Translated material
Six days in July
The 62nd Meeting of Nobel Laureates in Lindau, which lasted from July 1 to July 6, 2012, left behind two lasting feelings: the feeling that you have just been involved in great science that is happening before your eyes, and the mood of celebration. This is a report and interview with Olga Zakutney .
During my stay at Lake Constance, I also managed to interview one of the Russian participants at the 62nd Meeting of Nobel Laureates in Lindau. Andrey Chugunov , senior researcher at the theoretical astrophysics sector of the Physico-Technical Institute named after. A.F. Ioffe RAS, agreed to share his impressions of the event and answer questions from the TrV-Nauka newspaper.
Every morning began with lectures by Nobel laureates - a total of 26 lectures and 2 plenary discussions over five days. Topics: from biophysics to general issues of philosophy of science. Presentation style: from a classic presentation at a scientific conference to almost a show. The level of difficulty also varied, but in general, I would say the lecturers presented good popular science lectures. This is not surprising: the almost 600 young researchers who came to Lindau represented very different areas of physics, so the audience was too diverse for highly specialized reports.
After lunch, the laureates who spoke that day held separate discussions and master classes with young scientists. The evening part of the Meeting was devoted to general issues and entertainment. On the last day of the Meeting, July 6, the participants were taken to the island of Mainau, located in the western part of Lake Constance (Lindau is in the eastern part), the residence of the Counts Bernadotte, who began the tradition of Nobel meetings in Lindau. Now part of this island has become a public park. The final discussion on the future of global energy took place here, moderated by Geoffry Carr, science editor of The Economist.
The choice of the presenter, presumably, is not accidental. Although the Nobel meetings are primarily about science, there was a definite emphasis on the importance of science for modern society. For example, a separate scientific session was devoted to the topic of global warming, and the organizers confronted two polar opinions. Mario J. Molina presented data showing a sharp increase in average annual temperatures in recent decades, while his follow-up speaker, Ivar Giaever, in a report entitled “The Strange Case of “Global Warming”, consistently and exceptionally artistically pursued the idea that global warming has now become a matter of faith rather than scientific research. On another day, Robert B. Laughlin and the audience discussed how humanity will produce energy in 50 years. Actually, there were no predictions in this report - rather, Laughlin was trying to tell the audience what circumstances should be kept in mind when thinking about the future.
A special part of the Meeting was the live broadcast of a press conference dedicated to the discovery of a candidate for the role of the Higgs boson. The press conference took place at CERN on July 4, and instead of a coffee break, Meeting participants crowded into the main hall of the Inselhalle (where the main events took place) to see and hear some of the first announcements of the discovery, along with a host of journalists. On the same day, a plenary discussion took place in Lindau with the participation of Carlo Rubbia, David J. Gross, George F. Smoot and Martinus JG Veltman and four CERN representatives connected to teleconference mode. The discussion was moderated by Felicitas Pauss, head of international relations at CERN, who opened the discussion with a brief summary of what the LHC detectors actually recorded. Nobel laureates shared their thoughts on how to continue the search for the Higgs boson. In particular, Carlo Rubbia proposed creating a new muon collider, specifically tailored to the task of searching for this boson. David Gross agreed with this, and did not fail to hint that such an accelerator could be a good chance for the United States to resume its participation in this field of experimental physics.
Of course, it is impossible to retell all the lectures, but everyone was interesting. Fortunately, the laureates' reports, as well as discussions and master classes, can be found on the Mediatheque website (see links below). But perhaps just as informative as the lectures was the very presence in this community of people brought together by Lindau for six short July days.
The author thanks the Council of the Nobel Laureate Meetings in Lindau for the opportunity to take part in the event.
Website www.lindau-nobel.org
Lindau Nobel Society www.lindau.nature.com
Mediatheque mediatheque.lindau-nobel.org
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— The first question is classic: how did you come to the Meeting? As far as I know, the participants - young scientists - are nominated by one of the “academic partners”. How did this happen in your case?
— Firstly, I want to say that I am very pleased to see one of the editors of the TrV-Nauka newspaper here in Lindau and I am very glad to have the opportunity to give an interview for your newspaper. It is truly in demand among researchers, and I, as well as many of my research friends, are regular readers. And now to the question. Last year, the Physicotechnical Institute received a fax from Siemens, in which they asked to propose, as far as I remember, three candidates for participation in the Meeting. I was lucky to be on this list. At this stage, all that was required from me was consent, which I, of course, gave after studying the Meetings website. Until this moment I did not even know about their existence. To be honest, I didn’t really hope that my application would be approved: the preliminary selection, as well as full payment for participation in the Meeting, was covered by Siemens, and it seemed to me that they were unlikely to be interested in the candidacy of a theoretical astrophysicist. However, I passed this stage and was nominated by Siemens itself to participate in the Meeting. I needed to fill out an application on the Meetings website, which, by the way, was well thought out. The application was very simple (especially by Russian standards): it was necessary to indicate a list of publications, reports, grants, and also describe the range of scientific interests and motivation for research. As a result, in March of this year I received a letter from the organizers of the Meeting that my application had been approved.
— Was there an additional program of the organization that invited you? How did it go, and what did you remember most?
