When the first Soviet Sputnik took to space two years ago, the U.S. estimate of Soviet science soared out of sight. But the initial shock has passed, and since then, platoons of U.S. scientists have visited Russia. Interviewed last week, a cross section of these travelers reported a calmer judgment: Russian science is very good in spots, but not uniformly good, and never overwhelming.
U.S. visitors agree that the best Russian science is physics. Branches having to do with weapons are kept secret, as in the U.S., but the Russians have plenty else to show. Their great laboratory at Dubna, 70 miles from Moscow, is a true "atomic city." It boasts the world's most powerful atom smasher, the 10 billion-volt proton accelerator. Like most massive machines, this has proved to have minor engineering defects that are still in the process of being ironed out. But no U.S. observer doubts that it will soon be operating at full power.
Other impressive physics laboratories are in Moscow or near it, and all are bursting with eager, well-trained young men. Russian physicists, both old and young, keep up with the international literature of physics, and a large number of them read scientific English. But Americans could not help noticing many surprising gaps. Bubble chambers are standard in the U.S. for studying high-energy particles. But Physicist Richard Dalitz of the University of Chicago noted that Russia had none in use last summer, and only one under construction.
Nothing New. A more important failing is an apparent lack of originality. Russian physicists often follow foreign work, copy foreign instruments. The design of the great accelerator at Dubna is frankly derived from the U.S.'s Bevatron at Berkeley, Calif. No U.S. physicists found any new and startling work going on in Russian laboratories. Said Physicist Luis Alvarez of the University of California: "I don't think they're doing very well in high-energy physics, and I don't know why. Their people are better trained than ours; they have big laboratories and money, but there's just nothing coming out. When I was there three years ago, I thought they were riding a curve that was shooting right up. But nothing has developed." The consensus is that the U.S. is still ahead of Russia in theoretical physics, but cannot be sure of keeping its lead for long.
In engineering applications of physics such as nuclear-power plants, the Russians are doing reasonably well. On a reciprocal visit to the U.S. last week, Professor Vasil S. Yemelyanov, the Soviet Union's chief of peaceful atomic energy, boasted that six nuclear-power stations totaling 600,000 kilowatts are scheduled to be in operation by the mid-1960s. This is about what the U.S. plans to build, but it is far short of British plans.
Appreciated Math. Mathematics has always been a Russian specialty, and still is. Reports Alan J. Perlis, director of Carnegie Tech's Computation Center: "Their very good mathematicians are every bit as good as our very good ones. The mathematician in the Soviet Union has always been an appreciated part of society." But in his own field—computers—Dr. Perlis found the Russians considerably behind the U.S. Even the newest are inferior to U.S. models that were manufactured several years ago, and the next Russian model will be slower than the IBM 704, of which the U.S. already has about 160.