Fred Kavli

Andrey Shary: The man of the day Radio Liberty May 4 is an American scientist and entrepreneur Fred Kavli. He announced the establishment of a new scientific award, which is expected to compete with Nobel. The reward of a million dollars will be issued once every two years since 2008 for achievements in astrophysics, brain studies and nanotechnologies. The presentation of the award took place in the Norwegian Academy of Sciences.

The young Norwegian physicist Fred Kavli in 1956 left for the United States. He settled in California and founded the company Kavliko Corporation for the production of sensory sensors, which he sold five years ago for $ 340 million. Cavali was established by these funds, a fund that finances several scientific institutions in the USA and Europe.

My colleague Alexander Genis says about the man of the Day of Radio Radio.

Alexander Genis: Having visited the jury of several awards, from Buker to our Liberty, I realized that creating the right reward is even more difficult than getting it and earn it.

The difficulty is that each bonus threatens degeneration into banality. After all, the prize should not encourage celebrities, but create them. However, many awards, including even the best of all - Nobel, are often awarded to those who no longer need money or prestige. Meanwhile, a smart reward, such as, say, the McArturovsk Prize of Geniuses in America is not so much a reckoning as an advance. And the point is not at the age of the laureates, but in their insolence and readiness for risk, without which science is also impossible, like, say, sport.

Perfectly versed in both, and the other, Fred Kavli (he is not only a successful physicist, but also a first -class skier) is looking for a way to change the rules of the game. Modern science implies a delicate, but stubborn struggle of the scientist for subsidies on his research. As Lyotar’s father’s father said, even in accurate sciences the truth today is what grants give. This means that the configuration of our knowledge determines the subsidies received from the state or university, at the market or philanthropist. The latter is freer than the rest. The generous hand that gives the most is needed where the “invisible hand” of the market does not get, where the tentacles of the state do not reach, where the myopic academy does not look.

A successful bonus guards science in the roundabout ways, which aimed charity helps to make a pillar road. Creating such a prize is the same as growing a smart garden, where every whimsical and precious fruit will be born from a marriage of discipline with arbitrariness, will with a whim.

Fred Kavli seems to know what he is doing. Of the eight Nobel laureates of 2004 in the field of science, three work in research institutes created with his money. And this suggests that the new award has the prerequisites promising a reward - prestige, laureates - financial independence, and the founder of the Cavil Foundation is a glory similar to the one that has immortalized the name of another Scandinava.