— Indeed, before the Meeting, Siemens organized an additional program for its nominated participants. There were ten of them, two of them (me and Evgeniy Dyachenko from Tomsk State University) were from Russia, Germany was represented by two graduate students, and the largest representation was from the USA (two postdocs from Berkeley and two M1T graduate students). It turned out that this year the organizing committee of the Meeting approved all ten candidates nominated by Siemens, four of us were astrophysicists and only four were engaged in significantly more applied research.
During the pre-conference program, we were introduced to the activities of the Siemens research department. This was really interesting, as it allowed us to look at scientific research from the applied side, based on real experience in the effective implementation of developments. It’s funny, but what impressed me the most was that the need for patent protection and commercial benefits of developments does not greatly interfere with freedom of research (in any case, this was emphasized by many speakers). According to one of them (he participated in the Lindau Meeting last year and now works for the company), before publishing an article (report), it must be sent to the patent department, which, if necessary, will quickly (within a few days) prepare the necessary patent protection of the paper and will allow publication. Unfortunately, such coordinated work of services in Russia can only be dreamed of.
— Who were your colleagues: by age, status and specialties?
— I have already described the distribution among the participants nominated by Siemens. It is difficult to judge all 580 participants of the Meeting: I, of course, was not able to communicate with everyone, but it seemed that there were approximately an equal number of postdocs, graduate students and students. Many were involved in astrophysics and high-energy physics. What upset me was that among the 580 participants, only four work in Russia, and in total, including those working abroad, there were only eight Russians. Most likely, this is due to the fact that among the “academic partners” who have the right to nominate for participation in the Meeting, there is only one Russian organization - Moscow State University.
— What did this trip give you - in a working and general sense? What do you remember most?
— The main impression can be summed up as follows: Nobel laureates are not “people from another planet,” but those who have earned their award through great and careful work. In addition, when unexpected results are received, it is important not to discard them, but to carefully understand the reasons for their occurrence. Actually, this, of course, was clear before the Meeting, but one more confirmation is never superfluous. Most memorable were the live CERN press conference on the discovery of the candidate Higgs boson and the subsequent (afternoon) discussion with Nobel laureates. The lectures on global warming and the discussion of energy problems were very interesting. It turned out that some laureates hold directly opposite points of view.
The informal discussions with young scientists were interesting. The topic of education often came up in them. For example, I learned that in Germany there is also a movement to simplify the school curriculum, and the transition to the “bachelor-master” system does not cause much enthusiasm among universities and is done rather formally, without a significant change in the curriculum. When I talked about the system of public schools in Russia with in-depth study of physics and mathematics, my foreign colleagues really liked it.
In addition to the actual scientific lectures and discussions, the Meetings provide excellent opportunities for continuing a scientific career. This year, before the “Bavarian evening”, information was presented about research at Bavarian universities and programs to support them; on the last day, during a trip to the island of Mainau, the universities of the united state of Baden-Württemberg were advertised. The special report was devoted to European programs to support scientists. In addition, on one of the first days, with the support of the Singapore government, an unforgettable dinner was organized, before which they talked about the opportunities for researchers that exist in the country. In addition, of course, there is a unique opportunity to begin cooperation with Nobel laureates.
— How were the afternoon discussions with young scientists? What questions were asked - specific or more general?
— The discussions that I was able to attend proceeded very differently, although both highly specialized and general questions were asked at all of them (for example, all laureates were asked about their feelings during a call from the Nobel Committee). I found the discussion with prof. to be the most constructive and organized. Mather, and the most polemical discussion was with prof. Giaver, who argued that the presence of global warming and its connection with carbon dioxide emissions is religion, not science, and therefore restrictions on carbon dioxide emissions are not justified. It seemed to me that Prof. Giaver failed to convince a significant part of the audience.
— Have you been to similar events in Russia? Is there a difference in organization and, so to speak, general spirit? does it make sense to do something similar here, and what could it be?
— In 2003, I was able to listen to lectures at the first meeting of Nobel laureates in St. Petersburg. The lectures were very interesting and stimulated me to do scientific work. Unfortunately, those meetings did not include discussions with Nobel laureates (or did I not manage to get there?), which greatly distanced the lecturers from the audience. However, I and many of my friends were lucky enough to have a photo taken with the laureates thanks to the fact that one of the journalists present at the meeting decided to take a photograph of the Nobel laureates with young Russian scientists. At the same time, I even managed to shake hands with Rudolf Mesbauer and Charles Townes. It was unforgettable.
As far as I know, this year the 6th meeting of Nobel laureates will be held in St. Petersburg [1]. However, as I understand it, these meetings have a significantly different format, which is probably reasonable, since creating a clone of the meetings of Nobel laureates in Lindau is hardly justified or feasible in practice. However, it seems to me that it would be very useful to involve young people in these meetings as much as possible, since “live” lectures by Nobel Prize winners can be an excellent stimulus in scientific work.
In addition, domestic companies may be interested in the experience of such academic partners of the Meetings as Siemens. They, in particular, use the support of members to find new employees.
— Did you like Lindau?
— Lindau is a very nice town. Watching the final of the European Championship in Biergarden, filled with local residents and participants of the Meeting, left an interesting impression (by the way, I predicted the final score after the first half).
Photo by the author