Culture, Science, and Religion: Sergei Petrovich Kapitsa (Part 2)
We present to you the premiere of an interview with physicist Sergei Petrovich Kapitsa, which was filmed as part of the "Mystery. Religion. Creativity" series by the ArtKor creative team (Artemy Artemyev, Igor Korovin, Nikolai Shumeiko, Viktor Lastovets) in St. Petersburg in 2010.
We discussed with Sergei Petrovich timeless themes: God and man, science and religion, and whether there is anything miraculous in everyday life.
This is the second part of a three-part interview.
#ArtKor #scienceandreligion #mystery #religion #science #sergeykapitsa #sergeypetrovichkapitsa
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Biographical Note
Russian scientist, television presenter, and science popularizer Sergei Petrovich Kapitsa was born on February 14, 1928, in Cambridge, UK, where his father, the eminent physicist and Nobel Prize laureate Academician Pyotr Kapitsa, was on a scientific assignment at the time.
He graduated from the Moscow Aviation Institute (MAI) in 1949.
From 1949 to 1951, he worked as an engineer at the N.E. Zhukovsky Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute.
From 1951 to 1953, he was a junior researcher at the Institute of Geophysics. From 1953 to 1992, he was a researcher and head of a laboratory at the P.L. Kapitsa Institute for Physical Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Most recently, he was a chief researcher at the P.L. Kapitsa Institute for Physical Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
From 1965 to 1998, he was the head of a department at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.
Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Professor. Full Member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, Full Member of the European Academy of Sciences.
Sergey Kapitsa is the author of hundreds of monographs and articles published in many countries worldwide, and holds 14 patents. His research includes supersonic aerodynamics, terrestrial magnetism, particle accelerators, applied electrodynamics, synchrotron radiation, nuclear physics, the history of science, education methodology and theory, population issues, and demography. Professor Kapitsa is one of the founders of cliodynamics and the creator of a phenomenological mathematical model of hyperbolic population growth on Earth.
Since 1973, Sergey Kapitsa has been the permanent host of the television program "Ochevidnoe-Incredible," which is still broadcast on television. As the longest-serving television presenter, he ranked second in the Guinness Book of World Records and first in the Russian Book of Records. In 2008, he received a special TEFI prize for his personal contribution to the development of Russian television.
Since 1977, Sergei Kapitsa has been actively involved in the Pugwash Conference of Scientists, serving as a member of the Pugwash Council and Deputy Chairman of the Russian Pugwash Committee.
In 1983, he founded the publication of the Russian version of the popular science magazine Scientific American in the USSR under the title "In the World of Science" and served as its editor-in-chief.
Sergey Kapitsa was a member of the European Physical Society, the World Institute of Science, the International Aeronautical Federation, the Club of Rome, the European Academy, the International Academy of Humanism, the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, the World Academy of Sciences and Arts, the Presidential Council for Culture and Art of the Russian Federation, the International Commission on Culture and Development, the Russian Television Academy, and a number of other societies.
Laureate of the USSR State Prize (1980), the UNESCO Kalinga Prize (1979), and the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences Prize for his contribution to the popularization of science (1995). He was awarded the Order of Honor (2006), the Order "For Merit to the Fatherland," 4th Class (2011), and the Gold Medal of the Russian Academy of Sciences (2012).
He died on August 14, 2012.