The AEC’s physics research program

The Atomic Energy Commission and the members of the American Physical Society have many mutual interests. For several years, their affairs have been closely interwoven. The atomic energy project, comprising activities formerly administered by the Corps of Engineers, and now under the Atomic Energy Commission, is a product of physics and physicists had a great deal to do with getting it started. I can think of no other industrial project of comparable size which relies as much on the wisdom of physicists for guiding its operations. Moreover, the growth of American physics and the welfare of American physicists owe a great deal to the Commission and its contractors. This agency gives employment to a large percentage of the membership of this Society; it also budgets for U.S. Treasury support for essential research facilities. Much of the work reported at this meeting, I note, has been financed by the AEC.

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