Documents / FOIA release
This JPRS translation, dated 1 August 1990, is an article from the Soviet journal Kommunist by Leonid Grishchuk of the Shternberg State Astronomy Institute. In it he argues that basic science needs state support. He notes that lecture audiences ask a lot about flying saucers and space aliens. He goes on to review cosmology, including galaxy structure, cosmic expansion, relic radiation, Fridman's models and inflationary theory. He closes by saying the question of non-Earth civilizations is a topic for another author.
Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.
# Concatenated JPRS Reports, 1990 ## Document 12 of 16 number of necessary assumptions. Comparison of all conclusions from such a concept to what is observed is one of the most actively developing fields of cosmological research today. 39. Finally, the existence of a stage with a great negative pressure gives hope for explaining cosmological expansion itself. As already stated, at this stage the forces of gravitation accelerate expansion, not slow it down. The gravitating system is brought from a state of rest to one of expansion, not of compression. 40. The hypothesis of an inflationary stage of expansion is just one example of the close intertwining between modern cosmology and modern basic physics. The problems relating to the micro- and macro-world connect into a unified set of problems. Possibly, here we must seek an answer to the question of how the Universe was born. In recent years, this has become the object of specific research. 41. There are at least two groups of ideas. First, there is a set of theoretical and observational arguments supporting the idea that the history of the Universe began from a kind of special state, not subject to description within the framework of the classical relativistic theory of gravity. Really, extrapolations of the observed expansion into the past, according to ordinary Fridman solutions, in the end lead to infinite values for all physical quantities: density of energy, pressure, strain of the gravitational field, etc. A state characterized by such values is called a singularity. Classical concepts of length and duration no longer apply for its study. This area of research has been singled out as an independent discipline, quantum cosmology. Thus, a concept arises about the quantum birth of a classical Universe and classical space-time. 42. The second group of ideas relates to persistent attempts by theoreticians to create a unified theory for all physical interactions. The inclusion of gravitation in existing theoretical schemes makes it necessary to involve complex theoretical constructions, such as multidimensional spaces, super-symmetry, super-strings, etc. It is important that, as for other fields, quantum laws should form the basis for describing gravitational interaction. The classical gravitational field and the related classical space-time are approximations, justifiable under certain conditions. 43. Both above-mentioned groups of ideas are being actively developed right now. In the first, the emphasis is placed on cosmology; in the second--on microphysics. It may be possible that the secret of the origin of the Universe will be discovered when both approaches merge into one.
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FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. The text was read from the page images by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word. 12 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.