Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Sergey Novikov: "Compulsory knowledge has collapsed in education"

March 20, 2013 to the outstanding Russian mathematician, academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Sergei Petrovich Novikov turns 75 years old. On March 21, an anniversary evening will be held at the Moscow House of Scientists, and in June - Scientific Conference with his participation. About his style of work in mathematics, his assessment of the situation at the Academy of Sciences, at the Mechanics and Mathematics of Moscow State University, MIAN, the Faculty of Mathematics of the Higher School of Economics and the Independent Moscow University, read in an interview with Natalia Demina. Read also curriculum vitae at the end of the interview.

Let me start by asking a few questions about your personal cultural interests. Were there books in your childhood that predetermined your path to science?

My family, my relatives were mathematicians, physicists, mechanics or representatives of other sciences. I cannot say that the books somehow determined my choice of the scientific path. The books I liked were not mathematical. The first book I read when I was 5-6 years old was The Adventures of Karik and Vali, a wonderful children's book. Well, then I started reading different books. Adventure…

For example, in the Soviet Union, around 1950, Fenimore Cooper's "St. John's wort" was released in Russian. I began to go to the Lenin Library, re-read Cooper, Dumas, Walter Scott. In the famous house of Pashkov, architect Bazhenov, the children's part of the library was located. Books could be ordered there. I went there by subway and read a huge amount of books. Non-mathematical! I had enough mathematical, popular ones at home, but I didn’t read them much. I went to mathematical circles, solved problems at Olympiads starting from the 5th grade, but I didn’t read many mathematical books.

What are you reading now? Are there any books you recommend to other people?

Fiction?

They are all "fiction". Including, "War and Peace" by Count Tolstoy - also "fiction". Aldanov, Russian foreign writer XX century, reports the following: the famous Decembrist (Bestuzhev?) Lived a long time, and managed to catch the exit of War and Peace, returning from Siberia. He said that Leo Tolstoy did not understand anything in that era. Well, Lev Nikolaevich probably would have answered him that he was not going to understand. He is a genius and came up with an era such as, in his opinion, it should be for the perception of "Tolstoy".

By the way, I do not like Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, although I consider him a special genius. Because he predicted all the abominations of the 20th century. We read our classics and Western - French, English, German, Spanish ... We were brought up on this literature! But then I realized: I want to read literature that contains the realities of the past. Maybe that's how my brain works.

I noticed, for example, that writers are very different in this respect. Take Boris Akunin's books. Perhaps, as a writer of detective stories, he is good, but he scoffs at the truth. For example, in one novel, he begins with the fact that some Bolshevik terrorist is killing someone. I was taught from the first grade that terrorism was forbidden to the Bolsheviks. In my opinion, this makes the whole book nonsense. And there are other authors, for example, Marinina: I am curious to read her detective stories - she knows the post-Soviet era so much, she describes the dark side, the abomination of our life, with the eyes of a policeman!

And the wonderful classics: Dumas père is wonderful! How skillfully he combined facts and fiction! It turns out that there was a milady - both the first and the second, one of them was a spy for the cardinal. And there were cut off pendants. He came up with a number of situations, but on the basis of real events, he studied historical events.

And then I realized that I just want to read the originals. ancient greek dramas Scandinavian sagas, some ancient Russian epics, the Jewish Bible - they talk about real events that really happened. And this is what I want to understand and what I want to read about. I re-read the whole Bible many times, the Scandinavian sagas, ancient Greek dramas - they set out not just fiction, but give a presentation generated by ancient mysteries, talk about what we now call "myths", give the information received from the ancestors that they considered authentic. Such were the dramas written by the famous ancient Greek writers of the classical period. Reading them often refutes the naive fables we've been fed under the title Greek myths and which often took shape during the dark period of European existence between the 6th and 15th centuries of our era.

Then there was literature, where there was no connection with reality. In Rome, they began to compose the past, which the ancient Jews and ancient Greeks did not do. Virgil, for example. True, Ovid did not do this. I grew fond of it over time.

Have you read the original Romans? After all, you studied Latin for three years ...

I read Russian and English.

Have you forgotten Latin?

I forgot the Latin. Comrade Stalin ordered us to study Latin - in 9 Moscow schools. We taught her for three years. By the way, it was as an experiment. But already when I finished school in 1955, it was canceled.

That is, “talk about Juvenal” and read Virgil in Latin, could you?

No, no, it's impossible that you! We learned Horace by heart, and Virgil is such a long one ... I didn’t read it in the original.

you use e-books or read paper?

I read paper. I must admit honestly that at my age it is no longer “suitable” to read electronic ones. I'm used to reading paper...

What do you think about the problem of popularization of mathematics? I am now organizing popular science lectures at Polit.ru, and physicists and biologists come with pleasure, but it is very difficult to persuade mathematicians. They say that it is impossible to explain a problem to a person from scratch in an hour, an hour and a half ...

You know, unfortunately, it always has been. Of course, this is the specificity of the community called "pure mathematicians". 12 years ago, around 2000, I wrote an article. It is on my home page www.mi.ras.ru/~snovikov - in Russian and translated into English. English translation, by the way, first-class, made by my friend Alexei Bronislavovich Sosinsky. The article is called "The End of the 20th Century and the Crisis of the Physics and Mathematics Community". Although I published it, I tried not to popularize it very much so as not to upset my colleagues. No, well, why write negative things, harm your community. It's been 12 years. I would say that compared to what I wrote then, the situation has worsened. By the way: both my physicist friends and a number of physicists unknown to me contacted me discussing the article: you obviously write everything correctly, but I don’t like your article. - Why? - You're not pointing out. This is because I do not know - I answered a colleague, and not just one. All of them were physicists. Not a single mathematician showed interest! It's curious. Although some historians of science, as I have seen, also clearly see this deep crisis - perhaps for a long period, compared with the situation 2000 years ago, when, around the 1st century BC, the development of the physical and mathematical sciences stalled for millennia.

What do you see as the main problem?

The fact that the level of mentality and understanding of the general scientific significance of mathematics among representatives of the modern physical and mathematical community cannot be compared with what my colleagues had in the mid-1950s. It has undergone a major downfall.

And what's the reason?

