ABSTRACT
In 1956, when I graduated from high school, many of my fellow students and I were mad on physics (and, to some degree, mathematics). In my circle of friends, the famous Soviet physicists were idols. Yakov Borisovich Zeldovich was a particularly legendary personality. Just fancy-a Corresponding Member, a Hero126 several times over and a Laureate at the age of 32; a laboratory assistant who had not graduated from a university and had leapfrogged straight into a doctorate. It was he, not Sakharov (who was much less well known at that time) who was described as ‘the father of our bomb.’ Still, nobody had access to any real information, and people only talked to their own kind, in low voices and with caution. Stalin had only just died, and it was not safe to discuss topics like this with just anybody. Alas, on one occasion I found this out to my cost. But that is a different story altogether.
