In society

From Osmia-187 to pure water

September 6, 2010 Julia Latynina

The activities of academician Raen Viktor Petrik and his co -author, a “brilliant scientist” (as Petrik himself characterizes him) Boris Gryzlov, part -time, which is the speaker of the State Duma from United Russia, became widely known when Gryzlov asked for 15 trillion. budget rubles. The implementation of the Pure Water program, which provided for the installation throughout Russia for the budget money of the filters of the Petrik system, equipped with advertising from United Russia.

The list of inventions of Viktor Petrik is very impressive: from the eternal engine (Petrik claims to invent batteries receiving energy from the environment) to a philosophical stone (he is also thermal -expanded graphite, which allows to cleanse water from radioactive substances); He also invented rays prolonging human life under 140 years old. You must admit that it is quite good for a person sentenced in 1984 by 11 years in the years of the Criminal Code of 13, including fraud, extortion and attempt on robbery.

This is not to say that Petrik’s inventions did not work at all: we will take, for example, the fairings shown by Petrik for missiles from an artificial spinel. The fairings were real: they were made in Soviet times by the State Optical Institute, and after perestroika, defective specimens in many were in the hands of the employees who traded them.

Attempts to doubt the existence of a philosophical stone and an eternal engine caused a tough rebuff from the two Russian Leonardo da Vinci. Boris Gryzlov publicly accused the opponents of “obscurantism”, and the Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Evgeny Alexandrov was completely threatened by the murder. A voice on an answering machine, belonging, according to Alexandrov, Petrik, promised him “20 ways of without a trace of physical destruction” and said: “You think you are very smart, but now you have climbed a very high level.” Despite the scandal around the name of Petrik and the destroying conclusions of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Pure Water program was included in the list of federal targeted programs for 2011, although the volumes of its financing are still unclear.

To understand the reasons for the sympathy of the highest persons of the state to Viktor Petrik, one should tell about the story with Osmiy-187; This scam would do Ostap Bender and could well serve as the plot of the next novel by Ilf and Petrov, describe them Peter of the 90s.

In the beginning, the atmosphere of those years should be reminded: the huge profits received by special exporters from the real export of copper or aluminum abroad at domestic prices, and completely mythical stories that go among semi -educated bandits and officials about precious substances invented by the advanced Russian defense industry - such as “red mercury”.

Peter did not stand aside from this fever. The first “theme” was alphafetoprotein - a substance formed during the development of the embryo. The story of a brilliant inventor in slippers on the barefoot leg, which was allocated by this very alphafetoprotein from abortive fabric, spread through the gangster Peter with the speed of wind. The inventor was stolen by everyone who is not lazy - either bandits, then cops, but no sense came out of this. Abroad, a not certified drug, the produced god knows in what conditions (and suddenly he was cooked in the toilet and spit in raw materials?), Nobody needed it.

Then there were bee and snake poisons - under these poisons, St. Petersburg bandits already chanted planes.

And against this background, on October 4, 1993, a senior official of the St. Petersburg City Hall Lev Savenkov was detained on the border while trying to smuggled ampoules from Russia with 6 grams of Osmia-187.

The scandal rose terrible. All media reported about the smuggling of a rare metal, one gram of which cost $ 200 thousand. The officials of the St. Petersburg City Hall became a wall to defend his colleague, and even Vladimir Putin, who then headed the foreign trade committee, gave an interview with the newspaper “Evening Petersburg” on March 17, 1994, from which it followed that the city of St. Petersburg from budget money planned to establish the receipt of Osmimi-187.

“Inventions created during these works,” said Putin, “are patented, i.e. Protected by law. I met with the inventor (for obvious reasons I do not call his name), discussed all the difficulties that arose with him. The scientist is ready to realize his discoveries, within the framework of the joint -stock company, which was originally proposed to create Savenkov. ”

So, Putin then met with a criminal Viktor Petrik. Petrik showed him the “cosmically clean” Osmiy-187 to 200 thousand dollars. per gram and asked budget money for its production. Question: How was Petrik “in the kitchen” to get “cosmically clean” Osmiy-187?

To answer this question, we must recall the renieval method of determining the age of the substance. Renia has two stable isotopes: 185 and 187. Renia-185 is completely stable, and the half-life of the Rhenium-187 is 10 billion years; When the Renia-187, the Osmius-187 turns out, which is very convenient for dating. You take a piece of ore, see how much Renia-187 is in it, and how much Osmia-187, and you get dating.

In Kazakhstan there is a Dzhezkazgan copper plant, in the ore of which there is a lot of rhenium. Accordingly, in the dumps of the plant, of all the isotopes of the osmium, only the isotope of the Osmia-187 is contained, which makes it possible to obtain Osmiy-187 “cosmic purity” from these dumps with chemically.

