Sergei Petrovich Kapitsa continued the scientific work of the dynasty of Russian scientists. He led educational activities, studied physics, was a member Russian Academy Sciences (Vice President). From the pen of Sergei Kapitsa, the journal "In the world of science" was published. For 39 years, Sergei Kapitsa hosted the TV show "Obvious-Incredible" and did not leave the post until his death.

Childhood and youth

Sergey Petrovich Kapitsa was born on February 14, 1928 in Cambridge. The scientist's parents were professor, laureate Nobel Prize and Anna Alekseevna Krylova - a housewife, daughter of Alexei Nikolaevich Krylov. Maternal grandfather reached heights in shipbuilding and mechanics, was an academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences / Russian Academy of Sciences / Academy of Sciences of the USSR. The younger brother - Andrei Petrovich Kapitsa - achieved heights in geography and geomorphology, since 1970 - a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

The brothers were baptized in infancy. Godfather little Sergei became a Russian physiologist. At the age of seven, the future scientist went to the Cambridge School. In 1934, Pyotr Leonidovich left for Russia on business and did not return. The authorities of the country did not release Father Sergei from the USSR to England. And a year after her husband's departure, Anna Alekseevna and her sons went to her husband in Moscow.

During the terrible period of the Second World War, Kapitsa and his family left for Kazan and remained in the city until the end of hostilities. Sergei Petrovich studied in the form of an external student and received a certificate in 1943, at the age of 15. Then, returning to the capital again, he applied to the Aviation Institute and studied at the Faculty of Aircraft Engineering.

The science

After graduating in 1949, he worked for two years at the Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute named after N.E. Zhukovsky, where he studied the problems of heat transfer and aerodynamic heating at high flow rates. Then for two years he research work, holding the position of junior researcher at the Institute of Geophysics.

In 1953 he began research at the Institute of Physical Problems of the Academy of Sciences of the SSR (RAS). After some time, he was entrusted with managing the laboratory. This was followed by the position of leading researcher and next - the chief researcher. He worked at the Institute of Physical Problems until 1992. In 1953 he received his Ph.D. in physical and mathematical sciences.

Since 1956, he taught classes at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. In 1961, he defended his doctorate in physical and mathematical sciences on the topic "Microtron", after which Sergei Petrovich was awarded the title of professor. He held the position of head of the department of general physics at the Institute of Physics and Technology. Sergey Petrovich Kapitsa - supporter independent activity students and, as head of the department, introduced a similar approach into educational practice.

In 1957, he became interested, and then took up swimming under water. He was one of the first founders of the Soviet scuba gear and even mastered the scuba. Subsequently, he received a diver's certificate under the number 0002.

Sergei Kapitsa did not bypass the world of literature. The first published book, A Life of Science, was published in 1973. It contains introductory words and the preface of the educator to world scientific works, starting with and. The publication of the book became a prerequisite for the creation of the brainchild of Sergei Kapitsa - the scientific program "Obvious-incredible". In 2008, Kapitsa was awarded the prestigious TEFI award as the permanent host of the TV program. The achievements of the researcher in the development of Russian television were noted.

In 1983, the researcher organized a journal, which he called "In the world of science", and became the head of the printed edition. In 2000 he founded the Nikitsky Club. The association was created to rally the great minds of Russia.

In 2006, Sergei Kapitsa was invited to the presidency International Festival popular science film "World of Knowledge".

Shortly before his death, the scientist took up problems modern society, globalization and demography, published articles on this issue and published the book "The General Theory of Population Growth".

Sergei Petrovich played significant role in the development of cliodynamics. The name of Sergei Petrovich Kapitsa is known to every novice researcher. He is the main popularizer of science in the country, and quotes and statements of the professor are found in scientific treatises.

Personal life

The personal life of the scientist was successful. In 1949 he married Tatyana Alimovna Damir. The girl was brought up in the family of a doctor Alim Matveyevich Damir. The future spouses first met while relaxing at a country dacha with friends in 1948. A year later, Sergei Petrovich made an offer of marriage to Tatyana Alimovna, and soon they got married.

Sergei Petrovich and Tatyana Alimovna built strong family and lived together for 63 years. The couple had three children - the heir Fedor and two beautiful daughters - Maria and Barbara. Over the years life together Tatyana Alimovna became for her husband true friend and ally. Once an interviewer asked the professor which of his achievements he considers the greatest, and Sergei Petrovich, without hesitation, answered: "Marrying Tanya."

