Events

MLIT celebrated the 95th anniversary of the birth of Nikolai Nikolaevich Govorun

On 18 March, on the birthday of Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences N.N. Govorun, a memorial seminar dedicated to the 95th anniversary of the birth of the outstanding scientist was held at the Meshcheryakov Laboratory of Information Technologies. JINR Vice-Directors, the Laboratories’ Directors, MLIT staff members, N.N. Govorun’s colleagues from other scientific centers, and relatives gathered in the MLIT Conference Hall.

“Today is a truly remarkable day. We have gathered in this hall to celebrate a significant date in the life of our Laboratory, the Institute, and all of Russian and Soviet science, the 95th anniversary of the birth of Nikolay Nikolaevich Govorun,” MLIT Director S.V. Shmatov opened the seminar.

“He was a great scientist and a remarkable person who lived a short but bright life,” JINR Vice-Director V.D. Kekelidze began his opening speech. “At LCTA, established by Order No. 149 of JINR Director N.N. Bogolyubov, Nikolay Nikolaevich occupied the leading role of Deputy Director for Science together with the Laboratory’s Director M.G. Meshcheryakov. BESM-6, which received a Fortran translator under his guidance in 1969, became the basic facility of the entire Soviet space. Then interaction with CERN started, work at the Serpukhov accelerator, the era of electronic experiments began, and the role of Nikolay Nikolaevich in this process is difficult to overestimate. Fortran and BESM-6 opened up enormous opportunities. N.N. Govorun could have done much more, but the mark he left is significant. Today, the “Govorun” supercomputer operates at JINR, and the data center of the Federal Tax Service of the Russian Federation is located on Govorun Street in Dubna, i.e., the memory of him lives on in great deeds. I wish the Laboratory prosperity and success in developing the impulse that Nikolay Nikolaevich laid in its foundation.”

“MLIT’s entire scientific program is imbued with the spirit and is based on the brilliant ideas of Nikolay Nikolaevich. He was a man who was ahead of his time. The vector set by N.N. Govorun defined the direction of implementation of scientific experiments at large-scale physical facilities for many years. I am confident that we will all make every effort to develop and multiply the scientific heritage that he left us,” S.V. Shmatov underlined.

The role of N.N. Govorun in the development of LCTA-MLIT was the subject of a talk by the Laboratory’s Scientific Leader V.V. Korenkov. “It is both easy and difficult to talk about him. He was an outstanding specialist, an organizer focused on results, a sociable, friendly person. Nikolay Nikolaevich stood at the origins of the application of computers in experimental data processing and scientific research automation,” Vladimir Vasilievich began his speech. V.V. Korenkov said that even before the formation of LCTA, N.N. Govorun, together with his fellow mathematicians, carried out pioneering work at the JINR Computing Center. In 1962, there was taken the first real step towards building a multi-machine complex, including a level of computers for the accumulation and preliminary processing of data from the equipment of a physics experiment at FLNP, as well as a communication channel with the Minsk-2 and M-20 computers of the JINR Computing Center. Another pioneering work was the setup of filmless spark chambers at the JINR synchrophasotron to conduct the first in the USSR and one of the first in the world experiments on a line with a computer under the leadership of I.A. Golutvin and N.N. Govorun. In 1965, during a business trip to CERN, Govorun became acquainted with the computer center, as well as with libraries and packages of application programs in the Fortran language, which were actively used to process experimental data. In the USSR at that time, the ALGOL programming language was actively developed, therefore, N.N. Govorun’s proposal to develop software in the Fortran language was not supported.

In 1966, the Laboratory of Computing Techniques and Automation (LCTA) was established at JINR, with M.G. Meshcheryakov appointed as Director and N.N. Govorun as his Deputy. The most high-performance computer in Europe, BESM-6, was installed, but it was not equipped with modern programming systems. Then N.N. Govorun assembled a team of specialists from various institutes to develop the first translator in the USSR from the Fortran language for the BESM-6 computer, and to adapt libraries and application software packages for experimental data processing. The result of this work was the popular and widely used Dubna monitoring system. The next step was the creation of the Dubna operating system for BESM-6, which made JINR famous.

