Raphael Borisovich Shapiro

Raphael Borisovich Shapiro (russ. Рафаэль Борисович Шапиро , Schriftstellerpseudonym Raphail Bachtamow - Рафаил Бахтамов * 13. January 1926 , Moscow , USSR ; † 16th July 1993 , Jerusalem , Israel ) was a Soviet and Israeli engineer and inventor, author science popular books, Publicist , journalist , translator and radio commentator.

Shapiro was one of the founders of TRIZ (Theory of Inventive Problem Solving) and co-author of the first publications on the methodology of invention.

Life

Raphael Shapiro was born on January 13, 1926 in Moscow to a Jewish family. In 1930 his father Boris Shapiro was convicted in the course of the Shakhty trial and exiled to Kazakhstan and later to Siberia in the Gulag . The mother and five-year-old Rafik followed him. After the father's liberation in 1936, the family moved to Baku to live with their father's relatives.

On November 9, 1943, when he was in the tenth grade, Shapiro, together with Genrich Altschuller and Igor Talyansky, and with the support of the manager of the “Bureau for Rationalization and Invention” of the Caspian Navy, DD Kabanow, reported his first invention, “breathing apparatus with chemical Cartridge ”, which was immediately declared secret. The patent certificate for this was not granted until 1947.

Over the years, R. Shapiro and G. Altschuller registered several dozen other inventions for which several patent certificates were received before 1950. The most important of these is the "gas and thermal protection diving suit", the creation of which was rousingly described later in the popular scientific article "In a suit through fire - About individual means of thermal protection".

After the end of World War II, Shapiro enrolled at the Azerbaijan State Oil and Industry University . At the same time he met his future wife Nora (1927-2020).

In early 1950, when Shapiro was in the fifth semester of the petroleum-mechanical faculty, he and G. Altschuller were arrested by the NKVD after they had been denounced by a friend. In conversations with his students in the 1980s, Altschuller mentioned several times that in 1948, under the influence of R. Shapiro and with his collaboration, a letter was written to Josef Stalin in which the miserable conditions of invention in the USSR were severely criticized:

“Shapiro got the idea to write a letter to Stalin. You have to say, that was a characteristic reaction for him. Once he internalized the size awareness of something, he wanted to introduce it quickly and get a result. [...] Shapiro was a shocking optimist. "

- G. Altschuller : Жизнь Человека 1-Ч-502, 1985-1986

During the lifetime of R. Shapiro and G. Altschuller, however, this event did not receive a single documentary confirmation. Shapiro himself never mentioned this legendary letter anywhere. Altschuller, on the other hand, described the reasons and details of the arrest in a contradictory manner and each time a little differently, citing more and more adventurous and dubious details that gradually gave the story truly legendary shapes and served in the West as the basis for the creation of a heroic figure of one of the TRIZ creators.

The actual, but no less tragic, circumstances of the arrest of the two friends came to light only 50 years later, already after Shapiro's death, in the memoirs of the poet and writer Inna Lisnjanskaja .

Their undoing was a joke that was carelessly pronounced among friends about Altschuller's idea of ​​the possible use of ethyl mercaptan for vigilante purposes:

“[...] they knew about the mustached“ mouth ”and the powder that Genka had invented with Rafka's help. [...] It didn't matter what the three student friends had discussed, what forbidden jokes and plans they didn't develop! “The organs” only found out about the “mouth” and the powder that could stink the parade. [...] And after Stalin's death, Ljuskas Altschuller and Rafka Shapiro, who had been under a strict regime for 25 years, were released and rehabilitated and it turned out that my poor Kopejkis had nothing to do with the matter. Noble son of all people had whistled. Who should understand those who, out of hasty cowardice, have become informers? Edelsohn only penned a single advertisement, and only through the book passage on our street corner. Only later did they find out about the smelly powder. And he named us with Kopejkis as witnesses. He used to hear from Genka and Rafka God knows what passages about the regime, but without us. And in our presence he got scared and hurried, not that we were the first to denounce with Kopejkis. [...] "

- Inna Lisnianskaya on the circumstances of the arrest in : «Хвастунья», «Знамя» 2006, №1