In 1986, the professor was unsuccessfully assassinated by a mentally ill person. The attacker came to the lecture hall and attacked Sergei Kapitsa with an axe. The scientist was seriously injured and was taken to the hospital, but then went back to work.

In 2008, a book-biography of Sergei Kapitsa "My memories" appeared in stores. In his memoirs, he described in detail his life and the difficulties he faced. In the publication, the professor shared a photo from family archive.

Death

Sergey Petrovich Kapitsa died on August 14, 2012 in Moscow at the age of 84. The cause of death was liver cancer. Tatyana Alimovna lived a year after the death of her husband and passed away on August 28, 2013. In honor of the scientist, a memorial plaque was opened on February 14, 2013.

Awards and achievements

Scientific activity

• Author of 4 monographs, dozens of articles, 14 inventions and 1 discovery.
• Creator of the phenomenological mathematical model of the hyperbolic growth of the Earth's population. For the first time, he proved the fact of the hyperbolic growth of the Earth's population until 1 year AD. e.

Awards and prizes

• 1979 - Kalinga Prize (UNESCO)
• 1980 - State Prize of the USSR for the organization of the TV show "Obvious - Incredible"
• RAS Prize for the Popularization of Science
• 2002 - Government Prize Russian Federation in education
• 2006 - Order of Honor Order of Merit for the Fatherland, IV degree (2011)
• 2012 - Gold medal of the Russian Academy of Sciences for outstanding achievements in the field of promotion of scientific knowledge

Bibliography

• 1981 - Science and the media
• 2000 - Model of the growth of the world's population and economic development humanity
• 2004 - Global demographic revolution and the future of mankind
• 2004 - On the acceleration of historical time
• 2005 - Asymptotic methods and their strange interpretation.
• 2005 - Global demographic revolution
• 2006 - Global population blow-up and after. The demographic revolution and information society.
• 2007 - Demographic Revolution and Russia.
• 2010 - Paradoxes of growth: Laws of human development.

At the very end of the thirties in the Moscow Experimental School No. 32, where the offspring studied Soviet elite, an egregious incident occurred. The sons of the Commissar suffered in a fight at recess Anastas Mikoyan and nephew of the Commissar Lazar Kaganovich. Nothing serious, the usual boyish brawl of fifth graders. That's just the "aggressor", weighing cuffs, shouting at the same time: "Beat the drug commissars!"

In that era, for such things, both the fighter himself and his parents could not be greeted. However, in this case managed: the instigator was simply transferred to another school.

Four decades later a boy Serezha Kapitsa, who bruised the children of Mikoyan, will become known throughout the country as the "chief telescientist", the host of the TV program "Obvious - Incredible."

Two Kapitsa, two awards

When in the early seventies Sergei Petrovich Kapitsa, by that time already a venerable scientist, was invited to television as the host of a new popular science program, he turned for advice to one of the most titled physicists of the USSR, academician and Hero of Socialist Labor Lev Artsimovich.

Artsimovich, who had a good relationship with Kapitsa, sighed and said: “Try it. But it will cost you dearly. This will definitely affect the attitude of colleagues towards you and destroy your academic career.”

The forecast turned out to be accurate: Kapitsa, along with his program, gained fame and popularity, but scientific world began to consider him not a scientist, but a popularizer of science. As a result, until the end of his days, he never received the title of academician, which, according to the results of his scientific activity, he certainly deserved.

Father, Pyotr Kapitsa, a world-famous physicist, also did not approve of his son's television experiments, believing that "his Seryozha" took up the "light genre".

In 1978, Kapitza Sr. was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics. But a year later, Kapitsa Jr. received the Kalinga Prize: UNESCO's highest award for exceptional achievements in the popularization of science. This was how Sergey Kapitsa's activity as the host of the Obvious - Incredible program was assessed.

Professor Sergei Kapitsa (center) talks with BAM builders, 1976. Photo: RIA Novosti / Vladimir Granovsky

Nightmare of "Krasnobaev and Balamutov"

Today under the guise scientific knowledge television slips citizens the revelations of astrologers, the battles of mediums. At best, we are offered programs with scientific experiments in the style of "let's throw yeast in the toilet and see what happens."

For Kapitsa, this approach was unacceptable. He was not going to stoop to the level of the public, but did everything to raise knowledge about science to a fundamentally new height.

And he was great at it. Together Yuri Senkevich And Nikolai Drozdov Kapitsa was a shock educational trio of Soviet television. Senkevich was responsible for geography and partially history, Drozdov for biology, and Kapitsa took over almost the rest of the natural sciences.