The reason… For example, I started with pure mathematics, with topology. Very well. My friends were - Arnold, Sinai, Manin, others, who also started successfully - everyone somehow considered it natural that they would look for, see to what extent the methods of mathematics would go beyond its limits, find themselves in applications, natural sciences, etc. d ... For this I went to the physicists in 1970. It was a natural point of view. Based on this point of view, many of us acted later. I can say the same about some Western colleagues.

Sergei Petrovich Novikov

We had a firm understanding that "pure" mathematics is a wonderful science, but on one condition: for it to be useful to society, its leaders must be scientists who know other areas, including natural sciences and applications. Then it will be incredibly useful. If the leaders don't know, then what...? André Weil, for example, absolutely did not know and propagated the following point of view: to become a great mathematician now, one does not need to engage in any natural sciences and applications.

In the previous generation, the greatest people from "pure" mathematics, such as Kolmogorov, von Neumann, and others, contributed huge contribution into a variety of natural sciences and applications, starting with pure mathematics. Israel Moiseevich Gelfand told me a lot about this, how they had to work on applications to "important" problems. Gelfand had a great influence on me, I met him at the age of 25, when I was already an established scientist, but he helped me ideologically in many ways. He is outstanding deep man... I also consulted with Bogolyubov, I also spoke with Kolmogorov later ... One way or another, but this issue existed in previous generations. For some reason now I don't see this in the surrounding community of pure mathematicians, including very good mathematicians in America and Europe. I do not understand their scientific ideology, if they have any outside the problem solving of their narrow field of pure mathematics.

You will be told that now to succeed in science you need a very deep specialization ...

That is what they will say! But they taught science less than the mathematicians 50 years ago, and in a super-formal language that makes broad study incredibly difficult. They do not want to accept another language. Natives of physics did not fall under the sword of Damocles of this formal language. Yes, of course, the physics community has also fallen. This is due to the complexity of education. The theoretical minimum that scientists like Landau and Feynman demanded no one can pass, they don’t pass ... Some physicists actually began to study pure mathematics and began to falsify the term “physics” itself, calling their field physics, although they have nothing to do with the phenomena of the real world studies do not have. But they popularize more skillfully, masterfully. There are very talented people among them. In terms of popularization, these people from physics are better than pure mathematicians. It must be borne in mind that they are usually not as narrow as mathematicians.

Are you following what is happening at the Large Hadron Collider now? Behind the Higgs boson? Is it interesting for you?

The Higgs boson is such a thing that cannot not exist. I remember one astronomer at the defense of my friend's doctoral dissertation on general relativity in the early 80s, said: “Don't be upset that black holes have not yet been found. This is the correct theory. Well, this is astronomy, centuries may pass before they find it. “Do you know,” he continued, “when was it established that the Earth revolves around the Sun, and not vice versa? Do you think it was some Copernicus who installed it? No, that was just a guess. By the way, the theory of Copernicus contradicted the observations of Ptolemy, it was corrected by Kepler. It was established only late XIX century! This required incredible precision instruments to look at distant stars and see if there is a one-year period of oscillation or not. And it took 300 years before it could be established. That's how black holes are!

It's the same with the Higgs boson. It fits so well into the existing well-proven theory. If it does not exist, then there is no theory of elementary particles. The Polyakov-"t Hooft monopole has not yet been found (by the way, I myself helped Polyakov master the ideas of topology in the 1970s). If it is not found, then the whole theory will crumble. This is extremely unlikely.

Well, the Hadron Collider is a good thing... It's good if there is a Higgs boson, and developments in this area do not surprise me at all. It's more or less within what should be there. But whether super-symmetry will be discovered or not is another question. Because it's not required. This is a wonderful mathematical improvement of quantum theory, which was proposed already in the early 70s, but God has so far refused - it is not observed in particles. And it is not as obligatory as the Higgs boson. It either improves the theory, or it simply does not exist. And if super-symmetry is found, it will be much more important for the mathematical methods of physics!

You probably know that now string theory is one of the most fashionable in mathematical physics. Have you ever worked in this area?

I worked for a short time, I was inspired by Sasha Polyakov, his wonderful work on string theory in 1981. In the late 1980s, Igor Krichever and I wrote a series of papers on string theory and solved the methodological problem of constructing an operator theory of an interacting bosonic string on all "diagrams" - Riemann surfaces. Our work has been published in the mathematical and physical literature.

What do you think about the future of string theory?

I already knew when I was doing this work (I am still proud of it now, I think that this is a very good mathematical work - mathematical work! - on analysis on Riemann surfaces) that this whole theory has nothing to do with physics. In this I disagreed with Polyakov.

My friend, unfortunately now deceased, a prominent physicist Vladimir Naumovich Gribov, told me, I asked him when I was studying strings: - “You see, the size of a string, as physicists say, is “quantum-gravitational”. In order of magnitude, this is 10 -33 cm. If we assume that the size of the string is larger, closer to the physical, then this leads to a contradiction with Newtonian gravity on millimeter scales. The string is forced to be part of, as physicists say, "quantum gravity."

Let me explain: the size of an atom is 10 -8 cm, the size of the nucleus is 10 -13, five orders of magnitude deep, the size of a quark is another four orders of magnitude deep, 10 -17, this is the same length where modern accelerators go. You increase the energy of the accelerator ten times - you can reduce the distance only 10 times. So, 10 -33 is another 16 orders of magnitude! Can you imagine, you need to increase the energy of the accelerator by 16 orders of magnitude.

Sergei Petrovich Novikov

In my opinion, string theory is science fiction. Beautiful science fiction. There is wonderful mathematics ... Therefore, I did not continue to work in it. Igor Krichever and I wrote a good paper, figured out what Fourier and Laurent series on Riemann surfaces are. Our work was known in those years. Then the community developed string theory in different directions, changing the very content of the term "string theory", we did not participate in this ... That theory began with the remarkable work of Polyakov. He's at Princeton now. His monopole has also not yet been experimentally found, so Polyakov cannot receive the Nobel Prize. He discovered the instanton, I helped him with the topology in the 70s (see above). Polyakov is one of my most talented friends at the Landau Institute.

In December 2012, he became one of the winners of The Physics Frontiers Prize, and is one of the contenders for the main Fundamental Physics Prize established by Milner.

I don't know anything about this award yet, but Alexander Polyakov is one of the most talented specialists in quantum field theory. Stupid if he was not given this prize first, if it was a question of string theory at all. This is a clear scientific dissonance.

