HARNESSING H-POWER

Press, Volume XCII, Issue 27736, 13 August 1955, Page 7

HARNESSING H-POWER

U.S. Also In Race i , GENEVA, August IL Th* United States Government an■•unced today that it has been “working for a considerable time" to harntat for peace the tremendotis power •f the hydrogen bomb. .Mr Lewis Strauss, chairman of the United States Atomic Energy Commisaon, made the announcement in answer to reporters’ questions at the United Nations atoms for peace conference. “But there has been nothing in the naU-re of a break-through,” said Mr Strauss. He described the task as a problem “unprecedented in difficulty.” Because qf this, he could not attempt to predict when it mi«ht be solved, Mr • Strauss added. The formal United States announcement made official a race to harness hydrogen newer among the United Statei, Russia. Britain, and Trance. Control of the power of the hydrogen bomb, scientists said, would give man a source of power the equivalent of the force of the sun itself. Itr Strauss was asked if progress has been made in that direction. “Progress certainly ha 3 been made, from the scientific viewpoint.” he said. It was then he added that there had been no “break-throueh.” Asked if the United States had any Information indicating whether any other nation was as far or further advanced than the United States in the drive to harness the power of the hydrogen bomb, Mr Strauss said: “We have not. It is not a subject of this coherence." . The race to achieve that histone goal became the biggest unofficial subject cf the conference at its opening on Monday, when Dr. Horn! Bhabha, of India, predicted that the power of the hydrogen bomb would be controlled and put to use within 20 years.

The delegate said there was no question at all of the Russians having gained their knowledge—which now equalled that known in the Western States—as a result of information supplied by spies. “That is quite impossible," he said. “The whole . papers and detailed measurements as the result of research, which were presented by the Russians today, could not be achieved by such methods.” Physicists from Russia, Britain, the United States, and other Eastern and

Western States met for the second day to exchange ideas and information on the fundamental principles of nuclear energy. They discussed the scientific investigations carried out on both sides of tiie Iron Curtain since the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima just over 10 years ago. In particular, they examined the process of atomic fission itself and how it divides its energy. The exact measurements of this process were revealsd in detail for the first time. Delegates said that the session l}ad shown the enormous progress which had been made in the last 10 years on a real understanding of what goes on during atomic fission-