"Dear show!
On Saturday, almost crying,
The whole Kanatchikov dacha
Rushed to the TV.
Instead of eating, washing,
Get lost and forget
All crazy hospital
Gathered at the screens "

Song Vladimir Vysotsky“A letter to the editor of the television program “Obvious – Incredible” from a lunatic asylum” is also a clear indicator of how high the level of popularity of the program was.

Kapitsa was not afraid to discuss in the program not only serious topics, but also pseudo-scientific theories and riddles, for example, the so-called "mystery of the Bermuda Triangle". However, enthusiasts of such topics had a hard time: the presenter let them speak, but immediately strongly opposed, smashing all their supposedly “reliable facts” to smithereens.

The issue that inspired Vysotsky was just dedicated to the Bermuda Triangle, and in it Kapitsa utterly smashed Vladimir Azhazhu, who will later be called the "father of Russian ufology". According to Vysotsky, Azhazha began to look like a “cheerleader and troublemaker” thanks to the professionalism of the presenter, who clearly showed how real science differs from pseudoscientific activity.

“If we continue such a policy, we will bring up a country of fools”

It's scary to think what Sergei Petrovich would say if he saw a TV program in which "supporters of a flat Earth" speak out without any criticism.

In one of his recent interviews, which he gave to Arguments and Facts, Kapitsa said: “A few years ago, speaking at a government meeting, I said:“ If we continue such a policy towards the media, we will bring up a country of fools. It will be easier for you to rule this country, but this country will have no future.”

I also raised the issue of responsibility for the disseminated information at a meeting of the Academy of Russian Television. They shushed me: “This is censorship! How dare you say such a thing?!’ In the end, I stopped going there altogether: it’s pointless.”

Transfer affected by freedom

Kapitsa began working on television when he was in charge Sergey Lapin, a man who "buried" more than one project and ruthlessly excommunicated those who, in his opinion, did not fit into the "general line" from the air.

But this was practically not reflected in the program “Obvious - Incredible”. The only loss - from the famous Pushkin epigraph, which opened the program, cut out the last line "And the case, God is an inventor." The word "God" on Soviet TV was considered seditious.

About the rest, Kapitsa said this: “When I started my work on television, then any publication in the field of science was accompanied by detailed examination reports: that, they say, we do not give out secret information. Sergei Lapin, then chairman of the State Radio and Television, called me and explained: “Sergei Petrovich, we will not demand these examinations from you. You must be responsible for what you say. And we'll watch." This is what I was guided by."

"Obvious - Incredible" is perhaps the only program that suffered not from Soviet censorship, but from post-Soviet permissiveness. In the early nineties, the television authorities began to hint to Kapitsa: the public, they say, now needs not to be told about nuclear physics, but about zombies, UFOs and telekinesis. Professor Kapitsa politely but firmly explained that it was not worth contacting him with this. Candidates for psychics, contactees with aliens were simply afraid of him, because he skillfully brought them to clean water.

As a result, the program, although it continued to exist until the death of Kapitsa, wandered from channel to channel and ended up at the most unrated time. And in prime time at this time, the public was fed another fortune-teller in the eighth generation.

"Healthy and noisy guy"

He had an amazing life. He was born and spent the first years of his life in Cambridge, where his father, Pyotr Kapitsa, worked in the laboratory of the "father" of nuclear physics. Ernest Rutherford.

“Healthy and noisy guy. He is very serious and sucks his fist ... Now we can’t think of a name, ”Kapitsa Sr. wrote to his mother the day after the birth of his son.

The boy was named Sergei, but at the same time the British called him "Peter", because they could not pronounce the Russian name.

Mom called Seryozha Peter only in those cases when he was guilty of something. At the same time, she switched to English language, although in the Kapitsa family they usually spoke only Russian.

scientific family

Pyotr Kapitsa was not an emigrant: he was on a long scientific mission and usually came to the USSR once a year. Arriving in 1934, the scientist learned that he would never return to England: that was the decision of the government.

For Kapitsa, by that time already a world-famous scientist, they built a “golden cage”: they created all the conditions for work, bought all his equipment in England, offered to gather all the necessary specialists around him, but they were not allowed to travel abroad.

The family moved to the USSR: by that time, Kapitsa already had a brother, who was named Andrey.

Andrey Kapitsa, unlike his brother, nevertheless became an academician. An outstanding geographer and geomorphologist, he is considered the author of the last great geographical discovery of the 20th century. In the fifties, he predicted the existence of a huge lake under the ice of Antarctica. The existence of this lake was confirmed in the nineties.