Shapiro passed through Lubyanka , Butyrka Prison, and the infamous Lefortovo Prison, and was sentenced to 10 years (25 years according to Altschuller's version) of forced labor in the prison camp in 1951 under Articles 58-1, 58-10 and 58-11 of the USSR Criminal Code  sentenced. By a curious coincidence of events, the verdict was pronounced on Shapiro's 25th birthday, January 13, 1951. After that, he went the same path as in his childhood - Kazakhstan and Siberia. In his autobiographical book "Twenty-five plus twenty-five", which was published in 1994 in Israel by his widow Nora Shapiro, Raphael Shapiro described the strokes of fate he had to go through, the experiences of life in the camp and the opportunities to continue a creative way of life under the difficult circumstances of imprisonment Edited by Vladimir Portnow.

After Stalin's death in 1953, Shapiro was released from prison, but not rehabilitated until 1954 and reintroduced as a student to the engineering-mechanical faculty. After completing his studies and receiving his diploma, he worked as an engineer in Baku.

He was the regular author of Bakinski Rabotschi ( The Baku Worker) newspaper and his articles were also published in many of the central newspapers and magazines of the USSR. He also made literary translations of works by Azerbaijani authors into Russian.

In 1980 Shapiro set off for Israel with his wife and son. Lev Kopelew and his wife Raisa, with whom the Shapiros had a long friendship , had a major influence on the decision to emigrate from the USSR .

From 1985 to 1991 Shapiro worked closely with Kronid Lyubarsky , Boris Khazanov and other members of the Legal Protection Movement in the USSR. During these years he was also the leading political scientist for the magazine “Staat und Welt” (Munich), for which he wrote leading articles under the pseudonym Raphail Bakhtamov.

Shapiro's autobiographical notes "It's time to talk ..." were published in 1987 in the magazine "GRANI" ("edges", Frankfurt / Main).

From 1991 to 1993 he was the leading commentator on the REKA ( Israel Radio International ) radio program in Israel.

Creation of the TRIZ method

R. Shapiro and G. Altschuller were both arrested (1950) and released (October 23, 1954) at the same time. After returning from prison and the subsequent rehabilitation, Shapiro continued to cooperate intensively with Altschuller in the creation of a method of invention, the basic ideas of which they had jointly developed in the late 1940s. In fact, Shapiro was the TRIZ strategist, giving the TRIZ methodology the most important development directions.

Genrich Altschuller commented on Shapiro's role in the creation of TRIZ as follows:

“Shapiro assessed our perspective very quickly. Kabanov had assessed the technical side, and Shapiro had assessed what came of it. He owns a very powerful comparison. He said: "Marx worked out the laws of social development, Darwin the laws of development of living organisms, and we are going to work out a theory that will give the world the laws of development of technical systems." [...] So Shapiro has this thing as first assessed, this is very important. He had understood their standards. "

- Altschuller, G .: Жизнь Человека 1-Ч-502, 1985-1986

In 1956 Shapiro and Altschuller published their first article “On the Psychology of Invention” in the journal “Questions of Psychology”, which laid the most important cornerstone of the TRIZ development history. This was the first time that the main terms of the TRIZ method were described: the technical contradiction, the “algorithm for solving inventive tasks” (ARIZ), and it was also announced that objective dialectical laws existed in the development of technology.

In the late 1950s, Shapiro completed a second degree by distance learning from the Law Faculty of Azerbaijan University. During his studies he took an active part in the discussion of the project "Guidelines for Inventions, Discoveries and Suggestions for Improvement" (Russian "Положение об изобретениях, открытиях и рацпредложениях") on the pages of the Soviet state magazine.

In 1959, R. Shapiro and G. Altschuller described the first extended version of the “Algorithm for Solving Inventive Tasks”, ARIZ-59, in their publication “The Displacement of the Six-Winged Seraph”, and announced the beginning of work on a “scientific method of inventive creativity ". Training seminars on this had already started in 1957.

In his book of the same name, “The expulsion of the six-winged seraph”, published in 1961, Shapiro not only managed to advertise TRIZ widely for the first time (the first edition was 115,000 copies), but he also made Altschuller's name under the technical one Known youth by personally dedicating one of his stories to Altschuller and the “method of invention”.

