In early July Graham Carpenter, a Chalk River alumnus now living in Ottawa, contacted the Society for the Preservation of Canada’s Nuclear Heritage Inc. (SPCNHI), asking if the Society would be interesting in the donation of a decorated wooden Russian spoon. He went on to explain that this was not just any normal spoon, but one that had special connections to Chalk River and Canada’s nuclear history.
The spoon, which is now part of the Society collection, had been in the possession for many years of a friend of the Carpenters, Ms. Olive Phillips, a long-time teacher in Renfrew. In 1961, while on holiday at Lake Balaton in Hungary, Ms. Phillips became acquainted with the family of Professor Pyotr (Peter) Kapitza, a noted Russian physicist, and was presented with the decorated wooden spoon as a sign of friendship. Kapitza undoubtedly must have been delighted to have met someone from Canada who lived just down the road from the “Lab of W.B. Lewis”.
Peter Kapitza’s connection with W.B. Lewis and Canadian scientists goes back a long way. In 1921 he journeyed from Russia and joined Ernest Rutherford at his lab at Cambridge University, England. There with John Cockcroft as his assistant, he investigated the production of high-intensity magnetic fields that might disturb atomic orbits and provide new insights into the Bohr model. At that time W.B. Lewis was a student with Rutherford involved in analyzing alpha rays in strong annular magnetic fields. Kapitza was able to offer some valuable advice on magnet fields.
Towards the end of the 1920s Kapitza’s interests moved towards low-temperature physics, and with the aid of John Cockcroft and Canadian W.L. Webster he designed and built a liquid hydrogen plant before turning his attention to the liquification of helium. Kapitza’s successes at Cambridge continued until 1934 when he left England for a visit to family in Russia. During his visit, he was summoned to Moscow, his passport was seized and he was unable to leave Russia although his wife and English-born children were free to leave.
Peter Kapitza was appointed the Director of a new institute, the Institute of Physical Problems, in Moscow, but his research life had a bumpy ride. He later lost the favour of Stalin and was removed from his Institute and confined to a country dacha for a number of years. Later, during Khrushchev’s period of power, he was reinstated and led his institute to many successes. By 1961 he was able to travel abroad, which is when he met Ms. Phillips in Hungary.
Professor Kapitza and his wife visited his old colleague, W.B. Lewis, in Canada when they visited Chalk River in 1969. His outstanding contributions to low-temperature physics were recognized with the awarding of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1978.
The Society continues to welcome artifacts related to the past rich history of the Canadian nuclear industry. Please contact the Society at info@nuclearheritage.ca or any member of the Executive with any artifacts you would like to donate.
