Atomic Twelve-Foot Shelf

The scientists are about to tell all that can safely be told about the vast wartime researches that led to the atom bomb. The Atomic Energy Commission announced last week that it intends to issue, within the next two years, more than 100 volumes, averaging 500 pages each.

The first two, soon to be published by McGraw-Hill Book Co., will deal with medical aspects of the bomb research. The series will eventually cover everything from the technology of the voracious gas, fluorine (which gnaws holes in glass and makes bricks burn), to leak detectors for gas-tight rooms and compartments. The only information left out: the military supersecrets directly connected with the bomb and its atomic relatives.

Some of the volumes will be reserved for well-screened scientists working on AEC projects. But the volumes available to the general public (about 60) will contain information for which U.S. industry and science have been clamoring. During the war many of the nation's best scientists, working at skull-bursting pressure, concentrated on bombmaking. While they were about it, they were forced to solve innumerable lesser problems, which led to various new techniques, machines and instruments.

The AEC believes that full knowledge of these accomplishments will make U.S. technology more efficient. The only way to keep the U.S. safely ahead in the field of atomic weapons, AEC reasons, is to indoctrinate U.S. industry in the methods of nuclear science. Then, when other nations have our atomic "secrets" (or discover them on their own), the U.S. will still have a commanding lead.

Besides this down-to-earth motive, the AEC believes that the public needs a lot of education. At present, most plain citizens are almost superstitiously fearful of everything connected with the exploding atom. Their jitters keep them from reasoning calmly. When atomic knowledge has spread more widely, AEC believes, people will get their bearings and learn to live with the atom, which is here to stay.

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