A 20 cm long, traditional “Russian” spoon. These are typically used by Russians as “thank-you” gifts to hosts and friends. This particular spoon was given to Miss Olive Phillips of Renfrew, ON, as a gift from Professor Peter Kapitza, Director of the Institute For Physical Problems, Moscow, Russia. Miss Phillips had met the Kapitza family while on a holiday in Hungary in 1961. Professor Kapitza, the 1978 Nobel prize laureate in Physics for his work on materials at cryogenic temperatures, had been a researcher at Cambridge during the period that both Sir John Cockcroft and W.B. Lewis were carrying out research there and was very happy to make contact with someone who lived near “Lewis’s Labs”. Professor Kapitza and his wife were hosted by Dr. Lewis at Chalk River during a visit in 1969.
