Science: Atoms Without Bombs

The U.S. is full of nuclear physics laboratories and most of them, even in the universities, work on secret projects for the armed services or the Atomic Energy Commission. Armed men guard the doors; visitors must be “cleared” and identified with badges. Many potential users of peaceful aspects of nuclear energy hesitate to take their problems to the guarded laboratories lest they get entangled in restriction too.

Last week the University of Michigan started a fund-raising drive for its “Phoenix Project”: a nonGovernment, nonsecret center of nuclear research. Already, $750,000 has been given or pledged in a drive for a fund of $6,500,000.

At the drive’s opening “ceremonies, Physics Professor H. R. Crane put out the welcome mat for private industry. “Industry has lagged far behind,” he said. “The uses to which the [radioactive] materials have been put are interesting and important, but are few in number. There are thousands of potential industrial uses that have not been explored. All the materials and tools are available, but their application to the problems of industry seems to be slow indeed . . .”

By sticking to the numerous aspects of atomic energy which have nothing to do with bombmaking (e.g., radioactive tracers), Phoenix Project hopes to keep itself unhampered by restrictions. If its scientists stumble on something of “weapons” importance, they will toss it to the Government as if it were a radioactive potato.