With the nation's scientific and commercial development growing at an ever faster pace the importance of nuclear studies increases accordingly. And in universities across Canada varied programs of applied and fundamental research are laying the vital foundations for Canada's role in the world of the real nuclear age which is still to come. Supported in large part by the federal government (through the National Research Council, the Atomic Energy Control Board and Atomic Energy of Canada Limited) and the provinces, the work lies in the realms of pure physical research, medicine, power generation, commerce and agriculture. Teams of physicists, using atom smashers (complicated high-energy accelerators), investigate the intricate properties of basic matter, the results of which will bear profoundly on knowledge of the universe itself, while others evolve such practical everyday techniques as the radioactive impregnation of lumber with plastics that will soon provide industry with a new construction material. With the major facilities now in operation in the country's leading universities, plus the wide-ranging nuclear work taking place in up to 20 other places of higher-education, the prospects for a national store of highly qualified physicists and nuclear experts is better assured. And for young Canadian scientists and the increasing number of physics students coming from overseas the nation's universities can offer an opportunity to study the nuclear sciences with instructors and machines second to none in the sophisticated world of modern-day science.