Our laureate

Mikhail Katsnelson, the author and friend of the newspaper Trav-jack, became the laureate of the highest award of the Netherlands-Spinoza Prize of 2013. It is annually awarded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research. “Mikhail is one of the founding fathers of the study in the field of graphene. Its theoretical research underlies almost all discoveries and predictions about the properties of graphene, ”the annotation to the award says. The announcement of the names of the laureates of the year was published on June 10, and the award ceremony will be held in the fall.

M. Katsnelson is one of the most cited scientists in the field of solid physics. Only on the subject of graphene of its publication, more than 12 thousand times are quoted. It is worth recalling that Katsnelson is one of the co -authors of the articles of the Nobel Prize in 2010 of Andrei Game and Konstantin Novoselov. In his Nobel lecture, Game noted that "our quick progress would have been impossible without Misha Katsnelson, who provided us with the theoretical support that the experimenter can only dream of."

The highest scientific award of the Netherlands has been awarded since 1995 along with a monetary prize of 2.5 million euros for scientific research. Its laureates are scientists working in the Netherlands and showing world -class results. In addition to Mikhail, the 2013 prize was also awarded to chemist Bert Weckhuysen and Linguist Piek Vossen. On September 27, 2013, in the Hague, laureates will make lectures on their research and plans for how they intend to use the monetary prize.

In his blog, Mikhail (see further) published a speech on the occasion of choosing laureates.

In the information on the website of the Netherlands Scientific Society (NWO) it is noted that Mikhail Katsnelson was born in Magnitogorsk in 1957. In 1977, he graduated with honors from the Ural State University in Yekaterinburg. At the age of 17, in 1975, he published his first scientific article. In 1980, Mikhail defended his thesis, and in 1986 he became the youngest physicist-a doctor of science in the USSR. In 1992, he became a professor of the UhU, from 2002 to 2004 he worked as a Visiting Researcher at the University of Uppsala in Sweden. Since 2004, he is a professor of theoretical physics at the University of Radboud in the Netherlands. In 2011, Mikhail Katsnelson became the gentleman of the Knight in the Order of the Netherlands Lion, and a year earlier the University of Radboud awarded him his highest scientific award (The Radboud Science Award). Together with the team of young scientists, he used the money of this award to prepare training materials about graphene and other areas of physics for schoolchildren.

Based on materials from polit. Ru

Mikhail Katsnelson , Doctor of Physics and Mathematical Sciences, Professor of Theoretical Physics University of Radboud (Netherdlands)

Benedict Spinoza , whose name is the award, is the Dutch philosopher-naturalist (1632-1677)

Ladies and gentlemen!

First of all, I have to thank the Netherlands Scientific Society for the award, for this sign of recognition from the Netherland Scientific Community. This is a great honor for me to stand here now and, of course, great pleasure. Even the name of the bonus matters. Firstly, in the Russian language the name “Spinoza” is used as a synonym for the words “sage”. Conversation like: “Well, how is it to you? - Yes, you know, not Spinoza, "you can hear all the time. Secondly, the “ethics” of Spinoza was the first philosophical book, which I read in my life, not in the order of forced brainwashing, but of their own free will. She had a great influence on me and awakened interest in worldview issues, which is still important to me. The most famous invention of Alfred Nobel is dynamite, and I think that the Nobel laureates or at least most of the Nobel laureates cannot say that dynamite played a large role in their lives. At the same time, I can safely say this about the most famous work of Barukha Spinoza and to myself.

I think I was too lucky that I began my scientific career in the Soviet Union, and that I now continue it in the Netherlands. I mentioned the "brainwashing." It would be unforgivable ingratitude to forget about everything good, which was, for example, about an amazing system of advanced physical and mathematical education for schoolchildren. I was born and raised in a very harsh industrial city, far from university centers, and nevertheless received an excellent physical education at the school. By the way, we had 11 hours of physics per week. I am very grateful to those who taught me at school, at the university, and after the university, to everyone who owes my profession. Probably, in any other profession, I would have achieved significantly less.

It is necessary to keep in mind how Soviet science was different from the western both in good and in bad. Typical Soviet seminars for three to four hours, the branded Russian style of scripture of works in theoretical physics, completely unreadable. And, of course, no prosecutors. It is not so easy to retrain when you have more than 45. When I wrote my first person in the Netherlands (Fomovsky Projectruimte) and ran into a mandatory point on the significance of work for society and possible applications, I did not know what to write. I wrote that this is an interesting scientific task, probably, it has some kind of applications, but at the moment I can’t imagine them. Reviewers noted that my project (I quote) Refreshingly Honest, and it was supported.

I have to thank FOM and my university for constant support and the creation of amazing conditions for work. I’m used to it, in Soviet times, to start a hundred projects at the same time, two survived, the rest had to be thrown. Then I found that all the projects started can be continued. My productivity has increased by an order of magnitude and is now limited exclusively by internal causes - my own dullness, laziness, lack of health, and so on. It seems to me that this is the maximum of what a person can hope to get from society.

And the last. In such rare cases as the current one, there is an opportunity to talk about general problems that are inappropriate to discuss in special reports. What is primarily distinguished by physics from other sciences? It seems to me that this is not a subject of research. Anything can be studied "as a physicist." This is a unique, amazing balance between theory and experiment. Recently, progress in the development of mathematics, as well as computers, has led to great achievements in the study of not only our real world, but also all imaginary worlds. At the same time, it is a huge temptation and great danger. Grafen in this sense is a wonderful, very balanced area. On the one hand, this is a specific, really existing material with serious prospects for practical applications. On the other hand, Grafen's physics is closely intertwined with the problems of fundamental physics, such as the quantum theory of fields. I hope that the success of our works on graphene theory and your high assessment of these works can partly contribute to the restoration of the impaired balance in the development of our science - theoretical physics. Thank you again.

Mikhail Katsnelson

( Flying-bear.livejournal.com )