The origins of nuclear physics in Mexico

Abstract

Based on the premise that the scientific and technological development in a country like Mexico is frequently conditioned to external dynamics that do not correspond precisely with the situation of the local activity nor with the internal necessities of the productive plant, this study describes and analyzes the articulation that originated in an specific juncture in which international imperatives, political perspectives and institutional modalities of investigation and academic work sought to incorporate Mexico to the nuclear era by developing programs of investigation in that field, by the acquisition of technologically sophisticated equipment and by the creation of institutional entities related to the field (the National Commission of Nuclear Energy is one of them). From another perspective, this paper also debates about the imposition of a paradigm during the Cold War, toned down by agreements of cooperation and interchange, that resulted in the stimulation for the development of physics in that field which was neither concomitant with the development in other fields nor with the scientific and technological research in other areas. The local conditions of this process determined that the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) would be its main protagonist.