Editing Soviet atomic bomb project (section)

===Background origins and roots===
{{Main|: Timeline of Russian inventions and technology records|History of the periodic table}}
As early as [[1910 in Russia]], independent research was being conducted on [[radioactive element]]s by several Russian scientists.<ref name="MIT Press Schmid">{{cite book|last1=Schmid|first1=Sonja D.|title=Producing Power: The Pre-Chernobyl History of the Soviet Nuclear Industry|date=2015|publisher=MIT Press|location=[S.l.]|isbn=978-0262028271|page=315|edition=|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UoPVBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA44 |access-date=12 June 2017|language=en|chapter-format=googlebooks|chapter=Dual Origins}}</ref>{{rp|44}}<ref name="Springer, Lante">{{cite book|last1=Lente|first1=Dick van|title=The Nuclear Age in Popular Media: A Transnational History, 1945–1965|date=2012|publisher=Springer|location=New York|isbn=978-1137086181|page=270|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6SwhAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA24 |access-date=12 June 2017|language=en|chapter-format=googlebooks|chapter=A Conspicuous Silence}}</ref>{{rp|24–25}} Despite the hardship faced by the Russian [[USSR Academy of Science|academy of sciences]] during the [[Russian Revolution|national revolution]] in 1917, followed by the violent [[Russian Civil War|civil war]] in 1922, Russian scientists had made remarkable efforts toward the advancement of physics research in the Soviet Union by the 1930s.<ref name="Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Johnson">{{cite book|last1=Johnson|first1=Paul R.|title=Early years of Soviet nuclear physics|date=1987|publisher=Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists|location=U.S.|page=60|edition=2nd|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-wUAAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA36 |access-date=22 April 2017|language=en}}</ref>{{rp|35–36}} Before the [[Russian Revolution of 1905|first revolution]] in 1905, the mineralogist [[Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky|Vladimir Vernadsky]] had made a number of public calls for a survey of Russia's [[uranium]] deposits but none were heeded.<ref name="Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Johnson"/>{{rp|37}} Such early efforts were independently and privately funded by various organizations until 1922 when the [[V. G. Khlopin Radium Institute|Radium Institute]] in [[Saint Petersburg|Petrograd]] (now [[Saint Petersburg]]) opened and industrialized the research.{{rp|44}}<ref name="MIT Press Schmid"/>

From the 1920s until the late 1930s, Russian physicists had been conducting joint research with their European counterparts on the advancement of [[atomic physics]] at the [[Cavendish Laboratory]] run by a New Zealand physicist, [[Ernest Rutherford]], where [[George Gamow|Georgi Gamov]] and [[Pyotr Kapitsa]] had studied and researched.<ref name="Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Johnson"/>{{rp|36}}

Influential research towards the advancement of nuclear physics was guided by [[Abram Ioffe]], who was the director at the [[Ioffe Physical-Technical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences|Leningrad Physical-Technical Institute]] (LPTI), having sponsored various research programs at various technical schools in the [[Soviet Union]].<ref name="Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Johnson"/>{{rp|36}} The discovery of the [[neutron]] by the British physicist [[James Chadwick]] further provided promising expansion of the LPTI's program, with the operation of the first [[cyclotron]] to energies of over 1 [[MeV]], and the first "splitting" of the atomic nucleus by [[John Cockcroft]] and [[Ernest Walton]].<ref name="Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Johnson"/>{{rp|36–37}} Russian physicists began pushing the government, lobbying in the interest of the development of science in the Soviet Union, which had received little interest due to the upheavals created during the [[Russian Revolution|Russian revolution]] and the [[February Revolution]].<ref name="Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Johnson"/>{{rp|36–37}} Earlier research was directed towards the medical and scientific exploration of [[radium]]; a supply of it was available as it could be retrieved from borehole water from the [[Ukhta]] oilfields.<ref name="Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Johnson"/>{{rp|37}}

In 1939, German [[chemist]] [[Otto Hahn]] reported his discovery of [[nuclear fission|fission]], achieved by the splitting of [[uranium]] with [[neutron]]s that produced the much lighter element [[barium]]. This eventually led to the realization among Russian scientists, and their American counterparts, that such [[Nuclear reaction|reaction]] could have military significance.<ref name="W. W. Norton & Company, Richelson">{{cite book|last1=Richelson|first1=Jeffrey|title=Spying on the Bomb: American Nuclear Intelligence from Nazi Germany to Iran and North Korea|date=2007|publisher=W.W. Norton & Company|location=New York|isbn=978-0393329827|page=600|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8XQrAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA20 |access-date=12 June 2017|language=en|chapter-format=googlebooks|chapter=A Terrifying Prospect}}</ref>{{rp|20}} The discovery excited the Russian physicists, and they began conducting their independent investigations on nuclear fission, mainly aiming towards power generation, as many were skeptical of the possibility of creating an [[atomic bomb]] anytime soon.<ref name="ABC-CLIO, Burns 2013">{{cite book|last1=Burns|first1=Richard Dean|last2=Siracusa|first2=Joseph M.|title=A Global History of the Nuclear Arms Race: Weapons, Strategy, and Politics [2 volumes]: Weapons, Strategy, and Politics|date=2013|publisher=ABC-CLIO|isbn=978-1440800955|page=641|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EX2jAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA25 |access-date=12 June 2017|language=en|chapter-format=googlebooks|chapter=Soviet scientists began Quest}}</ref>{{rp|25}} Early efforts were led by [[Yakov Frenkel]] (a physicist specialised on [[Condensed matter physics|condensed matter]]), who did the first theoretical calculations on [[continuum mechanics]] directly relating the kinematics of [[Nuclear binding energy|binding energy]] in fission process in 1940.<ref name="W. W. Norton & Company, Richelson"/>{{rp|99}} [[Georgy Flyorov]]'s and [[Lev Rusinov]]'s collaborative work on thermal reactions concluded that 3–1 neutrons were emitted per fission only days after similar conclusions had been reached by the team of [[Frédéric Joliot-Curie]].<ref name="W. W. Norton & Company, Richelson"/>{{rp|63}}<ref name="CRC Press, Ponomarev">{{cite book|last1=Ponomarev|first1=L. I.|last2=Kurchatov|first2=I. V.|title=The Quantum Dice|date=1993|publisher=CRC Press|location=Bristol|isbn=978-0750302517|page=250|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iu0umhnc_00C&pg=PA200 |access-date=12 June 2017|language=en|chapter-format=googlebooks|chapter=Quantumalia}}</ref>{{rp|200}}