The development of scientific investigations in solid-state physics in the universities of the USSR

Conclusions Scientific research work in solid-state physics along the lines laid down by the Joint Section of the Scientific and Technical Council of the Ministry of Higher and Secondary Specialized Education USSR is being carried out in more than 60 colleges in the Soviet Union; 25 of these are leading executive and co-executive organs for the most important topics of the Five Year Plan (1966–70). However, these figures do not fully represent the contribution made by the higher educational establishments to the development of science in our country. The higher schools participate indirectly, through the training of personnel, in scientific work in the academic and industrial institutes, and many promising scientific ideas, first conceived in the higher schools, are adopted by the Academy of Sciences and are further developed within its walls.This review of the scientific work of the colleges does not pretend to embrace all the problems of solid-state physics; the authors may have overlooked particular works or allowed some inaccuracy in formulation to remain; the completeness of the review, however, also depended on the material available to the Joint Committee. The reader can find additional material in reports by Academicians G. V. Kurdyumov, S. T. Konobeevskii, S. V. Vonsovskii, and L. F. Vereshchagin, the Corresponding Members AS USSR I. M. Lifshits and B. K. Vainshtein, Doctors A. A. Smirnov, E. I. Kondorskii, and others, to the Jubilee Session of the Council of the USSR Academy of Sciences on solid-state physics (April 1967).An objective estimate of Soviet scientific work, including that of the higher schools, is given in the proceedings of numerous international congresses, conferences, and meetings which take place with the active and effective participation of Soviet scientists. A broad view of the achievements in the field of solid-state physics can be obtained from the Seventh International Crystallographic Congress held in Moscow in July 1966. One-third of the 960 papers read at the Congress were the work of Soviet scientists; the contribution of the colleges amounted to 40% of all Soviet work. These statistics, which are also confirmed by an analysis of the scientific papers in physics journals, appear to reflect correctly the quantitative contribution of the higher schools to the working out of scientific problems of solid-state physics in the USSR.At the same time the scientific standard of the best college works is not inferior to that of the academic institutes in the Soviet Union or in the West, despite the fact that they are carried out under more restricted conditions. Soviet scientists can confidently hold their own in many fields of solid-state physics including those of the theory of symmetry, the theory of electron structure, and the theory of the physical properties of crystals. Soviet experimental investigations in the fields of magnetism and ferroelectricity and the strength, plasticity, and dislocation structure of crystals are not inferior to the best examples abroad, although all branches of study are not equally represented in their entirety in the USSR.A serious misgiving arises, however, on account of the lag in the theoretical and applied work on the growth of single crystals, which is holding back the development of solid-state physics as a whole. One would think that capital investments in this field would completely justify themselves and make it possible to achieve new scientific advances in solid-state physics in the USSR.