About science, life, teachers...

The last public speech of Academician A.M.Baldin was on 28 February, 2001 at a seminar dedicated to his anniversary. This confessional in letter and essence speech contains crucial evaluations of the role of science and its history, it reflects the outstanding personality of Alexander Mikhailovich Baldin and the charm of his lively speech.

...I especially want to remember with a kind word Nikolay Nikolaevich Bogolyubov that greatly developed me. He noticed me when I came to the Laboratory of Theoretical Physics. I became a member of the Scientific Council of the Laboratory back in 1958. And in 1960, I was very lucky. The first large delegation to America was sent. The delegation was headed by Dmitry Ivanovich Blokhintsev. Vladimir Iosifovich Veksler was among its leaders. There were a lot of different discussions. I got it so that I learned the Dubna culture, dispersive and applied it to the photocomposition of mesons that was then one of the key issues. I have been engaged in this issue for about 10 years. At this conference, I have spoken many times. At the conference, the largest physicists, such as Feynman, began to ask questions, which I realized from that they did not know "dispersion" in the way the Bogolyubov school knows. Bethe also suddenly became very interested in it. Nikolay Nikolaevich and other members of the delegation focused on such interest in my speeches. He told me, "Write a Ph.D. thesis!" I said, "Nikolay Nikolaevich, I have not thought about it yet." I was 34 years old. He said, "Write!" Upon arrival here, he also talked to me and said, "Here, weave all these your papers and start writing." I was very embarrassed by the offer. Nevertheless, Vladimir Iosifovich Veksler agreed to be an opponent, both Anatoly Alekseevich Logunov and Alexander Sergeevich Davydov agreed.

I defended my thesis in Dubna. Nikolay Nikolaevich fell ill and came to this council with a temperature that completely amazed me. I still can't forget it. After the defense, he said, "And you know, after all, I am the chairman of the expert committee." He came to the expert committee, as I was told, took the thesis out of a large pack and said, "But this thesis has international approbation, everyone else does not have such approbation. Who's against it?" As a result, I unexpectedly became a doctor in six months. And then for years, he focused on me. Moreover, it was very difficult to talk to Nikolay Nikolaevich. He listened attentively, grasped quickly. He was sitting and he seemed to be asleep, not perceiving anything. But then he suddenly made very sensible, accurate remarks summing up the whole discussion. Moreover, it was impossible to understand how his thought went.

Much has been said about synchrophasotron, about Vladimir Iosifovich Veksler. In the bowels of his laboratory, I, in fact, grew up. Moses Alexandrovich Markov, of course, should be remembered, since he is my teacher. He was the first theorist to understand that the future of quantum field theory is in the field of experiments on accelerators. He trained a whole generation of theoretical physicists working closely with the experiment. Moses Alexandrovich had a philosophical mindset. Young creative people were drawn to him. During our acquaintance, he was terribly criticized as "the founder of physical idealism in our country". It was a terrible scandal that many no longer remember. We, young people, were rather skeptical about philosophy. But of course, we learned the depth of understanding of the key problems of natural science from Moses Alexandrovich. It is precisely that you still need to hold on to the experiment in order not to soar too far into philosophy later. This is a union of philosophical thinking with the specific development of programmes for accelerators, this, of course, is a unique feature of Moses Alexandrovich Markov. I owe him a lot. This is my teacher.

Much has been said here about the LHEP accelerator complex. In the development of the theory of synchrophasotrons, we, two students of MEPhI, were involved by M.S.Rabinovich. He also organized our enrollment in the Lebedev Physical Institute and participation in the development of the synchrophasotron project from the very beginning. LPI perfectly celebrated my anniversary, considering me a pure LPI student. I constantly say, "I did not leave the Lebedev Physical Institute anywhere, since LHEP is an "LPI" laboratory." On all volumes of the synchrophasotron project, there is a signature "I approve" by S.I.Vavilov, Director of the Lebedev Physical Institute and President of the Academy of Sciences. On 5 January, 1951, the new Director of the Lebedev Physical Institute, Academician D.V.Skobeltsyn signed the project. In those years, the approval of such a project was a huge responsibility. D.V.Skobeltsyn, many years later, often asked me about the operation of the synchrophasotron. He was worried about unsuccessful technical solutions for this accelerator. I had quite a few meetings with Skobeltsyn. I was very impressed by the high culture of this representative of an ancient noble family, his erudition. He was the founder of high energy physics, cosmic ray physics and enjoyed immense international prestige. His judgments were accurate, tough and impartial.

I was greatly influenced by peers from LPI scientific schools, from Bogolyubov's school, from younger people, from my school, as well as from the employees of LHEP. Of course, I learned a lot from them. Without them, I could not do much on major projects. I ad hoc say it but nevertheless, I would like to thank the Administration of Dubna that helped me a lot, helped to found my big family here.

Article by Evgeny PLEKHANOV,
February, 2011