The Soviet government really needed Pyotr Kapitsa, so he was allowed more than others. He could afford to argue with Stalin, took away from the department Beria people over whom the punishing sword of the organs was already raised. But at the end of the Stalin era, Kapitsa Sr. fell into disgrace, being removed from active scientific work for several years.

From catapult to Microtron

On the MAI graduate Sergey Kapitsa, his father's disgrace was affected by his dismissal from the Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute (TsAGI). The young scientist, who had a hand in the creation of the first domestic ejection systems, changed his field of activity. Moving to the Institute of Physics of the Earth, he began to work on the problems of terrestrial magnetism. Talent will break through everywhere: two years later, Kapitsa had already defended his Ph.D. thesis.

With the death of Stalin ended the disgrace of Peter Kapitsa, who returned to vigorous activity and the son began to work under the direction of his father. Sergey Kapitsa's doctoral dissertation was the work on the creation of the original elementary particle accelerator "Microtron".

In 1965, he received the title of professor at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, where he taught general physics for the next three decades. Then he began to write popular science articles, which led him to television.

One step away from death

Kapitsa was a very versatile person. In the fifties, for example, he became one of the first Soviet scuba divers and was a pioneer of underwater documentary photography. In the sixties, at the festival of documentary and sports films in Paris, Kapitsa's tape competed with the work of the most legendary Jacques-Yves Cousteau.

True, this hobby, which the scientist retained for the rest of his life, once nearly killed him. Due to equipment failure off the coast of Australia, Kapitsa was barely able to get to the surface. But even after that he continued to scuba dive.

Another time, the scientist was on guard for death right in the MIPT academic building in Dolgoprudny near Moscow. It was in December 1986, when Kapitsa's popularity reached its peak. A certain admirer of Orthodox-monarchical ideas, who saw in the scientist the "chief Jew-mason", entered the auditorium and hit Sergei Petrovich on the head with a tourist hatchet. The physicist, however, turned out to be a strong man: he disarmed the attacker, he himself managed to call the doctors and the police, and only then lost consciousness.

Fortunately, the assassination attempt had no fatal consequences. What happened to the attacker, who was detained, is not exactly known. According to some reports, he was declared insane and sent for compulsory treatment.

Pyotr Kapitsa speaks at a seminar, 1974. Photo: RIA Novosti / Petrukhin

“Over the past 15 years, not a single scientific institute has been built in our country, and almost everything that was ruined”

Like his father, Sergei Kapitsa was a straightforward person and often criticized the Soviet system. Therefore, after the collapse of the USSR, the Russian authorities (as well as the liberal public) believed that the scientist would support the new course.

But it was not there. Kapitsa ruthlessly criticized those in power for their attitude to science and education.

In an interview with AiF in 2008, the scientist said: “In 1935, Stalin left my father in the Soviet Union, having built an institute for him in two years. Over the past 15 years, not a single scientific institute has been built in our country, and almost everything that was ruined ... Several years ago, at the Council of Ministers, they decided to allocate 12 million rubles for apartments for young scientists. Meanwhile, a scandal erupted with the prosecutor, who renovated his apartment for 20 million. I caught on to this and said that if you allocated 12 billion for apartments for young scientists, you could improve things. And all half-measures are meaningless.

"Sakharov will speak only in my presence"

Many public figures cannot forgive Kapitsa for the portrait he left in his memoirs. Andrey Sakharov: « Elena Bonner turned to her father (Peter Kapitsa. - approx. AiF.ru) with a request to sign a letter in defense of a certain dissident. The father refused, saying that he never signs collective letters, and if necessary, he writes to whomever needs it. And he refused her, but, in order to somehow soften this matter, he invited them to dine. And he called me too. Before dinner, this question about the letter came up. When dinner was over, the father, as usual, called Andrei Dmitrievich to his office to talk. Elena Georgievna immediately responded: "Sakharov will speak only in my presence." Then, as in a theater, there was a long pause, everyone was silent. They got up, said dry goodbye, my father did not go out with them into the hall, they were offended, and I walked them to the car. The father was extremely surprised. Prior to that, he had met with Sakharov more than once and had long conversations in private, and when the need arose, he spoke in his defense.