Addendum: I looked at the list of 9 winners of this award for 2012. There are a couple of names that I don't know, maybe experimenters. This is not my profession. Of the rest, I found only one who made a major contribution to the already known observable phenomena of the real world: this is the astrophysicist Guth, who discovered the inevitability of the "Inflationary stage" in the very early evolution of the Universe. Sometime in the early 1970s, at the request of physicists (Khalatnikov, director of the Landau Institute), Oleg Bogoyavlensky and I delved into this area, we did something good. I can appreciate Gut's contribution, he was extremely important, he completely changed this field, the understanding of the evolution of the Universe in terms of the density of matter observed today. Among the awarded I saw good work in pure mathematics - algebraic geometry and topology, as well as in mathematical physics - the theory of integrable quantum systems. In these works, mat. is taken from physics. methods of quantum field theory. Apparently, the development of these methods is, by definition, "Fundamental Physics" or its major part, in the opinion of the commission that decides the award of this prize. Everyone has their own opinion...

If we return to real science, how it works. How would you rate the level of the modern Mekhmat of Moscow State University, Steklovka, Independent Moscow University?

You know, this is an interesting thing. The independent university is all my friends, very good friends. I know him well, from the very beginning I participated in its creation. The main thing is that they have what disappeared on Mehmat - enthusiasm. Enthusiasm has disappeared on Mekhmat! Absolutely disappeared. I do not argue: professionals sit in the departments, many talented people. Victor Sadovnichy is a first-class manager, thanks to his support there are many good people in the departments, but they do not conduct any joint work.

Unfortunately, Mekhmat is greatly harmed by an absolutely shameful circumstance: in the place of Kolmogorov there is a character who is deeply despised by the entire Orthodox humanitarian intelligentsia - this is Fomenko. In our absence - mine and Arnold's - Fomenko was elected an academician. What irresponsibility! In 1992, Arnold failed him in the elections, I was not there. Arnold told me about it later. And in 1994, there was neither me nor Arnold, and these idiots chose him as an academician. Although Fomenko is a very mediocre mathematician, and the specialists here are Arnold and I, and not those who chose him, ignoring our opinion. What is behind this? It's curious.

… By the way, Fomenko has an amazing talent for art advertising, people like his paintings, but his mathematical works turned out to be mainly the fruit of clever advertising. It is a disgrace to Mekhmat that this man is sitting in Kolmogorov's place... The opinion of the Orthodox humanitarian intelligentsia should be at least a little respected... Ultimately, nothing good will happen here if he is not removed.

If you had the necessary powers, what would you do with the Mechanics and Mathematics Department of Moscow State University?

First, I believe that two leaders are needed for each institution. One is a manager, the other is a truly great scientist, removed from the difficulties of administration, but not Fomenko, not a bald-headed character. Stalin, by the way, understood such things. Maybe he was a cannibal in relation to the peasants and the Gulag, but he understood this matter well. There is a false point of view - to treat science and education as democratic structures. This is wrong, these are NOT democratic structures. And Stalin understood this much better than many in the West. In that Bolshevik world, his idea was to make a scientist a manager. But it's good if you reduce all management problems to ordering. An excellent rector of Moscow State University was Petrovsky, by the way, a nominee of Beria. Yes, it was Beria who recommended him to Stalin.

But in the post-Soviet period, a scientist cannot head the University, a manager is needed. Already in the USSR there was a decisive failure of the Stalinist approach. Logunov was not supposed to head Moscow State University. Such people do not understand anything in education. He could well head the security institute, but he ruined the University. And also his anti-Einsteinian. He nominated Fomenko.

If you still get away from specific personalities, then how can the Mehmat of Moscow State University be reformed now?

First of all, you need to remove all the odious pieces... Nothing can be done about the mechanics. Mechanics is over, it must be given to the physics department. It should be transferred in part to physicists or applied mathematicians. And a real scientist should be put in Kolmogorov's place.

After that, you need to start organizing some kind of joint work of mathematicians, try to nominate younger scientists as department chairs, do what Stalin did with the Academy. From 1939 to 1953, the Academy became young. Before that, she was one of the same old people. Natural aging process. And this was done by Stalin, in the 39th, 43rd, 46th. It was done from above. In any case, in the physical and mathematical sciences. Physical and mathematical sciences were given to Beria. Petrovsky, Keldysh, Kurchatov, Alikhanov, Landau, Leontovich ... were carried out by Beria, Lavrentiev, apparently by Khrushchev. Very young people were appointed to some posts of the highest rank. Lev Davidovich Landau at the academy did not even want to elect a corresponding member. Evil envious people did not want to choose Kolmogorov as a correspondent! Then physicists chose him when he did the famous physical work. And with Landau, the case was even more interesting. Before the elections, Beria sent Terletsky to Niels Bohr...

Oh yes, I have read it! Very interesting story. With Terletsky there in general ...

So Terletsky later said that "in vain I conveyed Bohr's opinion." But in fact, he was not alone with Bor... A man with an excellent memory was sent with him. If Terletsky had conveyed the words of Bohr somehow wrong, Lavrenty Pavlovich would have quickly dealt with him - as he vulgarly expressed, I will tear something off for you, they obeyed him, believe me. And after Bohr's approving words about Landau, he was immediately elected an academician. He wasn't even a Corresponding Member. These people were needed for nuclear affairs ...

How do you assess the state of affairs at Steklovka and at the Faculty of Mathematics at HSE?

Without a doubt, all the people I know at HSE and at the Independent University are good mathematicians, some of them were my students, students of Arnold, Sinai were our students, but I would say about them that they are too “pure mathematicians”. They need to have some more contact with applications and the natural sciences. But they're smart about it. They have enthusiasm, and if it holds up, that's very good. Maybe they can do something. But they need some big figures who would still be more related to applications. In this generation, the best mathematicians are too "pure". I hope that the Independent University will be able to overcome this. I think they are on the right track. As for Mehmat, we have already talked about him.

But I will say this about Steklovka - this is an interesting phenomenon. I was a young researcher in the 60s. Until 1968 there was a period of "late Khrushchev" or "early Kosygin", the very heyday, the best period achieved by the Soviet government, in all respects, both economic and moral - then everything went down.

Even then, by the way, criticism of the community of "pure mathematicians" by "calculators" began - they believed that soon "pure" mathematicians would be shown only in menageries. But then, with the help of mathematical group theory, elementary particles were discovered: physicists began to say that they didn’t, on the contrary, they are calculators - like fitters, and pure mathematics is a high science, they know what we don’t know. And the critical view of "pure" mathematics disappeared then.