In 1968–1972, the Central Computing Complex (CCC JINR) was created at LCTA. In addition to BESM-6, the American CDC-6500 computer was purchased, it was popular at CERN, and with its capabilities N.N. Govorun became acquainted during his business trip to Geneva. A three-level computer environment with the CCC at LCTA, measuring and computing complexes at the JINR Laboratories, and small computers operating on a line with physical facilities was created. This step brought physicists’ research to a qualitatively new level.

Nikolay Nikolaevich paid great attention to the development of software for processing experimental data, creating software packages, and laid the foundations for cooperation with CERN in this area. He is the organizer of scientific research automation and headed a section on the automation of scientific investigations of the USSR Academy of Sciences in the Council. “On his initiative, the creation of the JINR terminal local area network, which was called JINET, started. The software for this network was completely developed at JINR. The problem of user access from the terminal to various CCC machines was solved. For this purpose, the network architecture was developed, the connection of network equipment and multiplexers to terminals and basic computers was performed, and most importantly, software that resolved these challenges was elaborated,” V.V. Korenkov recalled.

N.N. Govorun became a laureate of the USSR Council of Ministers Prize and was awarded by the JINR Member States. The number of his students is enormous, since in addition to the formal scientific supervision of candidate and doctoral theses, he actually consulted on other works headed by other leaders. Among his famous students are V.P. Shirikov, I.N. Silin, I.M. Ivanchenko, employees from the Armenian and Lithuanian SSRs, Czechoslovakia, and Vietnam.

“Nikolay Nikolaevich passed away very early in the prime of his creative energy, interesting ideas and ambitious plans that he was unable to implement, and the implementation of these precepts became our objective.

We are trying to implement everything that was laid down by Nikolay Nikolaevich. At present, our Laboratory develops a scientific IT ecosystem that combines a multitude of components, including networks and information security, distributed and parallel computing, data storages, advanced methods of data processing and analysis, etc. The core of this scientific IT ecosystem is the Multifunctional Information and Computing Complex (MICC). And the “Govorun” supercomputer launched in 2018 has become the MICC heart. Now this supercomputer is in demand in all Laboratories of the Institute and its Member States, the number of its users is constantly growing,” the speaker continued, talking about the Laboratory’s unique scientific and technical capabilities provided to users around the world.

The memory of Nikolay Nikolaevich is preserved in the Institute and the town: a memorial plaque is placed on the Laboratory’s building, and the alley nearby bears his name, there is an auditorium named after N.N. Govorun at MLIT, and there is a street bearing his name in the right-bank part of the Special Economic Zone, the “Govorun” supercomputer operates, and a prize named after him is awarded annually to the Laboratory’s best young specialists.

“Nikolay Nikolaevich was the initiator and major driving force behind many projects. He made decisions quickly, charged everyone around him with his energy and optimism. He had his own supercomputer in his head,” Vladimir Korenkov summed up.

“Nikolay Nikolaevich is a phenomenon in our science. I communicated with him since the 1970s, he often came to our Institute. Listening to his speeches, I was amazed not by his knowledge in specific areas, but by how widely educated he was, his understanding of physical problems. This greatly distinguished him from other programmers. Everyone always listened to him with great interest, and academicians A.N. Tikhonov and A.A. Samarskii treated him with great sympathy. The more time passes, the clearer his role in science becomes. As early as the 1960s, data processing from bubble chambers started. In essence, this was work with Big Data and the beginnings of artificial intelligence. I often come to Dubna and see how his former employees treat him thanks to his human qualities. I was struck by how deeply people mourned at his funeral, as if he were a family member,” Scientific Director of the Keldysh Institute of Applied Mathematics B.N. Chetverushkin, a friend and comrade of N.N. Govorun, noted.