“Understand: the purpose of life is not profit”

Direct, honest, uncomfortable - Sergei Petrovich Kapitsa was true to himself all his life. A few months before his death, being seriously ill, he said in an interview with AiF: “After perestroika, we began to think that everything is measured by money: I will give the scientist a million dollars if he brings me two in a week. But that's not how science works! You give a million today, and in 100 years this million will bring the country a billion. But everyone wants quick money... But understand: the purpose of life is not in profit. Buy yourself another yacht? Can. But why? Experience shows that saturation occurs very quickly. Our oligarchs, unfortunately, have not yet grown out of their short pants, so they want more and more wealth. They take and take...

Professor Kapitsa did not like the Internet, considering it "trash". Nevertheless, thanks to the World Wide Web, today anyone can watch the video archive of the Obvious - Incredible program. So do it the next time the hand with the remote reaches out to switch to the next season of some kind of clairvoyant fight. Sergei Petrovich is always with us.

family

physicist-academician Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa.

Sergei's mother was one of those women who all their lives

devoted to children: from morning to evening she busied herself around the house, trying

provide comfort for her husband and two sons. And Sergey Kapitsa himself, and

Brother Andrei, without a doubt, "went" to his father - both were drawn to knowledge

pits and Both have achieved great things in the future. Despite the fact that early

years

Sergei went to Cambridge, his school childhood was the same

How

and for all Soviet children of that time - Sergei's family returned to

USSR, when the boy was 7 years old, and when he went twelfth

Year,

the Great Patriotic War. Sergei's relatives and friends

suffered, but this hard time still imposed its

imprint

On his character and mindset.

After school, Sergei entered the Aviation Institute, barely

Having finished

seriously engaged in scientific activities - he studied supersonic

aerodynamics, applied electrodynamics, terrestrial

Kapitsa became a doctor of sciences, and at 37 - a professor of physics. -

mathematical sciences. Sergey Kapitsa wrote 4 monographs and

dozens of articles. He has 14 inventions and 1

scientific discovery.

When Sergei Kapitsa was 45 years old, he created the book "Lifenau

And it was this edition that became the root cause of the appearance of the transfer.

"Obvious - incredible." In the same 1973, when

The book, first published and broadcast. For Sergei, she became not only

the most important milestone in life, but also the phenomenon that shaped it

scientific destiny. In 1980, Kapitsa received the State

USSR for the foundation of the program "Obvious - incredible". He also

became the owner of the RAS Prize "for the popularization of science" and

Government of the Russian Federation for merits in the field of education. In spite of

Great achievements in the field of science, many years of experience

Teaching, a number of scientific titles and awards, Sergey

Petrovich

They were never admitted to the Russian Academy of Sciences. Home

"behind the scenes"

The reason was precisely television, which, according to the scientific

community of the USSR could in no way be more important for a scientist than

Main

Job. Kapitsa made it pretty clear what he should choose

Or a transfer, or a place

In Academy. Sergey chose the transfer, which he never regretted.

Kapitsa: Television is the strongest means of interaction

People, now located

in the hands of those who are completely irresponsible about their

Roles in society. Even in

Difficult 90s, when over the program "Obvious -

Incredible" threat looming

Closings, Kapitsa did not change his principle - to tell

People not only

Entertaining, but also educational. At that time scientific broadcasts

Primitive stamps

Which Pinocchio thought. A little more difficult - this is for the air already

Alien". Personal life

Sergey Kapitsa / Sergey Kapitsa With his future wife Tatyana

Damir Sergey could

meet again in primary school where they studied at

Parallel classes, but then

Little Seryozha did not even think of paying attention to

Quiet girl, by the way

Say, also the daughter of a learned man (Tanya's father was a famous

professor of medicine). BUT

That's what she remembered. And how was it not to remember the boy,

Who came from England? But

truly fate brought them together only when Sergei turned

20 years. Already a year later

After they met, they got married, and a year later they were born.

The first son is Fedor. Total

Sergei Kapitsa had three children - except for the first boy, his wife

Gave him two daughters

Masha and Varya. Sergey Petrovich Kapitsa lived for 84 years and died in 2012 in Moscow. FROM ergey Kapitsa - Russian and Soviet scientist, TV presenter, editor-in-chief of the journal "In the world of science", doctor of physical and mathematical sciences, professor, chief researcher of the Institute of Physical Problems. P.L. Kapitsa.

