Interview Given by JINR Director V.G.Kadyshevsky

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 40^th 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 40^th 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