Sergei Kapitsa: The Man Who Had an Answer for Every Question

18 hrs. 42 min.

Biographies, Memoirs & Life Stories

Language Russian

Authors Nikolay Bodrikhin, Alla Mostinskaya

Author Nikolay Bodrikhin

Author Alla Mostinskaya

Narrator Mikhail Roslyakov

Description

This book is about the well-known scientist, legendary TV presenter, outstanding science propagandist, educator, and traveler Sergey Petrovich Kapitsa. A person of the noblest scientific lineage—son of P. L. Kapitsa, an academician, a member of the London Royal Society, a Nobel laureate, and grandson of the outstanding Russian academician shipbuilder A. N. Krylov—Sergey Petrovich experienced exceptional successes and deep disappointments throughout his life. At the age of 30, under his leadership, a microtron was created—one of the most successful cyclic accelerators—but he was never even elected a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences. For more than thirty-five years, he devoted his life to teaching at MIPT, a top-level technical university, from which, starting in the late 1980s, about 80 percent of the best young technical minds were “exported” out of Russia. Becoming a wildly popular Soviet TV host, in the 1990s he was expelled from television, and already from the second half of the 1980s he spoke about the extremely negative influence of broadcasting on people.

In writing the book, his many works were used, documents provided by Sergey Petrovich’s children, the archives of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the P. L. Kapitsa Institute for Physical Problems, and testimonies from his coworkers and friends.

Contents:

Instead of a preface. The beginning
Chapter One. The start of the journey
Origin
Cambridge in Kapitsa’s fate
The beginning of the biography
Father: return to Russia
Chapter Two. “Back in the USSR”
Relocation
Back to school
Nikolina Gora
Adolescence
War
Chapter Three. Student years
Father
Son
Student life
Chapter Four. The beginning of adult life
Armenia
Work at the ЦАГЦ
Love and family
Chapter Five. Maturing
At the Institute of Earth Physics
At the Institute for Physical Problems
Trip to Stockholm
Books
Hobbies
Chapter Six. Phystech
The start of Phystech
“Managed the department for 35 years”
A scientist serves the Fatherland no worse than a soldier.
“The Berkeley course on physics”
On the usefulness of learning foreign languages.
New times
Throughout life—with a smile
Chapter Seven. Known and famous
The phenomenon of a TV program
The burden of fame
In the circle of friends
One day in the life on Nikolina Gora
Editor-in-chief. “In the world of science”
Participation in an anti-war movement
The Roman Club
In demography
The Nikitsky Club
Attitude to religion
Life results
Quotes, aphorisms, thoughts of S. P. Kapitsa
Awards of S. P. Kapitsa
Instead of an epilogue. Day of remembrance
Appendices
Appendix 1. Words of remembrance
Alferov, Zhores Ivanovich
Anochin, Konstantin Vladimirovich
Antonova, Irina Alexandrovna
Aseev, Alexander Leonidovich
Bogomolov, Heinrich Dmitrievich
Broyer, Reinhard
Bykov, Vladimir Pavlovich
Velichkovsky, Boris Mitrofanovich
Gergiev, Valery Abisalovich
Zhukov, Alexander Dmitrievich
Ivanov, Vyacheslav Vsevolodovich
Kagan, Yuri Moiseevich
Kapitsa, Fyodor Sergeevich
Kokoshin, Andrey Afanasevich
Lugansky, Lev Borisovich
Lyubimov, Yuri Petrovich
Popov, Roman Yakubovich
Ryzhov, Yuri Alekseevich
Sagaleyevich, Anatoly Mikhailovich
Sagdeev, Roald Zinnurovich
Sadovnichiy, Viktor Antonovich
Skryabin, Konstantin Georgievich
Stepin, Vyacheslav Semenovich
Fortov, Vladimir Evgenievich
Tsypenyuk, Yuri Mikhailovich
Tchernigovskaya, Tatyana Vladimirovna
Appendix 2. Works of S. P. Kapitsa
Books
Articles and talks
Appendix 3. Author’s certificates for
inventions
and scientific discovery of S. P. Kapitsa
Main dates of life and activity of S. P.
Kapitsa...
Literature