Sergei Petrovich Kapitsa belongs to the dynasty of Russian scientists who have made a huge contribution to the development of domestic and world science. His grandfather - Academician Alexei Nikolaevich Krylov - Russian mathematician and shipbuilder, bright representative Russian scientific elite at the beginning of the last century. Father - Petr Leonidovich Kapitsa - Nobel Prize winner, member of more than 30 academies and scientific societies of the world, a great experimental physicist, engineer and thinker, the pride of Russia of the twentieth century. His brother, Andrey Petrovich Kapitsa, is a well-known geographer, an honorary professor at Moscow State University and a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

The christening of Kapitsa was attended by the famous academician, physiologist Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, Nobel Prize winner in 1904.

Kapitsa went to school at Cambridge, but he failed to complete his studies, since in the fall of 1934 his father, who often came to the USSR, after another visit to his homeland, could not go back to England. Then the government commission headed by Kuibyshev decided that Pyotr Kapitsa "provides significant services to the British, informing them about the situation in science in the USSR."

In 1935, Kapitsa's mother, together with Sergei and his brother Andrei, moved to the USSR.

In 1943, Sergei Kapitsa graduated from a school in Kazan, where his family lived during the war, as an external student.

Upon his return to Moscow, he entered the aircraft building department of the Moscow Aviation Institute.

Within two years after graduating from the institute S.P. Kapitsa worked at the Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute named after N.E. Zhukovsky, dealt with the issues of heat transfer and aerodynamic heating at high flow rates. He defended his PhD in 1956.

Since 1953, he has been working at the Institute of Physical Problems of the USSR Academy of Sciences (RAS) as a researcher, then as the head of the laboratory, and then as a leading researcher and chief researcher.

Sergei Petrovich with Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov and his wife Elena Bonner

With Maya Plisetskaya

Since 1965, leading teaching activities at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. As the head of the department, MIPT actively promotes student independence.

Since 1957, Kapitsa was seriously engaged in underwater sports and, together with Academician Migdal, became one of the creators of the Soviet scuba gear. Kapitsa was one of the first to master scuba diving in the USSR.

Dmitry Medvedev awards Sergei Kapitsa with the Order of Merit for the Fatherland, 4th class

IN last years the scientist paid active attention to the problems of the information society, globalization and demography. Kapitsa is the author of many scientific publications on demographic issues, including the book The General Theory of Population Growth.

Huge popularity was brought to Kapitsa by the program “Obvious-incredible” created by him and coming out since 1973. In 2008, he received a special TEFI prize for his personal contribution to the development of Russian television. Kapitsa was included in the Guinness Book of Records as the TV presenter with the longest program experience.

«

Sergei Kapitsa with his wife Tatyana.

In December 1986, Sergei Kapitsa suffered an unsuccessful assassination attempt by a madman, as a result of which he was injured. During a break in the lectures, an attacker entered the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and tried to kill the scientist with an axe. Kapitsa was injured and spent some time in the hospital.

Since 2001, Sergey Kapitsa has been the chairman of the board of the World of Science non-profit partnership.

Since October 2002, he was the editor-in-chief of the popular science magazine "In the World of Science".

MOSCOW, August 14 - RIA Novosti. Famed TV presenter and popularizer of science Sergei Kapitsa died on Tuesday at the age of 85, RIA Novosti reported. CEO TV company Svetlana Popova.
“Sergey Petrovich died today,” she said.
Chief Researcher of the Institute of Physical Problems, Professor, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences Sergei Petrovich Kapitsa was one of the long-livers of Soviet and then Russian television. In 1973, he became the founder and permanent host of the TV show Obvious - Incredible. In 2008, he received a special TEFI prize for his personal contribution to the development of Russian television.

Sergey Kapitsa was born on February 14, 1928 in Cambridge (Great Britain) in a family of outstanding Russian scientists. His father, academician Pyotr Kapitsa, is a Nobel Prize winner, a member of more than 30 academies and scientific societies of the world, a great experimental physicist, engineer and thinker. The grandfather of Sergei Kapitsa was a mathematician and shipbuilder, academician Alexei Krylov.
My scientific activity Sergey Kapitsa started in 1949, worked in such areas of physics as supersonic aerodynamics, terrestrial magnetism, applied electrodynamics, elementary particle physics. The main subject of research by Sergei Kapitsa later became the demographic revolution, the dynamics of the growth of the Earth's population, the application of the theory of dynamic systems and widely known methods of theoretical physics and synergetics.
In 1983, he organized the publication in the USSR under the name "In the world of science" of the Russian version of the popular science magazine Scientific American and was its editor-in-chief.