Unfortunately, in the academy, the administrative elite of mathematicians began to degenerate in the late 1960s. You know, the Steklov Institute had many problems. First, there was demonstrative, vile anti-Semitism. Director of Steklovka Vinogradov behaved indecently. Apparently, he was recruited by the NKVD in the 1940s, into the department of anti-Semitism, and he sold this, so to speak, work.

In addition, there was a critical attitude towards "pure mathematicians" from the outside, they said: what is Steklovka? There is some kind of vile anti-Semitism, what is there, one theory of numbers? But the Institute of Applied Mathematics (now named after Keldysh) - this is the prototype of the future mat. Institute, and Steklovka is not needed.

By the way, such conversations also had an effect on me, together with Yasha Sinai we began to study theoretical physics ... But physicists decided that "pure" mathematics is a very necessary and important thing. Calculators are something like assistant fitters, and "pure" mathematics is a high science, there is something divine there.

And then the following happened: various political events began. Now it is more or less clear to experienced people that the letter in defense of Alik Yesenin-Volpin, which we all signed, was a provocation. The purpose of arresting Alik and placing him in a mental hospital was for us to sign this letter. Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev was already a figure of a semi-democratic type; in order to start persecuting someone, he needed them to prove themselves that they were guilty. By the way, Sakharov also wrote about some of the participants, those who slipped us these letters, with great doubt, based on his own experience.

And after this provocation, the defeat of Mehmat begins, Novosibirsk University- centers of dissident activity. It seems that they were given to the relevant departments of the State Security Service, and their representatives are still sitting there. By the way, so that you understand: the essence of the falsification is that these people, the organizers of Yesenin's letter, were not satisfied with the letter that we signed. After all our signatures, they added the following: “Please send your answer to the name of any of the signatories or to the Mehmat of Moscow State University.”

Thinking about the fate of Mehmat, I believe that the task was such that it was necessary to put all the blame on Mehmat. In the decision of the Central Committee, which was adopted in 1969, Mehmat is mentioned. The defeat of Mehmat begins, the beginning of the work of anti-Semitic brigades in the entrance exams in mathematics at Mehmat dates back to the early 1970s. It was calculated what percentage of Jewish nationality among all signatories, etc. It was presented as a Jewish activity. I do not want to comment on this issue, but, one way or another, there has been a turn towards state anti-Semitism, towards the degeneration of education. That was the end of 1968.

In the 1970s, there was a very strong struggle to keep out unwanted applicants, primarily Jews. Mekhmat's “inside” was less affected, even Dean Ogibalov helped me conduct a ten-year experiment in education. The tasks that he solved then were not to let Jewish students into Mehmat.

And then there was a short period of revival of Mekhmat - when Rem Viktorovich Khokhlov became the rector of Moscow State University - unfortunately, he soon died. Brezhnev was going to move him further, and there was such a misfortune that he died due to the consequences of climbing the seven thousandth. They were going to make him the President of the Academy of Sciences… There was a brief period of revival, and the dean of Mekhmat left, and they all fell silent… But then Rem Viktorovich died. As they say, God was not with us.

They sent Logunov, and with his appointment, simply decomposition began. I'm not saying that Logunov is a bad leader of anything. As the director of a regime institute, maybe he was nothing. But he was characterized by such a deep lack of university intelligence and a misunderstanding of the tasks of education! We fought, protested - Gelfand, I, Ulyanov and Ilyushin, a mechanic. We tried to fight for Mehmat, together with Gonchar we went to Logunov, but he ignored our opinion, despite the fact that Bogolyubov supported us. It is impossible to appoint debunkers like Logunov for such work. He refutes Einstein, and promotes a debunker like Fomenko. They seem to have a spiritual unity.

What about the situation with the Academy of Sciences? How do you see the role of NA now and how do you predict what will happen to NA?

I can tell you the following. Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev was a kind man. Of all the leaders of Bolshevism, he was the kindest. Everyone else could shoot you right away, in one second. Well, of course, in last years life ... always, you know, the last years of a dictator's life are in a difficult state. But he was a kind man, he could forgive in his own way. But - decided, then - educational institutions should educate, put them under the control of the KGB. A young man will appear, talented, maybe even a Jew - well, let him go to the Academy, we will not allow him to education. And so, the Academy collected talents. Talents left universities, except for the Institute of Physicotechnical Engineering - Oleg Belotserkovsky managed to keep its former structure, where from the third year everyone goes to academic institutions.

In the Steklov Institute in the 1960s, the entire USSR came to graduate school, and Mekhmat took only his own. This was eliminated under Brezhnev, because they should educate there, but here they should work. Oddly enough, despite insanity, Steklovka still survived until Vinogradov's death, and in better condition than the Keldysh Institute. And then, when new directors came - Bogolyubov, Vladimirov, Osipov, Kozlov - Steklovka underwent a complete revival, starting with Bogolyubov, and the IPM turned into a third-rate institution. So, the Center for Applied and Pure Mathematics did not come out of IPM together. Steklovka survived, but IPM did not. Maybe the new director will be able to revive it.

Yes, under Bogolyubov the revival of Steklovka began, and Vladimirov took a big step forward, Margulis was even invited here. But Grisha accepted the “offer”, and then left, never coming to Steklovka.

Then Osipov came, became President of the Academy of Sciences, built a new building for Steklovka. I remember Osipov invited me, said: “Bring me six forty-year-old leaders to Steklovka. We will create a new Steklovka. No national restrictions, nothing." Well, I brought him a few people. Some, unfortunately, did not want to go to Steklovka. Like Borya Feigin, for example. It was his mistake, I guess. The Academy of Sciences, of course, gradually declined, because all science in our country was getting old. But all other institutions have degraded much more. Therefore, despite the decline of the Academy, it has degraded less than all other institutions.

Do you now follow what is being done in education, how is it being reformed?

The Soviet education system is rotten. This process began under Brezhnev, but by our time it has gone very far. Widespread incompetence, gigantic corruption, a fantastically high level of falsification of all grades, results of education - all this shows that it will take decades for there to be a real improvement in broad education. This is only on the condition that the fight really starts, it will be tough. I can't add any new ideas.