We must pay tribute to Victor Petrik. He understood-or he was prompted-that from the dumps of the Dzhezkazgan Copper Combine, it is chemically possible to get not just Osmius, but Osmiy-187, because there is no other osmium there, because it is a product of half-life of risk.

The problem is that the osmium-187 is not needed for anything. Not needed at all. There are no ways to use it: there are no ways to use many other expensive substances. This is the elusive Joe that no one can catch, because no one is looking for him.

At the same time, at the prices of OAK Ridge National Laboratory, in 1993 the Osmiy-187 was really very expensive: 200 thousand dollars or $ 200 micrograms. This price was explained by the cost of production.

All rare isotopes of the Okridge laboratory received the method of electromagnetic separation, based on the different effects of the magnetic field on equally charged particles of different masses. And the cost of the isotope in this case is directly proportional to the amount of money and efforts that are spent on its allocation. Any isotope, which is slightly in the initial chemically pure substance (and Osmiy-187 is very rare and is 1.6% of the osmium in nature) is very expensive.

So, the question: you have a rare isotope, it has a nominal price, but at this price no one will ever buy it, because no one needs it. How to convince the audience of its value?

And here we are returning to the story with the detention of Leo Savenkov. After it, all the journalists rushed to write about Osmia-187. All state bodies - the FSB, the prosecutor's office, the cops - rushed to find out why it is needed. Even the future President Putin told how important the production of Osmia is for Peter.

This created Osmia-187 huge advertising. Everyone discussed, correctly or incorrectly exported Osmius. And no one discussed - why is it needed?

Meanwhile, shortly before Savenkov was detained on the border, within a radio institute. Khlopin in St. Petersburg turned from abroad with a proposal to sell them Osmiy-187 in an amount of 100 grams. Let me remind you that the case took place in the early 90s, the institute did not have financing, scientists sat on the shelf, and they would perceive a strange order as a manna of heaven. The Radium Institute turned to the state reserve, received 60 kilograms of pure osmium from there and allocated 100 grams of osmium-187 from it.

It must be admitted: scientists of the Radiyskoy Institute did not realize that Osmius can be obtained chemically from the dumps of the Dzhezkazgan Copper Combine. Of course, they did not resort to electromagnetic separation, since the order volume was too large: they built a centrifuge and developed 100 grams of osmium-187.

And then foreign customers evaporated. The institute remained with 100 grams of Osmia, which was formally worth 200 thousand dollars. per gram, but no one needed it. And this whole story coincided with the Osmia-187 advertising campaign, which occurred thanks to the detention of Savenkov; Every St. Petersburg banker and a bandit learned that Osmiy-187 costs 200 thousand dollars. gram and that this is a terribly important thing.

And what would you think? Russian customers came to the institute, sitting with teeth on a shelf and with a hundred grams of pure Osmia-187. They stated that they were ready to buy Osmius and were even ready to pay money, but honestly said that they had no money, and they would pay .... After they take 100 grams of osmium to the bank and take the 100 grams of credit under these 100 grams. 100 million dollars officially cost 100 grams, and every St. Petersburg dog knows this thanks to the scandal. The Radium Institute agreed, but rested with Rosatom - money forward. The deal did not take place.

Victor Petrik really knows physics - in the volume in which he was known to medieval alchemists. Namely: if you want to get budget money from the emperor for the production of gold, then you should stir in the crucible with hollow wooden sticks, in which this gold is hidden: the sticks will be burned and the gold will fall into the tiger. And even better physics, Viktor Petrik knows human psychology.

Because the above history is brilliant. This is a completely ruthless scam, in which the arrest of Leo Savenkova was needed only then to make an advertisement to anyone osmia-187, and the nominally high price of the osmium at the prices of the Oyridge Laboratory (this is then the Dzhezkazgan Copper Combine tried to sell its osmius for 10 dollars per gram) was used to involve the most highly executed officials of St. Petersburg. City Hall.

The Pure Water program is a repetition of history with Osumi-187. The only significant difference is that Osmiy-187 is useless, but also harmless. You can’t say this about Petrik’s filters delivered to schools for budget money.

In the Novgorod region in schools that used Petrik's filters, an epidemic of meningitis broke out. In July 2010, the Consumer Protection Society filed a lawsuit against Petrik, claiming that its filters do not correspond to the declared parameters and often do not clean the water, but pollute it. The Academy of Sciences indicates that penetration into the body of nano -sized particles of graphite (which occurs in the case of Petrik's filters) can cause cancer.

If so, then the installation in all schools and social institutions of Petrik filters at the public expense can turn into an unprecedented disaster for Russia, comparable only with the results that brought Rome the use of lead water supply systems. However, the brilliant scientist Gryzlov, who was struggling against obscurantism, and his unidentified like -minded person who threatens the death of academician Alexandrov, is unlikely to stop.

Photo from the site board.rt.mipt.ru