“His life was very short, he could have accomplished a lot more, but the main thing is that he laid the impetus for development in the Laboratory and the country, and we will continue to develop what he started 50 years ago.”

Each speaker, talking about their acquaintance with N.N. Govorun or his role in their lives, recalled his character traits.

“I met him in 1948," MLIT chief researcher G.V. Ososkov began his story. "We both entered the University without the right to a dormitory, and after the reading room closed, we wandered around Moscow, telling each other about the war years, the evacuation. I studied at the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics, he was at the Faculty of Physics. My interest in science appeared only in graduate school, after which I was assigned to a military unit for five years. It turned out that Nikolay Nikolaevich remembered me, told E.P. Zhidkov, who pulled me out to Dubna. He was a fantastic person. Before my eyes, in one day he wrote a program in machine codes that reconstructed particle trajectories. This amazed me so much that I have been doing this for 63 years. He had an extraordinary gift for attracting people to himself, easily and simply explaining to them what needed to be done. During his life, he was able to sow so many scientific seeds that the Laboratory has been living and developing for so many years”.

“He was a kind, bright, sympathetic person. There was some kind of magnet in him that attracted talented people. Nikolay Nikolaevich was a statesman, all the issues he resolved for the Institute were important on a national scale. He played a huge role in the fates of the people he worked with. I always remember him with great warmth,” A.A. Karlov (Geneva) recalled; like Nikolay Nikolaevich, he worked as Meshcheryakov’s LCTA Deputy Director.

“He convinced me to start teaching programming to children, he said: let’s start an experiment. He had a motto: everything is simple! Anyone can do it! I had six students, then colleagues joined in to help me, wonderful teachers grew up. And Nikolay Nikolaevich's idea that every child in Dubna should be able to program began to come true,” N.Yu. Shirikova shared her memories.

“I did not meet Nikolay Nikolaevich, but the entire LRB was involved in the Govoruns’ circle. The love of his wife Raisa Dmitrievna for Nikolay Nikolaevich was always felt, his name was constantly heard. We adopted their attitude to family as a great value,” R.D. Govorun’s student I.V. Koshlan (LRB) said.

R.L. Smelyansky (Head of the Department of Automated Systems for Computing Complexes of the Faculty of Computational Mathematics and Cybernetics of Moscow State University) recalled L.N. Korolev, the patriarch of Soviet programming, who headed the Department for many years, and his deep impressions of Korolev’s visits to LCTA to V.P. Shirikov, a colleague of N.N. Govorun. It was N.N. Govorun and L.N. Korolev who devoted much effort to the development of programming as a science.

N.N. Govorun Jr. spoke about the interesting fate of his grandfather Nikolay Vasilievich and about memorable moments of communication with his father. Nikolay Nikolaevich, no matter what he took on, was easily carried away, especially by what he did not know, he strove to understand thoroughly. “Rubik’s cube was brought to him from Hungary, when they had not yet appeared in the USSR. He quickly wrote out the theory of its assembly. He almost always achieved a positive result,” Nikolay Govorun said.

Daughter Tatyana Nikolaevna and her husband Pavel Vabishchevich, cousin Olga (Alchevsk, LPR) warmly remembered Nikolay Nikolaevich, bright episodes of family life, and thanked those gathered for their memories.

An album book entitled “Nikolay Nikolaevich Govorun. Portrait in the background of an epoch”, published for the anniversary, was presented by Project Manager M.A. Lukichev. He emphasized that the book was created thanks to the initiative and enormous assistance from the Laboratory and especially T.A. Strizh and V.V. Korenkov. “I have made a dozen and a half books about JINR physicists, but Nikolay Nikolaevich is a person of a different kind. I was interested in getting to know his fate. My main feeling is that N.N. Govorun laid the foundation for all future achievements of the USSR and the world in the field of scientific research automation,” M.A. Lukichev pointed out.

Olga Tarantina