I think, however, that one can strong desire solve a narrower problem much faster: how to preserve the scientific and technical elite high level? Without it, Russia is sliding to the level of the third world. Of course, decisive measures are also needed here, the realization that the composition of the elite cadres is now riddled with falsification. How does America solve this issue, having a bad school education, poor level of lower courses of universities. Their solution: they accept from all over the world in a "graduated education" capable young people who have passed master level, finish their education among strong scientists and create an elite among them. The American example should be adopted by us as well. But the right to take hail. students should only have central universities and institutions of the Academy. Otherwise, everything will be faked.

As I have already said, in the 1960s the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, our Steklovka and other institutes were postgraduate training centers. The whole USSR went here. Mehmat took only his own. Then it was closed under Brezhnev for ideological reasons. Can it be revived? Is this the same as what America is doing now, or not quite? Often hail. students are called "graduate students". This is mistake. Grad. American students correspond to 2nd and 3rd year university students in the 1960s. These are the ones we need to take now. Unlike in the 1960s, provincial universities will not be able to pull them up to the level required for admission to graduate school. By this time they will be lost.

This American path is feasible, but we need determination: to take from all over Russia, the CIS and more, to keep it under control, to resist the attack of corrupt officials is possible only in the center, and at the same time with the help of younger scientists, in an atmosphere of publicity, so that exams are not forged.

This is my suggestion - the American way, and only in relation to hail. students.

The interview time is limited, let's talk about your scientific work. Some scientists dream of creating mathematical theories and others to solve specific problems. Where would you take yourself? To "Theory-builder" or "problem-solver"?

I don’t know, in general, such a division was invented by those who do neither one nor the other.

That is, you do not like this classification?

Not “dislike”… Of course, there are people who “punch through” the solution difficult task, Abel is the most famous. Then talented people look at what has been created here and further develop and create a lot of useful things for other people. By the way, in the part of the second kind, Izrail Moiseevich Gelfand, a remarkable mathematician, saw better than all of us which of your ideas would be in demand by the general public, although this does not exhaust his creative contribution.

If you go further according to your scientific creativity: in the classification invented by Freeman Dyson, there are "bird" mathematicians and "frog" mathematicians. "Birds" fly high and see large areas of mathematics, "frogs" sit in their pond and work at the micro level. Can you somehow classify yourself, are you a "bird" or a "frog"?

I can't. I would classify Freeman Dyson first because the central achievement of the theorem that made him famous has been wrongly proved. Dyson's theorem was first proved by Bogolyubov. This is the renormalizability theorem of quantum electrodynamics. First you had to learn yourself, then teach others. Dyson did a lot, but he blundered in the most central theorem. Therefore, I will not discuss his point of view.

But are you working at the macro level or at the micro level? Do you see science "from above" or do you prefer to delve into a specific problem?

The best thing is if you can do both.

That is, such an integration of perspectives ...

It's always hard to talk about yourself. Since I worked among physicists, I had many opportunities to look at mathematicians from the outside and from the outside. Your vision should be wider than yours individual work, Truth? But I saw mathematicians - wonderful - my friends, unusually sharp in a particular issue, but not possessing a vision of mathematics "from above". I won't name names...

When a young person embarks on a scientific path, he must be prepared not only for success, but also for failure. Have you experienced setbacks and how did you deal with them? How would you advise to deal with failure?

You see, my fate in this sense was more successful than that of some of my outstanding peers. I had more difficulties at the beginning of my scientific life. I was not raised in the nursery of an outstanding teacher, although there was an environment on Mehmat. The field in which I started - modern topology - was at the peak of its heyday, at the center of world mathematics. Society - both in our country and in the West - believed that for 10 years after Pontryagin left it, there were no major achievements in the USSR. I had to make my own from scratch. This means that I felt the difficulties from the very beginning, got used to them. It is difficult for a beginner to compete with celebrities. Society will be in their favour. For minimal mistakes will be severely beaten. You will learn everything if you don't drown.

But what if you started under the wing of a very prominent scientist, a genius, immediately from the famous works more or less joint with him, in his subject, supplementing his ideas? And did they do it well? And then, being still very young, after the departure of the teacher from this area, you are already famous and became its leader - he left you in this role. And now, you're doing an even more famous job. You are believed, but later - and sometimes much later, if the community in this field is so irresponsible that they do not check the "famous works" either - it turns out that these famous works did not contain a mathematical proof. Only a very courageous person will dare to admit this - and even then, if the errors are discovered not too late. I knew only two mathematicians with such courage - one in my generation and one in the older one (it was Petrovsky!).

And I, you know, climbed, and when I reached a high floor, I was already beaten. Thank God it happened quickly. And then I checked each work dozens of times, woke up, unlike people who finish the article and immediately forget this work. And I woke up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night - checked, re-read. You need to read your work, gentlemen, and re-read it! And then you can get on the head in many years!

I can tell you this: of the famous problems of mathematics that were solved in my memory by outstanding scientists - I'm not even talking about some insignificant ones - half failed. There are many cases where there is no complete failure, but the author could not bring it to the end. Sometimes the incompetent community awarded dissertations and awards for outstanding work. I saw the most exemplary attitude to failures in Ivan Georgievich Petrovsky. A person I deeply respect. Moreover, it is difficult to fall from such a position, if, in addition, there is a huge number of people who are eager to raise a howl about it. Petrovsky is the most outstanding person I have known in this regard. But the one who resisted will be respected even more by everyone, including “from above”.

Tell me, when you formulate, prove a new theorem, do you create or discover it?

This is a difficult question. It cannot be answered. Of course, many very good works arose in such a way that you actually already knew some topic, started to “dig” it and encountered something, knowing many analogies helped you a lot, others missed it. There are successful works of this kind - and very successful ones. That is why we teach other areas. It was in Gelfand's ideology, I partly took it from him, I saw such examples in my youth from Milnor, the famous topologist, who helped me a lot. And sometimes, some strange idea came to mind. As she came to mind - the answer to this question is not. The ancients said that this idea was "invested by God." Contemporaries say, "the mathematician came up with it." I cannot answer you the question of how a deep, absolutely original idea is born. This is a rare event in life. There is no answer to this question. Here it appears - and why - there is no answer. Undoubtedly, speaking of those who had it, these are the best of their work.

