of the exhibition. In our today's troubled world, when the importance of the
fundamental studies in the eyes of the world public opinion is unfortunately decreasing
with every coming year, such exhibitions should be organized in order that both
peoples and governments may appreciate the real everlasting importance of this value
of human activities.
Many photos reflect various stages of JINR's fruitful cooperation with CERN
and other scientific centres. The visitors will see the portraits of scientists of world
repute, who were working or visiting JINR in different years. In a number of photos it
is also shown, how the results of the fundamental nuclear physics research may be used
for practical purposes, being of benefit to peoples.
2. Both organizations, CERN and JINR,
are international nuclear physics centres.
What was the role of their international status?
This is a very good question. It can be rightfully stated, and it is directly
connected with the international nature of both centres that, apart from remarkable
scientific discoveries and developments, the exceptional merit of both organizations
lies in the fact that by all their activities, which started during the first post-war
decade, they contributed to the rapprochement of peoples, mobilization of efforts of
dozens of countries in the field of the "peaceful atom". Both winners and losers in
the second world war can be found among the members of CERN and JINR. Thus,
the scientists and experts from the FRG started working at CERN, and those from
the GDR - at JINR. During the period of the cold war and confrontation of the
military blocs, these two scientific centres were really opposing the "Iron Curtain",
by carrying out their efficient cooperation. The joint schools for young physicists of
CERN and JINR, which were later called "European Schools on High Energy
Physics", were, for a number of years, one of the few possibilities of communication
among young scientists of the West and the East. Thus, the motto of the present
exhibition - "Atom for Peace" - has a very deep meaning.
© Joint Institute for Nuclear Research. Dubna, 1996