Significance and relevance of Alexander Baldin's heritage

On 26 February, a memorable seminar was held at the Laboratory of High Energy Physics on the centenary of the birth of an outstanding scientist in the field of particle physics and atomic nucleus, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Alexander Baldin. Several reports and a presentation of the book were prepared.

Vladimir Kekelidze

JINR Vice Director Vladimir Kekelidze made a welcoming speech, "A.M.Baldin was a bright person in everything he undertook. LHEP lived a heyday under him: everyone was looking for and waiting for new scientific results. The centre of these searches was Alexander Mikhailovich. He was a fighter and it can be seen in everything, including his sporting achievements. Thanks to Baldin, Nuclotron operated in a difficult period. It wouldn't be possible without him. Today, the main flagship project of NICA basically has the groundwork that was developed in the laboratory in 1968-1987."

The report "A.M.Baldin - a citizen, a person, a scientist, an organizer and a friend" was given by Head of Department of VBLHEP Alexander Malakhov. He emphasized that it is difficult to list all scientific achievements and merits in 20 minutes. Nevertheless, in his report, A.I.Malakhov presented a historical section about the life and work of the scientist.

Alexander Malakhov

He once again emphasized that Baldin had been the ancestor of relativistic physics and had predicted the cumulative effect. He highlighted that A.M.Baldin had been awarded the title of Honorary Citizen of Dubna and considered him the most honorable of all. In the city, Baldin's name is immortalized on a plaque, there is a street named after him and today, there are two monuments: one - on Lesnaya Street, the other - on the territory of VBLHEP. "Baldin was an active person, always advocating for the interests of the Laboratory and science. He was a good organizer. The international seminar he founded on the problems of high energy physics that is also called "Baldin autumn", is still regularly held every two years," A.I.Malakhov summed up.

Head of Department of VBLHEP Anton Baldin gave a report "On some relevant ideas of A.M.Baldin in relativistic nuclear physics". He started with a personal one; he stated the excitement accompanying the conversation about his father that in many ways became a life guideline and developed him as a person and a scientist. "We had three forms of cooperation: the boss - the subordinate, the father - the son and the third that was used most often - disputes about everything, in which everyone was equal and only arguments were needed," A.A.Baldin said. He also emphasized that with his report, he wished to show not only the merits of the past, but also to highlight the significance and relevance of many of his ideas today. One of the important merits of his father he called overcoming reductionism. A.A.Baldin also spoke about economic papers and investigations that should be focused on, "My father had many books on the economics of the scientific centre. He understood that genius alone is not enough, you need to be able to pay for experiments."

Nikolay Gorbunov and Anton Baldin: an autograph for memory

Head of Sector of VBLHEP, BECQUEREL project leader Pavel Zarubin prepared a report "Stages of the long journey", in which he spoke about the main papers and achievements of A. M. Baldin. In his report, he relied on photographs and documents that are available on the becquerel.jinr.ru website in the section dedicated to the scientist.

Deputy Director for Research of Division of VBLHEP Anatoly Sidorin made a report on accelerators "From Nuclotron to NICA". In his memoirs about Baldin, he spoke about his "favorite brainchild" - Nuclotron.

Pavel Zarubin	Mikhail Lukichev	Anatoly Sidorin

After the reports, there was presentation of the book "A.M.Baldin". RMP Publishing House has previously published several books about JINR's great scientists. The main publisher Mikhail Lukichev said that he had enjoyed working on the book and shared his impressions, "There were many interesting meetings, for example, with Anton Baldin in that very historical cottage, he gave a lot of valuable information. Pavel Zarubin's website about wonderful people that had left their mark on the history of science helped a lot. The daughter of Alexander Mikhailovich Elena joined in and the book became even more interesting. We succeeded to get memories from colleagues. Great help was provided by Alexander Malakhov, without him, this book would not exist." Mikhail Lukichev said that there were also creative discussions about what should be included in the book, "For example, mountaineering, how widely to present it?! A.M.Baldin could be an athlete instead of a scientist. I insisted on wide coverage, especially, since there are many wonderful photographs. This hobby, in my opinion, influenced his development as a person. Such activity tempers. And perhaps, the tragic events in the mountains shifted him to science. In my opinion, if this story were not in the book, then we would not understand something about A.M.Baldin."

At the end of the seminar, the participants shared personal memories about Alexander Baldin.

Maria KARPOVA,
photos by Elena PUZYNINA