S.P. Novikov is a well-known mathematician and mathematical physicist. He was born in 1938 in the famous Novikov-Keldysh family of scientists, graduated from the Mekhmat of Moscow State University in 1960 and postgraduate studies at the Steklov Institute in 1963, defended his candidate (1964) and doctoral (1965) dissertations; was elected a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR at the age of 28 (1966), was awarded the Lenin Prize (1967) and the Fields Medal of the International Mathematical Union (1970). He became the first Soviet mathematician in history to be awarded the Fields Medal. The Steklov Institute and the Academy forbade Novikov to take part in the award ceremony at the International Mathematical Congress in Nice (1970) as a punishment for signing a letter in defense of the famous dissident Alexander Sergeevich Yesenin-Volpin, who was arrested and placed in a psychiatric hospital - "psychiatric hospital" (1968 ).

Novikov was elected a full member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in 1981 and was awarded a number of the highest awards of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and Russia. He was awarded the Wolf Prize in Mathematics (2005), becoming one of two laureates of this prize now living in Russia. S.P. Novikov was elected an honorary member of many foreign academies and societies, and is an honorary doctor of a number of world universities. In 2010 he was elected honorary president of the Moscow Mathematical Society, where he served as president from 1985 to 1996. Additional Information available on the personal page www.mi.ras.ru/~snovikov

1984 Conference Bogolyubov-75: S.P. Novikov made a report on Hamiltonian equations of hydrodynamic type

1977, June. Conference in Rome: S.P. Novikov with Martin Kruskal (standing at the door), Robin Woollow (standing from the right) and others

Academician Sergei Novikov. Photo: Evgeny Gurko / Kommersant

— Sergey Petrovich, your article that a serious crisis has affected both education and science itself made a lot of noise 16 years ago. What has changed during this time?

— Dynamics is, only it is, unfortunately, negative. In order to foresee what science will be like in 30 years, one must look at what is happening today at school. I can state: general level children's education is falling catastrophically. Previously, parents did not have to hire tutors en masse to stretch the usual school curriculum. I myself went to school in 1945, and to the university in 1955, and I remember how enthusiastic they were about studying then. To enter the mekhmat, I passed six exams: written and oral mathematics, chemistry, physics, composition and foreign language. And my brother took eight exams two years earlier. Today, young people do not have that thirst for independent comprehension of sciences. There are exceptions - there have always been talents - but they are extremely few. So in three decades we are waiting for a general decline in the intellectual level.

- In Russia, this is usually associated with the chaotic reform of education and science in recent years ...

And I'm not just talking about our country. The same is true in America and Europe. In the United States, they cannot learn enough people to fill a graduate - what we used to call graduate school in our country. There are not enough Americans with the right level of knowledge! So they just hire the best students from all over the world. But even among this - the highest! - layer level of knowledge is much lower than before.

- It turns out that the Americans are solving the problem by a method that is somewhat reminiscent of the Soviet scheme: the mechanics and mathematics department of Moscow State University also recruited people from all over the country for graduate school ...

- No, the university took only those who studied at Moscow State University to graduate school, but the Academy of Sciences (Steklov Mathematical Institute - "O") really recruited from all over the Union - they went from Tbilisi, Minsk, Yerevan ... But the process of degradation started at Soviet power. Already in the early 1980s, people from the Union republics went to study in Moscow with reluctance, which, on the one hand, was a manifestation of nationalism, and on the other, intellectual weakness. It was much easier to finish my studies in the field, because in order to get from the republics to the graduate school of Moscow State University, it was necessary to re-pass the fifth course of the Mekhmat. Officially, it was believed that this was due to the need to improve the Russian language, but in fact, it was necessary to learn mathematics itself, to improve its level. And if a current graduate of some university wanted to enter that former graduate school, he would have to return not to the fifth, but to the third or second year. In the USA where I taught long years, today the first year of the university is generally an installation one - people, in principle, decide whether they want to study mathematics. And the next three correspond to what we used to give for one and a half. So their graduate school corresponds to our third year. Then students choose a specialty, and only from that moment you can work with them.

What do you think is the reason for this decline?

- The approach has changed in general: they began to treat mathematics as a humanitarian science. You see, in mathematics you have to learn a certain set of disciplines, without which it is impossible to work in this area in principle. Nevertheless, in the West, at some point, they took the path of imitation of the humanities - they left students to choose their own courses. Paradox! Humanitarian sciences in general, it is, so to speak, a shallow sea: the main difficulty is in scale, this sea of ​​knowledge is huge, but you can comprehend it in parts. And in mathematics, you need to immediately go into depth, here is a different concept of complexity. Mathematics is built on the principle of a tower, where the previous floors are the basis for the next. Imagine that with such a free approach, you first build the 30th floor, then the 6th, and then the 1st. And what would that building be? So the decline of the current level of science is largely due to the fact that there was a collapse of compulsory knowledge.

- But there are students who are able to properly build training ...

— Of course, but in general, the essence of the problem lies in the spread of a humanitarian approach to physics and mathematics education. Another problem is related to psychology. You see, to become a mathematician, you need to seriously learn a lot of things, and the current generation does not like this: science should be fun, they say. It is, no doubt, so: it must. But pleasure does not cancel difficulties. Mathematics, like theoretical physics, is hard to learn. This is what modern scientists do not want to do.

- Nevertheless, today science continues to give quite serious results, including in mathematics. Everyone knows, for example, about the Poincare conjecture proved by Grigory Perelman.

- There are talents, but they are different today. For example, Grisha Perelman published a wonderful work. But this is just one job! Previously, this could not be, because for some Kolmogorov, 40 years was only the middle of life. The great mathematician David Hilbert said: if you work for 10-15 years in one field of science, then you need to change the field, because you will no longer be able to achieve anything significant. And what does this change mean for the scientist? This means that you have to come down from your pedestal to study again for another 5-7 years. It's always a risk, but without that risk you become mediocrity. But even today's scientists do not agree with this: they are sure that they have the right to be what they are.

- You explained the problems with education, but what about modern mathematical science? Has she also fallen victim to humanitarian approaches?

- No. The problem is that mathematics has become too distant from the natural sciences, that is, in fact, from reality.

- And when did the process begin?

- The gap between mathematics and natural science began to grow in the 1920s, largely due to the strong French mathematical school. The French advocated self-sufficient ultra-abstract mathematics. Later, the West was dominated by an ideology like "religious number theory" which, through the mathematician André Weyl, propagated the idea that great mathematicians should not stoop to applied things in the natural sciences. Therefore, the community of Western mathematicians is more out of touch with reality than ours.