Sergey Kapitsa died... 08/14/2012

http://youtu.be/EW45jxfSA_c

An excerpt from the documentary film "Good afternoon Sergei Kapitsa"

http://youtu.be/-Rp39Qdxd74

Obvious-incredible - screensavers for the TV show

http://youtu.be/BavhSEiPmz4




"Comrade scientists, precious Einsteins, darling Newtons...". Front row: Nobel, Lenin and three Stalin Prize winner Lev Landau, English theoretical physicist, one of the founders of quantum mechanics, Nobel Prize winner in physics Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac, theoretical physicist, academician Vladimir Fock. Stand: Nobel Laureate in physics Igor Tamm, Nobel laureate in physics Petr Kapitsa, mathematician, theoretical physicist, academician Nikolai Bogolyubov

Sergey Kapitsa's parents - Anna Alekseevna and Pyotr Leonidovich

Pyotr Kapitsa from Cambridge - his mother Olga Ieronimovna in St. Petersburg, May 15, 1928: “The christening was on Wednesday ... Despite our request, he still dunked his son with his head, he screamed and choked. Father Alexei was frightened, mixed up all the prayers ... "Photo from the family archive of S.P. Kapitsa

Sergei with his mother, 1928

With father, Cambridge, 1928 At that time, Pyotr Kapitsa worked in the laboratory of the famous physicist Ernest Rutherford. “At that time, Cambridge was the center of world physics: all the most significant discoveries of those years were made there”

Sergei Kapitsa with his brother Andrei, 1931

Sergei Kapitsa was born in Cambridge and lived in the UK until the age of seven.

So that Sergey Kapitsa would not envy his younger brother Andrei, who was walking in a stroller, the future scuba diver, pilot and avid race car driver bought the first bicycle. Photo from the family archive of S.P. Kapitsa
Sergei Petrovich remembers his British childhood well, “although those memories are constantly mixed up with later ones. First of all, I didn’t forget the language: I speak Russian and English almost the same”

With mother Anna Alekseevna in Cambridge, 1993. “Mom kept order in the house, and, in my opinion, the regime she supported extended my father’s life”

With Father. Petr Leonidovich Kapitsa - academician who received the Nobel Prize for fundamental discoveries and inventions in the field of physics low temperatures, one of the founders of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology


Sergey Kapitsa with his wife

Sergei Petrovich with his parents and wife Tatyana Damir in Czechoslovakia

Sergei Petrovich (standing on the left) with his brother Andrei and parents (sitting in the center) in a circle of relatives, friends and students






Sergei Kapitsa: "I'm like a white crow!"

Sergey Kapitsa
Don Quixote (Miguel de Cervantes "Don Quixote")
Photo project by Ekaterina Rozhdestvenskaya "Album Classics"



Sergei Kapitsa: “Memories for me are always, first of all, the memoirs of my grandfather, which he wrote in Kazan during the war, when he was the same age as I am now. They will always be an example for me. This is not a systematic biography, but cases from life that stand out in the memory of the author. The most interesting thing that can be found in them is the connection of times, a living connection between people and events ... ”Photo from the family archive of S.P. Kapitsa


15th anniversary of the Taganka Theatre. At the microphone - Bulat Okudzhava, third from the left in the first row - Sergey Kapitsa


Today it is important to form the top layer in science, based not on the assimilation of knowledge, but on the cultivation of understanding - Photo: Alexey Maishev


The country needs a new system for training highly qualified scientists and managers, says the famous Russian scientist Sergey Kapitsa - Photo: Alexey Maishev




Embrace the immensity. Host Sergey Kapitsa (1978)

http://youtu.be/N2ChkjOmDcA

Living universe. Host Sergey Kapitsa (1979)

http://youtu.be/UWecdTznr6o

Sun family. Host Sergey Kapitsa (1981)

http://youtu.be/env0XiRzqAI

Program "Obvious - incredible", dedicated to the problems of time.
Sergey Kapitsa and Konstantin Kedrov 2003

http://youtu.be/HX5OZP4N1MQ

Sergey Petrovich Kapitsa on knowledge and understanding

http://youtu.be/7O-TdhSVkH0

Sergey Kapitsa History from the future

http://youtu.be/Uc3ZJT8lxh4

Academician Sergei Petrovich Kapitsa shares his thoughts on the development of mankind...

http://youtu.be/s1iKpAARWHY

Sergey Petrovich Kapitsa was born on February 14, 1928 in Cambridge - his father, an outstanding physicist, future Nobel Prize winner Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa, was on a scientific mission there at that time. Sergei Petrovich's mother is Anna Alekseevna Krylova, daughter of the famous shipbuilder Alexei Nikolaevich Krylov.

