Year of loss and struggle

Neil Armstrong. August 5, 1930 - August 25, 2012 (NASA) Ray Bradbury. August 22, 1920 - June 5, 2012 (A. Light) Sergey Kapitsa. February 14, 1928 - August 14, 2012 (Wikipedia, A. Rozhkov) Alexander Kibrik. March 26, 1939 - October 31, 2012 Edward Kruglyakov. October 22, 1924 - November 6, 2012 (SB RAS) Boris Strugatsky. April 14, 1933 - November 19, 2012 (Wikipedia, S. Berezhnaya)

In the 2012, outrageous and sad events from us, it seems, there were much more than life -affirming and joyful. This applies not only to science, but also to social life. Starting with the disaster-albeit quite expected-“phobos-group”, this year continued with numerous scandals related to the existence of Russian science and education: the battles around the ITEF; Causing the appointment of a new director of physical school named after A.N. Kolmogorova; the release from the expert prison Olga Zelenina; protests against the clericalization of public life (Pussy Riot); invasion of theological disciplines in natural science universities (MEPhI); The adoption of a new educational standard, which has become a subject of strict criticism ... One of the important events of the year is the unification of students, teachers and scientists into a scientific and educational column on the march of millions on June 12, 2012, which was personified by a white ball with the slogans "Clean Russia from obscurantism!" And "Return Russia's brains!" Against the background of these events, the departure of the non -being of those people whom we used to associate with the very spirit of modern science was especially tragic. We were left by Academician Eduard Kruglyakov, who headed the RAS Commission on the fight against pseudoscience and falsification of scientific research, physicist and a well-known popularizer of science Sergey Kapitsa, corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences Linguist Alexander Kibrik. Ray Bradbury and Boris Strugatsky went away - symbols of science fiction of the XX century. In a sense, the era of “storm and onslaught” in space with the death of Neil Armstrong, who was the first to step on the moon, ended.

On another, the scales of the scales can be put such events as the organization of the Society of Scientists and the emergence of a new bonus in the field of fundamental physics, founded by Yuri Milner. The Public Council was created under the Ministry of Education and Science, which includes famous scientists and teachers. At the end of the year, they celebrated a decade of activities of the Dynasty Foundation, which for the fifth year in a row providing a prize to the best Russian popularizers. For the editorial office of the TRV-hunger 2012, it was also a little special: in the spring the hundredth issue of the newspaper came out.

In the global scientific life, the most important events took place: in July, a particle similar to the Higgs boson was announced in July, and in the fall, the American Mark Road Curiosity made a successful landing on Mars, and expeditions to the international space station continued. The successful Russian space project "Radio Astron" (Observatory "Spectr-R") works in space.

For some reason, more and more often, not the most popular, but still well-known quote from the Strugatsky novel “Picnic on the side of the road” is recalled: “The most heroic act of mankind is that it survived and intends to survive further ...” However, the struggle for existence, if we are talking about living organisms, is a natural state. This first strip is devoted to the memory of those who depart, but their significance is not that they left, but in what they did.

Editors