— Is this problem still relevant for science?

- Unfortunately yes. Many cases are known when it was discovered: the proofs of the solution of a number of famous mathematical problems, due to their complexity, have not been verified by anyone for many years! And if known problems are not verified, then what can we say about proofs in more mediocre works. Most of the time no one reads them...

Why did our mathematicians keep in touch with other sciences?

- We had other accents: after the war, the situation itself demanded that we ask questions about the application of knowledge in specific areas. Mathematicians were under pressure from above, forcing them to seek the application of their science. Of course, first of all, it was about projects in the nuclear and rocket industries, but then an incredible number of discoveries of an applied nature appeared - radar, transistors. American John Bardeen in those years received two Nobel Prizes in physics: one for transistors, the other for the theory of superconductors. There was an explosion of revelations related to incarnation fundamental science into applied. The momentum operated somewhere until the 1960s. And then it dried up.

- Then in the USSR a dispute arose between calculators, adherents of the first computers, and pure mathematicians?

“It's just the 1960s. Calculators said that the true development of mathematics is computational mathematics. Even such an article was published in the Soviet spirit - they say, soon adherents of pure mathematics, who speak to each other in bird language, will be shown in menageries. True, over the next 10 years we realized an important thing: calculators cannot learn theoretical physics, but we can. With the help of mathematical methods, whole worlds of quarks, new hidden degrees of freedom in the microcosm, were discovered. As a result, physicists began to say that pure mathematics is a real science, and calculators are something like repair teams.

— As I understand it, you were personally influenced by such talk about the need for mathematics to become applied? It’s not for nothing that by the end of your postgraduate studies you went into topology (studies the phenomena of continuity), which is classified as pure mathematics, and then suddenly took up theoretical physics ...

— I quickly realized that pure mathematics was not enough for me. And in general, I always wanted to understand the nature of the areas where mathematics is really applicable. Since I come from a mathematical family (father Pyotr Novikov is a prominent specialist in mathematical logic, mother Lyudmila Keldysh is a specialist in geometric topology, sister of academician Mstislav Keldysh - "Oh"), I had the opportunity to communicate with the best scientists of my time. Later, of course, my circle of friends was added. So I asked the most famous scientists about this - Bogolyubov, Keldysh, Gelfand and many others. The smartest ones answered that they started with pure mathematics, but always thought about how to go beyond it. By the way, today's young people do not ask such a question, but in vain.

- It turned out that the most realistic way to embody mathematical knowledge in theoretical physics?

- Yes, the fact is that when I entered the university in 1955, there were a number of areas of mathematics that arose literally at the turn of the century and have not yet found wide application. For example, dynamical systems, quantum physics, algebraic geometry, topology. All this was new and interesting. I ended up spending several years studying theoretical physics, starting with quantum field theory. It was not so easy - within the framework of the education system that was established at that time in the USSR, neither the general theory of relativity, nor quantum theory were not known to the mathematical community. They tried to introduce them into the general course mathematics education only in the 1970s. And that was unsuccessful.

- Why?

- A specific feature of Russian science is a tendency to conservatism and separation from world science, which was superimposed on some personal stories. For example, in the 1920s, well-known mechanics like Sergei Chaplygin (the founder of modern aerodynamics. - "O") believed general theory relativity fashionable Western nonsense. Another thing is that in the history of science there are enough such paradoxes ... Here in France at one time the development quantum physics the Duke Louis de Broglie (a famous theoretical physicist, Nobel Prize winner in 1929), who, as the French told me, played the same role for his country as Lysenko did in the USSR, slowed down.

- Be that as it may, you guessed the direction of movement and in 1970 became the first Soviet mathematician to be awarded the Fields Medal (the most prestigious award in mathematics) ...

- Let's start with the fact that I was not let out in the most shameful way for her presentation in Nice. My own uncle Mstislav Keldysh (from 1965 to 1975 - President of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR) was pathologically selfish and at the same time timid in the sense of a career. The first time I was not allowed out was in 1962 at the International Congress of Mathematicians, then everywhere else. Maybe he was afraid that I would get drunk and defame him, I don’t know. But in general, I suffered a huge scientific loss due to the impossibility of communicating with leading mathematicians. And nothing could be done about it, although I was supported by Academician Lavrentiev (the founder of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Novosibirsk Akademgorodok). Keldysh was very influential, he was loved at the top and among the people - he and my mother, his sister, were very beautiful, they had such a gypsy appearance. At the same time, he was an extremely talented scientist and organizer, but after the death of Korolev, he changed a lot ...

- As far as the West knew what was happening in mathematics on our side iron curtain?

- Much was classified - no translations were made, no one cared about popularization. This played a cruel joke on Keldysh himself. My maternal brother Leonid Keldysh, who was able to go abroad before me, in 1961, told the following story: "American physicists called the State Department, in my presence, coordinating my trip somewhere in the USA, and there they were answered:" We thought that Keldysh was a woman"". Obviously, they meant our mother, L.V. Keldysh is a well-known specialist in set theory and geometric topology; she has already traveled abroad a couple of times. About the same Mstislav Keldysh, whose fame thundered in the USSR, whose name the whole institute was named, they did not know anything there. In general, he himself is largely to blame for this, because he classified himself, not signing, in particular, under the works. It later became a tragedy for him.

- One of the reasons that you were denied exit was a letter in defense of the mathematician Alexander Yesenin-Volpin, who in 1968 was forcibly placed in a psychiatric hospital. Did you sign it?

- Alik Yesenin-Volpin was my father's graduate student, and I knew him well. He was very handsome, strikingly similar to his father, Sergei Yesenin, and this surname, as he believed, gave him the right to be completely fearless. For example, in 1949, right in front of Beria's house, he could approach a foreign delegation and begin to say how bad everything is here ... After Alik was arrested, mathematicians began to collect signatures in his defense. Years later, we realized that it was pure provocation. Unlike Stalin, who possessed some kind of Asian cruelty, Brezhnev could not just start smashing the mekhmat, which was too independent, he needed a reason. This letter, which you mentioned, became it. Alik himself was soon released and sent to the USA, where he was offered to give lectures for a large salary. But he was more of a talker than a scientist, so no one came to his third lecture. So he lectured to an empty audience until he was made a librarian. He lived 90 years and died this year.

