Dresden 2011 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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GP: Fachverband Geschichte der Physik

GP 11: Personen

GP 11.1: Vortrag

Mittwoch, 16. März 2011, 11:30–11:55, HSZ 204

"From Russia with Love". The Pontecorvo Affaire — •Stefano Salvia — University of Pisa - Italy

On August 31, 1950, the nuclear physicist Bruno Pontecorvo suddenly left Rome for Stockholm and disappeared without leaving any trace. Pontecorvo had joined the British atomic bomb project. His abrupt disappearance quickly became an international affaire, causing much concern to the western intelligence services, who were worried about the escape of atomic secrets to the Soviet Union. In the USSR Pontecorvo was welcomed with honour, but also isolated from the rest of the world for many decades. He has always denied any direct involvement in the Soviet nuclear program. According to him, he had moved to Russia because of his socialist beliefs, working only on high energy particles, neutrinos, and the decay of muons. Who was Bruno Pontecorvo? A model of "socialist science" or a utopian scientist? A pacifist or a traitor? I want to discuss how the perception of Pontecorvo's case changed in the public opinion until the early 1990s, as a mirror of the local and global tensions between the two blocks. My primary sources will be newspaper articles, popular books, interviews, and more recent materials, which have renewed the public interest for the 1950 affaire, as for many other secrets of the Cold War.