Sergei Petrovich Kapitsa

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Sergei Kapiza (2007)

Sergei Petrovich Kapiza ( Russian Серге́й Петро́вич Капи́ца , scientific transliteration Sergej Petrovič Kapica ; born February 14, 1928 in Cambridge , England , Great Britain ; † August 14, 2012 in Moscow , Russia ) was a Soviet- Russian physicist and television presenter .

Life

Sergei Kapiza came from a prominent family of scientists. He was the son of the Nobel Prize laureate Pyotr Kapiza , his maternal grandfather was the mathematician Alexei Krylov . His younger brother was the geographer and Antarctic explorer Andrei Kapiza .

Sergei Kapiza grew up in Cambridge, England in the 1930s before his parents moved with him to Moscow. He became a professor at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and worked at the Kapitsa Institute for Physical Problems at the Russian Academy of Sciences, named after his father . In Russia he moderated the popular science television program "The obvious is the unbelievable" (also "Apparently, but hardly to believe!", Russian Очевидное - невероятное ) from 1973 until his death . This makes him the television presenter with the world's longest broadcast time and made it into the Guinness Book of Records .

He became a participant in the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs , a member of the Council for Culture and Art of the President of the Russian Federation, and the Club of Rome . From 1977 to 1982 he was Vice President of the European Physical Society . From 1983 until the temporary cessation of printing in 1993 and from 2002 until his death, he was editor of W mire nauki , the Russian edition of Scientific American . In his later academic career he devoted himself increasingly to the problems of demographics and global population growth.

Sergei Kapiza had been married since 1949 and had three children.

Honors

Memberships

Quotes

“Like a radio, the market or money, democracy is nothing more than an instrument. You alone do not bring happiness. "

- Interview with Der Spiegel , February 25, 2008

Web links

Commons : Sergei Kapitsa  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ras.ru: Капица Сергей Петрович (Russian)
  2. ^ SPIEGEL ONLINE: Research in the East: "Bill Gates will get rich at Russia's expense" , February 25, 2008.