— You mentioned that the transformation of pure mathematics into applied mathematics was completed in the 1960s. And why then so many discoveries based on mathematical intuition?

- I'm talking more broadly: at the end of the twentieth century, we are witnessing a strange situation - pure science gives very few concrete applied incarnations. For example, for the last half century, physicists have won Nobel Prizes for particles. But in fact, none of them found practical application. The only exception is the positron - this particle, which does not exist in nature, was discovered in the 1930s and is actively used in medicine. There is no other breakthrough. See how much time the great Sakharov and Zeldovich spent participating in the development atomic bomb, to a much more useful tokamak project (an installation for controlled thermonuclear fusion). It seemed to be a reliable and quite feasible task for the production of energy for peaceful purposes. And now half a century has passed - and nothing: these installations still consume more energy than they give. It can be said that the Lord God denied us further progressive development, said: enough, stop!

Why is this happening, in your opinion?

- History buffs say that a similar situation was 2 thousand years ago. You know, I lectured on the history of science and told students about the exhibition in Baltimore, where the so-called Archimedean manuscripts were presented. These are manuscripts of the 10th century, in which the author, well understanding the difference between pure and applied mathematics, notes: all the ideas embodied in technology today were expressed before the 1st century AD. That is, at the time of Archimedes there was an explosive period in the development of scientific thought, which ended with a 1500-year (!) stagnation of the physical and mathematical sciences. This is not connected with the invasion of the barbarians, the beginning of the Christian, as well as the Muslim eras. The next explosion, apparently, should be attributed already to XVI century. Then they made many discoveries of a technical and theoretical nature. In mathematics, were discovered - in the same work of the great Cardano (this encyclopedist wrote the world's first work on probability theory) - negative and complex numbers. Before that they were not used. Then, in the 17th century, coordinates appeared that made it possible to translate geometry into the language of algebra and expand its subject matter, mathematical laws were formulated that underlie many natural phenomena: Fermat's variational principle for light rays, Galileo's principle, Hooke's law, the universal law of gravity, general laws Newton. And then silence again...

— Does the current crisis of translating fundamental discoveries into applied science relate only to mathematics, or does it concern other sciences as well?

Physicists are also in crisis. I'm talking about the theorists who got carried away high sciences and are engaged in theories that are not physically realized at all! For example, the famous string theory (a hypothesis suggesting that elementary particles and their interactions are the result of oscillations and interactions of some ultramicroscopic quantum strings). In the 1980s, I decided to study it, and together with Igor Krichever we wrote a series of papers on string theory. At the same time, I asked my friend, physicist Vladimir Gribov (known for his work on quantum field theory), what he thought about this. He said that all this is very fashionable, but physically it can only be realized on the Planck scale, that is, on a scale of 10 to the minus 33rd power of centimeters. While the smallest scale observed in the universe is 10 to the minus 17th power of centimeters. The string is forced to be part of, as physicists say, "quantum gravity". In general, this is beautiful mathematics, but it has nothing to do with the life that exists around us. And many young physicists do not know this and therefore take their word for it.

- But quantum gravity is just popular - most of the scientific news is connected precisely with the search for these microparticles.

— You know, about 40 years ago, Stephen Hawking actively called me to work in these areas, but even then I told him that I don’t believe in it. I don't want to do science fiction. Maybe this is not true, but I have no scientific intuition on this matter.

What about quantum computers? Are you waiting for them to show up?

— It is necessary to separate quantum informatics and quantum computers. Quantum informatics, quantum information theory is a good thing, there is nothing unnatural in it. As for the so-called quantum computer, this is still very abstract mathematics. I'm more interested in doing real physics that can be measured. In general, over time, I developed a penchant for everything connected with reality. For example, in reading I went through the period of Pushkin, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, and now I read only the originals.

- That is, Dostoevsky is not the original?

- Dostoevsky is a genius who predicted all the abomination of the 20th century, but he already shows his own version of the development of events. And I'm interested in the original texts - those that talk about events that really happened, so I read the Scandinavian sagas, Greek tragedies and the Hebrew Bible - I re-read it many times. I can call myself a believer, but I do not consider myself to any of the confessions. This is generally not accepted among major scientists.

— Your colleague, the famous theoretical physicist Academician Starobinsky, has been participating in seminars with Orthodox theologians from the St. Philaret Institute for many years.

- Wow?! My friend Lesha Starobinsky? He is very good specialist, but he believes in quantum gravity, so it's quite predictable. In both faith and string theory, bridges need to be built over the unknown.

Interviewed by Elena Kudryavtseva

Wikipedia has articles about other people with the same first and last name: Novikov, Sergey. Novikov, Sergei Petrovich (mathematician) (b. 1938) Soviet, Russian mathematician. Novikov, Sergei Petrovich (judoka) (b. 1949) Soviet judoka. Novikov, ... ... Wikipedia

Date of birth: March 20, 1938 (19380320) Place of birth: USSR Gorky Citizenship ... Wikipedia

- (b. 20.3. 1938, Gorky), Soviet mathematician, corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1966). Son of P. S. Novikov. Graduated from Moscow University (1960), professor there (since 1966), since 1963 he has been working in Mathematical Institute them. V. A. Steklov Academy of Sciences of the USSR. Main … Big soviet encyclopedia

- (born March 20, 1938) Soviet mathematician. Acad. Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1981; Corresponding Member 1966). Son of P. S. Novikov. Genus. in Gorky. Graduated from Moscow State University (1960). Dr. Physico-Math. sciences, prof. (1966). In 1963 75 he worked at Matem. Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, since 1975 has been working in the Institute of ... ... Big biographical encyclopedia

- (b. 1938), mathematician, academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences (1981). Son of P. S. Novikov. Works on geometry, topology, theory of relativity. Lenin Prize (1967) Golden medal and the J. Fields Prize (1970). * * * NOVIKOV Sergey Petrovich NOVIKOV Sergey Petrovich (b. ... ... encyclopedic Dictionary

Wikipedia has articles about other people with that surname, see Novikov. Novikov, Sergei Borisovich: Novikov, Sergei Borisovich (astronomer) (1944 2010) Soviet and Russian astronomer. Novikov, Sergei Borisovich (football player) (English; b. 1961) Soviet and ... ... Wikipedia

Novikov Sergey Petrovich Date of birth: March 20, 1938 (19380320) Place of birth: USSR Gorky Citizenship ... Wikipedia