The face of Russian science

The other day, Valery Rubakov was 60 years old. Perhaps the most expressive commentary in Facebook on this occasion: “It is good that only 60!” Why I highlight this particular comment, I will say at the end, but for now a little general information.

Valery Anatolyevich Rubakov - physicist, academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, chief researcher at the Institute of Nuclear Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences, head. Department of the Physics and Fores of Moscow State University, Secretary of the Section of Nuclear Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The area of ​​interests - particle physics, field theory, cosmology.

The most famous results are associated with processes that violate the baronic number (including Rubakov’s effect), with the Baryon asymmetry of the Universe, with the physics of the early Universe, with the search for alternatives to inflation theory. WOS quoting index - about 12 thousand.

Now from personal impressions. There are people outstanding at once in many respects. Very rare, but they meet. If the properties of people are distributed along Gauss, then Valery is an emission of at least 5 sigma in a positive area. We will leave Rubakov’s contribution to physics for publications like UFN. And in this note I would prefer to focus on the rest.

Entering the corps of theorists on the "nursery" (the so-called Moscow part of the IAI RAS, there was once a garden nursery), you fall into the atmosphere of distant glorious times, when the science in the country was on the rise. Everywhere youth, no demographic catastrophe, as in the rest of science, is in sight, students, lively seminars, discussions for tea (about science, not about politics), etc. This is also Rubakov’s effect - he changes the environment with his potential. All this youth (including those who are no longer very youth) are somehow charged with shirt. I don’t know whether it is possible to call this school, I would call an oasis rather. Once we had many such oases, now-units. All of them grow around a certain person.

The other, no less important side of Valery Rubakova is a media. It happens that they call me from some program and ask to tell something about the Higgs boson, about the prospects of a large Adron Collider, etc. Apparently, they think that since I am the head of the TRV, then I have to state all this as if by notes. I answer:

- Why don't you call Rubakov? It is he who is the main commentator on this part!

- Yes, he does not get out of us. Here, just a week ago, was. We can’t leave it all the time!

I don’t know whether all of scientists, he performs on TV and radio (in this regard, to overcome, for example, M.V. Kovalchuk is not so simple), but the fact that he acts most clearly of all is a fact. And this is not only a popularization of science. Many of his performances on the air and in print concerns the relationship between science, society and the state. Particularly and sometimes sharply Rubakov performed in 2013, when the reform of the Russian Academy of Sciences was carried out. I’ll still say this below, but now I want to make a fairly strong statement. It seems to me that Valery Rubakov becomes the face of Russian science. Not an official person, but human.

In the year before last, when the RAS reform was announced, Valery openly openly stated that if there was a “reboot” of the Russian Academy of Sciences, he would not submit applications to the new academy. Then there were 70 such “refuseniks” with something and they formed the club “July 1”. I don’t know if this club would have arisen, do not become the first to become shirts. Still, the first to rush into cold water is an order of magnitude more difficult than joining. Naturally, Valery became one of the leaders of the July 1 club, and not only him. This was followed by a conference of scientists dedicated to the resistance to the plans of the “reform” of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Committee for the Control of Reform - the shirts were everywhere in the forefront, for hours conducting noisy meetings of the “conspirators”. He gave an interview in the center of all rallies in defense of the Academy - agreed (on Suvorov Square) and not agreed (near the walls of the State Duma). Valery then admitted that he has not been up to science for many months. Well, the duty of a citizen requires sacrifice, the main thing is that they are not in vain.

I heard the statements that such an activity was from the series “Buddled a calf with an oak”, that everything is hopelessly and a whip of shoes can not beg. So it is so, but the reform has so far followed the most soft scenario of all possible (among which they visible completely catastrophic). In addition, a new capable community of scientists appeared. So not in vain! It’s just that such efforts do not lead to obvious victories, but to the underlying processes that determine the future.

Now there has come an even more gloomy time. Of course, the story will take its own, we will get out of this darkness. But this will take years, perhaps for many years. We will get out if there are people with us who are not bending, who can be believed, who have more than proved their viability. Therefore, it is good that Rubakov was only 60. It remains to wish all of us long years of the hero of the anniversary.

Boris Stern