Raphael Shapiro (Bakhtamov) had a deep sense of the importance of applied philosophy, and for him technology was by no means the only area in which the word "law" assumed a prime meaning. After completing his legal training, he applied the principles of innovation, the laws and “lines of development” that had been worked out through years of joint work on the “method of invention” to the field of legal relationships. The result of his years of research was the book “Law is Law”, in the creation of which important TRIZ principles were applied.

recognition

In recent years the importance of the work of R. Shapiro and G. Altschuller has been recognized more and more in the USA, but also in Western Europe. Your articles will be translated and cited in different languages.

Materials that shed light on the creation story of TRIZ and its individual tools are published in central technical publications.

Literary work

Science-popular works (selection)

• "Expulsion of the six-winged seraph" (1961),
• "Law is Law" (1968), 
• "Ruler of the Oxy World" (1965),
• "For whom the apples fall" (1973),
• "The riddle of the technological revolution" (1976),
• “Has no shape” (1977) and others.

Autobiographical works

"Twenty-five plus twenty-five" (1992), narrative (unfinished)

"It is time to talk ...", autobiographical notes, published in 1987 in the magazine "GRANI" (Frankfurt / Main).

• 

  Rafael and Nora Shapiro, 1976, his posthumously published book "25 + 25"

Individual evidence

1. ↑ А.с. 6756 СССР. Кл. 61а 29/01. Дыхательный аппарат с химическим патроном / Г. С. Альтшуллер, Р. Б. Шапиро, И. В. Тальянский (СССР). - N 5305/324480; Заяв. 11/9/43. Опубл. 08/21/47
2. ↑ Soviet copyright certificate No. 111144
3. ↑ Г. Альтшуллер, Р. Шапиро: " В костюме сквозь огонь " ( Об индивидуальных средствах теплозащиты) . In: Знание - сила, 1965, № 12 . S. c. 20-22 .
4. ↑ Л. Лернер: « ПРОШЕДШИЙ СКВОЗЬ СТЕНУ » . In: « Огонек », № 3, 1991 г.
5. ^ Lerner, L .: Genrich Altshuller: Father of TRIZ. Retrieved January 13, 2018 . 
6. ↑ Инна Лиснянская: " Хвастунья " . In: « Знамя » 2006, №1 .
7. ^ Leonid Shub: Raphael Shapiro. For the 85th birthday. In: Metodolog. Retrieved January 13, 2018 (Russian). 
8. ↑ Журнал " Страна и Мир ", Мюнхен, гл. ред. Кронид Любарский
9. ↑ Альтшуллер Г.С., Шапиро Р.Б., "О психологии изобретательского творчества", Вопрчества ", Вопросы психологи6. - 1956,. 37-49; online: http://www.altshuller.ru/triz/triz0.asp (in Russian)
10. ↑ ^{a b} German translation of the article: Altschuller, GS, Schapiro, RB: ZUR PSYCHOLOGIE DES ERFINDENS, // WOPROSY PSICHOLOGII, No. 6, 1956. - P. 37-49, translation: Yury Goryunov, revision: B. Celik, Dr. R. Adunka
11. ↑ Шапиро Р.Б., Альтшуллер Г.С .: О некоторых вопросах советского изобретательского права . In: Советское государство и право, 1958, №2 . S. с. 35-44 .
12. ↑ Альтшуллер Г., Шапиро Р. Изгнание шестикрылого серафима, Изобретатель и рационализатор. - 1959. - № 10 .; Online (in Russian): http://www.altshuller.ru/triz/ariz59.asp
13. ↑ Бахтамов Р .: Изгнание шестикрылого серафима. Рассказ третий. Цена победы . In: М .: Детгиз, 1961. - 127 с., Тираж: 115000 экз. Рисунки Г. Бедарева . S. c. 40 - 45 ( altshuller.ru ).
14. ↑ Р. Б. Бахтамов: Закон есть закон . Москва: Детская литература, 1968; 286 с. : ил. ; 20 см. - Тираж: 50000 экз .. - (В пер.): 0.52.
15. ↑ Leonid Shub: How many parents does TRIZ have? Ed .: 'Quality and Reliability' 01'2007. ( qz-online.de [PDF]).