Re: Okno designers get State Prize
- From: "Allen Thomson" <thomsona@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 14 Jul 2006 15:21:34 -0700
Y un poquito mas:
This is G o o g l e's cache of
http://www.kommersant.com/page.asp?idr=1&id=583445 as retrieved on Jun
30, 2006 13:04:57 GMT.
June 07, 2005
The President Reevaluates Scientists
// Six receive reformed State Prize
Encouragement
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed an order on Monday on the
awarding of the State Prize of the Russian Federation for 2004 for
science and technology. Beginning with that year, the number of
recipients of the prize will be sharply reduced, but its size will be
comparable with the Nobel Prize. There were six recipients of the prize
in its new form, three members of the military aerospace forces,
husband and wife archeologists from Novosibirsk and a St. Petersburg
mathematician. The president will give them their prizes at the Kremlin
on June 12 as part of the celebration of Russia Day.
The Main Science Prize of Russia
Putin has signed the order with the names of the prize winners, who
were preliminarily confirmed in a closed session of the president's
council on science, technology and education on May 19. In 2004, the
amount of the prize was drastically altered. Before, a prize of 300,000
rubles was given to several dozen people and the prizes were, as a
rule, not given to people, but to research groups of eight to ten
people. Nor for a "prominent contribution to the development of
national and world science," three prizes of 5 million rubles (about
$180,000) each will be given, which is monetarily comparable to the
Nobel Prize.
Now the State Prize differs from the Nobel Prize only in two details.
First, the candidates must be Russian citizens (citizenship has no
meaning for the Nobel Prize; Russian writer Ivan Bunin had no
citizenship at all when he won the Nobel Prize). Second, the State
Prize can be awarded posthumously (only the living are awarded the
Nobel Prize; a posthumous prize will be awarded only if the candidate
dies between January 10 and December 10 of the same year, that is, the
time between the finalization of the candidates by the prize committee
and the presentation of the award by the king of Sweden).
The Military Space Program Didn't Head for the Hills for Nothing
Under the Monday presidential order, Maj. Gen. Alexander Kvasnikov,
head of the military aerospace staff and first deputy commander of the
Russian military aerospace program, was named a State Prize winner for
science and technology, as were Valery Kolinko, Candidate of Science
and head of the special KB-4 Scientific and Technological Center at the
federal scientific production center OAO Krasnogorsky Mechanical Plant,
and Arkady Vereshkin, Candidate of Technical Sciences and head of
Scientific and Technological Center No. 57 of the Scientific Research
Center for Television. They will receive the prize for the establishing
the Window optical-electronic space control complex located on Mt.
Sanglok near Nurek, Tajikistan, military unit 52168 (object 7680) of
the Russian military aerospace force.
It is the only Window complex in Russia now and it delivers timely
information about conditions in space and about satellites (mostly
foreign ones), including their functions and conditions up to an
elevation of 40,000 km. This is not the first prize the aerospace force
has received. Gen. Col. Vladimir Popovkin, commander of the aerospace
force, was awarded the administration prize for science and technology
in 2004, as were Maj. Gen. Alexander Lopatin, deputy commander of the
aerospace force; Lieut. Gen. Alexander Kovalev, head of Mozhaisky
Military Aerospace Academy in St. Petersburg, and Lieut. Gen. Leonid
Baranov, head of the cosmodrome in Baikonur.
Secret Mathematics
Academic-Secretary Lyudvig Faddeev works at the Eiler International
Mathematics Institute in St. Petersburg and in the presidium of the
Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow. He is the head of the
mathematics division, one of the nine divisions of the Academy of
Sciences. In the presidential order, his contribution is given the
vague definition of "development of national and world science."
Therefore, Kommersant turned to the prize winner himself for
elucidation. "I have various prizes," he explained. "But this one
is exceptional. It is very hard to say in simple understandable
language what I received this prize for. You have heard of names like
Einstein and Heisenberg? I continued their research from the
mathematical point of view. And the prize was given to me, as they do
in Hollywood, for life achievement. I am a good scientist. I already
have two State Prizes for specific works. I have a lot of everything in
general."
Faddeev's colleague in the presidium of the Academy of Science,
physicist and head of the division of energy and machine building
Vladimir Fortov, also told Kommersant why Faddeev was awarded the
prize. Faddeev's mathematical constructs are very important for the
work being performed in Fortov's division. "Lyudvig Faddeev has
always very keenly felt the physical applications of mathematics and
made a prominent practical contribution to all aspects of mathematical
physics... That's the theory of turbulence, which is important for the
design of submarines and torpedoes, and the so-called many-body
problem. It is important to solve this problem correctly when there are
various targets moving on different trajectories in a space. And, of
course, there is the theory of the retention of bodies in magnetic
fields, without which the development of new sources of energy such as
tokamaks would be impossible," Fortov explained, speaking to
Kommersant from a test range
Advances in Archeology
The prize was awarded to archeologists Vyacheslav Molodin, deputy
chairman of the Siberian Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences,
and Natalya Polosmak, Doctor of Historical Sciences and member of the
Institute of Archeology and Ethnography, for specific work,
"discovery and research of the unique complexes of the Pazyrsky
Culture of the fourth and third centuries B.C. on the territory of
Gorny Altai."
The most spectacular discovery of the scientific expedition to Gorny
Altai was the Princess of Ukok, a mummified woman found in the
permafrost. Her discovery last year almost caused a riot in the
Republic of Altai. Gorny Altai residents gathered in the district
center of Kosh-Agach on April 22, 2004, when then presidential
representative for the Siberian Federal District Leonid Drachevsky was
visiting, and demanded that the "princess" be returned to her
grave. Otherwise, they stated, "the angry spirits of the mountains
will not stop the earthquakes that have been going on for two years
already."
Before his arrival in Kosh-Agach, Drachevsky had met with scientists
and acquainted himself with the discovery. Equipped with that
knowledge, he was able to defuse the situation within a few hours. He
explained to local residents that, according to the scientists, the
princess was not Altai, but a Nenets, one of those whom the ancestors
of the current residents had forced out of Altai to Yamal. And in any
casae, when the scientists are finished with their research, she will
be returned to the Altai. Hearing this, the crowd dispersed.
Molodin, who was initially not inclined to be cooperative with the
presidential representative, but later helped him calm the republic,
told Kommersant that "it is very pleasant to know that my wife and I
will receive the State Prize... We haven't thought about how to spend
the money yet. My wife will decide. Women know how to do that." The
learned couple will not celebrate long. Molodin said that "we will
receive it at the Kremlin, then got to the Barabinsky steppe for new
digging."
by Alexey Sobolev, St. Petersburg; Dmitry Serdtsev, Novosibirsk
.
- References:
- Okno designers get State Prize
- From: Allen Thomson
- Okno designers get State Prize
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