ABSTRACT
Laboratory No. 3 was established on the initiative of the Technical Council of the Special Committee. At that time the members of the Council were B . L . Vannikov, A . I . Alikhanov, P .L. Kapitsa, I.V. Kurchatov, V . A . Makhnev (Secretary of the Special Committee), Yu.B. Khariton, V . G . Khlopin, and other scientists. The resolution of the Technical Council, dated October 8, 1945, signed by the Chairman of the Council B . L . Vannikov and by Scientific Secretary A. I . Alikhanov, stated: "Consider it necessary to organize Laboratory No. 3 of the USSR Academy of Sciences under the guidance of A. I . Alikhanov, with the following tasks assigned to it:
- physical research, designing, and building of a uranium-heavy water nuclear pile;
- physical research into thorium-water and thorium-plutonium-water systems for producing 2 3 3 U ;
- physical investigations of /^-radioactivity; - physical investigations of high-energy nuclear particles and cosmic rays. Submit a draft resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the
USSR, moved by Comrades Meshik P.Ya. and Alikhanov A. I . on the above issue, for approval by the Special Committee."