"My father was a professor and studied physics," recalled Sergei Kapitsa. He went there in 1921, right after civil war and the revolution, when, after a terrible epidemic of the Spanish flu, he lost his first family. He lost his father, a prominent military builder, his first wife and two children. There was a terrible blow, and then with a group of scientists, which included his future father-in-law Academician Krylov, his teacher Ioffe and a number of other prominent scientists, he was sent to Europe as the scientific secretary of the delegation by the decision of the Soviet government to restore scientific ties with European science. Then he was seconded to the Rutherford laboratory in England, where his brilliant career began.

Interestingly, Sergei Petrovich was baptized, and godfather he had a great physiologist Ivan Petrovich Pavlov.

In 1935 the family moved to Moscow, and Sergei Petrovich graduated from the Moscow Aviation Institute. At the age of 33, he became a doctor of physical and mathematical sciences. He worked at the Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute, from where he was fired due to his father's disgrace. Then he worked at the Institute of Geophysics, at the Institute of Physical Problems. P. L. Kapitsa RAS. For 35 years, he headed the country's largest department of physics at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.

As a scientist, Sergey Kapitsa is known for his work in the field of applied electrodynamics, supersonic aerodynamics, and the study of terrestrial magnetism. Later, the main subject of his research was the demographic revolution and the dynamics of the growth of the world's population.

But Sergei Kapitsa received the greatest fame as an outstanding popularizer of science. It all started with the book "The Life of Science", which is a collection of prefaces and introductions to the fundamental scientific works from Vesalius and Copernicus to the present day, which can be used to trace the development of science. The release of this book became a prerequisite for the creation of the TV show "Obvious - Incredible", the permanent host of which Sergey Kapitsa was since February 1973 - it was then that the first issue of the program appeared on television. "Obvious - incredible" was very popular, as evidenced by at least its mention in the song of Vysotsky or numerous jokes about Sergei Kapitsa and his colleagues in other popular science television programs, Nikolai Drozdov from "In the World of Animals" and Yuri Senkevich from the "Club travelers."

In the 39 years that have passed since then, the regular broadcast has been interrupted only twice. It first happened in 1991.

“It was a time when Kashpirovsky and all sorts of other Chumaks reigned on the screen. The sensible word found no place in the public consciousness. The crisis of the program “Obvious - Incredible” coincided with the crisis of attitudes towards science in the public mind, but science will survive any crisis,” Sergey Kapitsa recalled. in one of his last interviews.

Another forced break in the program occurred in 2006, when "Obvious - Incredible" "moved" from the TVC channel to "Russia".

In addition to his work on television, Sergey Petrovich, starting from the 80s, was the editor-in-chief of the magazine "In the world of science" - the Russian version of the world famous international magazine Scientific America.

Sergey Kapitsa is a member of more than 30 academies and scientific societies of the world. Here are some of them: European Academy of Sciences, World Academy of Arts and Sciences (Washington), Club of Rome.

But Sergei Petrovich was not an academician of the main national academy - the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Last year, he was elected to full membership of the Russian Academy of Sciences in the department of global problems and international relations, but lost the election. However, the Russian Academy of Sciences noted the merits of Sergei Petrovich, presenting in 2012 the first in its history gold medal for outstanding achievements in the promotion of scientific knowledge.

Kapitsa called the fight against pseudoscience one of his main tasks.

“Braking is not visible yet. Since I took up the popularization of science, the problem has become even more acute, - said Sergei Petrovich shortly before his death. - The activity of all kinds of charlatans and astrologers has become wider. This significant issue, which reflects the confusion in the minds of our time of transition. The amount of funds circulating in this area is comparable to the funding of science in general. The attitude towards science in the state reminds me of a joke about a horse and a gypsy, who, in order to save money, began to give her half as much oats - and nothing, she walks. Then he reduced the rations by half again - she was alive again. The gypsy cut back on the oats. Finally the horse died. So is science. You can’t test it for survival for so long!”

Sergey Petrovich Kapitsa died a year and 11 days after the death of his brother, Andrei Petrovich Kapitsa, an outstanding geographer, the author of the largest geographical discovery in the 20th century: the subglacial Lake Vostok in Antarctica.

“The main miracle is that we live. Our very life is, of course, a great miracle. The birth of a child and what happens to him before our eyes, when he achieves such colossal progress in a year and a half or two, is also absolutely incredible. Even though it's obvious! Sergey Kapitsa said.