Events

MLIT celebrated 115th anniversary of M.G. Meshcheryakov’s birth

On 17 September, the Laboratory of Information Technologies celebrated the 115th birthday of Mikhail Grigorievich Meshcheryakov, the founder and first director of LCTA – MLIT.

Opening the seminar, MLIT Director S.V. Shmatov said: “Today is a very important day for our Laboratory, the entire Institute, our town, and Russian science. We are celebrating the 115th anniversary of the birth of Mikhail Grigorievich Meshcheryakov, one of the founders of the town and JINR, the organizer of our Laboratory. I am grateful to Mikhail Grigorievich’s relatives who are attending our seminar, and to his colleagues who remember him and enhance his scientific legacy through their daily work.”

JINR Vice-Director V.D. Kekelidze remembered Mikhail Grigorievich that way: “He was a remarkable man, a legendary figure, a student of I.V. Kurchatov. The town started with that very same Hydrotechnical Laboratory, which Mikhail Grigorievich was appointed to head. He was one of the first enthusiasts of computing technology application. I want to congratulate you all and wish you success, since success is a fond memory of Mikhail Grigorievich.”

“When Mikhail Grigorievich came here to build a synchrocyclotron, the road only went as far as Dmitrov, and then it was a matter of using a tractor,” MLIT Scientific Leader V.V. Korenkov began his speech. “Today we have already recalled the lines from the Dubna Poem: “To these swamps, to these muds, citizen Meshcheryakov was sent by the appanage prince.” To draw an analogy, Peter the Great built a new capital on swamps, and Mikhail Grigorievich built a scientific capital on swamps. He was a strong man who endured numerous hardships and trials.

MLIT Deputy Scientific Leader T.A. Strizh based her talk entitled “M.G. Meshcheryakov. On the 115th Anniversary of his Birth” on a large selection of archival photos. “I was fortunate to attend his lectures, defend my final thesis in his department, and take my Ph.D. exam to him. Talking about Mikhail Grigorievich is a challenge,” she shared.

The first photo in the selection was taken in the late 1930s, when M.G. Meshcheryakov, a graduate student at the Radium Institute, was conducting his first research projects under the supervision of I.V. Kurchatov. He then participated in the launch of the Radium Institute’s one-meter cyclotron, where he studied the processes of radiative neutron capture by heavy nuclei. “This was his favorite, fascinating work, which he never abandoned. Only in 1940, he interrupted his investigations and volunteered for the front,” Tatiana Aleksandrovna pointed out. And then came remarkable milestones in the history of the country, Dubna, and science. Meshcheryakov’s participation in atomic tests in the United States, the government’s decision to build a six-meter synchrocyclotron near the village of Bolshaya Volga, and the establishment of an independent research center for high-energy particle physics, a new field of scientific studies, on its basis. The center was later transformed into the Institute for Nuclear Problems of the USSR Academy of Sciences, and Mikhail Grigorievich served as its director until 1956, when it was absorbed into JINR. D.I. Blokhintsev became JINR Director, and Mikhail Grigorievich returned to his beloved physics, heading the DLNPsector. In a 1958 photo, M.G. Meshcheryakov happily shows off his brainchild, the synchrocyclotron, and talks about it to JINR guests, P. Dirac, F. Joliot-Curie, and the UN Secretary-General. The sector’s laborious work under the leadership of M.G. Meshcheryakov was crowned with success, and the phenomenon of direct ejection of deuterons from atomic nuclei by high-energy nucleons was discovered. It was entered into the USSR State Register of Discoveries only in November 1979, but with a priority date of 1 July 1957.

On 12 April 1966, N.N. Bogolyubov proposed to M.G. Meshcheryakov to start organizing a special Laboratory of Computing Techniques and Automation (LCTA) at JINR. The first computers in the late 1950s were the Ural-1, followed by the Kiev. At the 20th session of the Scientific Council, JINR Vice-Director I. Ulegla proposed appointing M.G. Meshcheryakov as Director of the new Laboratory, since LCTA should not only change the situation with scientific information processing, but also “feel the breath” of experimental Laboratories, as stated in the order. Nikolay Nikolaevich Govorun became Meshcheryakov’s deputy, and they formed a remarkable partnership. They worked together for 22 years, and in 1988, M.G. Meshcheryakov handed over the reins of power to him. N.N. Govorun became LCTA Director, however, he passed away the following year.

At LCTA, M.G. Meshcheryakov continued his investigations on relativistic nuclear physics, and there began work on automating experiments, namely, on developing devices for processing bubble chamber photographs. BESM-6 appeared, and M.G. Meshcheryakov, with the same enthusiasm and inspiration with which he had spoken about the accelerator, introduced various delegations, both Soviet and foreign, to this machine.

The construction of a new LCTA building, to which, as E.P. Zhidkov wrote, M.G. Meshcheryakov dedicated part of his life, started in 1971, and the phased relocation of staff members and computers was completed in 1983. M.G. Meshcheryakov delivered talks at scientific conferences and sessions of Scientific Councils with the same enthusiasm as he spoke about the accelerator and LCTA’s work. He worked with students, supervised 10 doctors of science and a multitude of candidates of science. In 1977, he was awarded JINR’s Diploma for his extensive work with young scientists. Tatiana Aleksandrovna displayed the scans of three handwritten pages of congratulations to Mikhail Grigorievich on his 70th birthday from DLNP staff members. The photos capturing M.G. Meshcheryakov also reflected JINR’s history, namely, the launch of the U-400 accelerator, the introduction of ES series computers, sessions of Scientific Councils, thesis defenses, international conferences, and scientific seminars.

The sad day when the 76th session of the Scientific Council honored the memory of the outstanding scientist and scientific organizer with a minute of silence was also commemorated. The Laboratory celebrated the 90th birthday of M.G. Meshcheryakov with the opening of a permanent exhibition of photos by Yu.A. Tumanov. A book was then prepared, it went through two editions, and a memorial room was opened in the Laboratory. For the 100th anniversary, a monument was erected, an album was published, and on 25 March 2021, the Committee of Plenipotentiaries named the Laboratory of Information Technologies after M.G. Meshcheryakov. “We are proud and pleased that the Laboratory bears his name, and we must live up to it. After one of grid conferences, information about Mikhail Grigorievich, a native of the Taganrog district, appeared in a Taganrog newspaper. I am very grateful that three of Meshcheryakov’s letters from the war years were displayed at the exhibition at the Mir Cultural Center for the 80th anniversary of Victory,” Tatiana Aleksandrovna noted. She concluded her speech with a quote from M.G. Meshcheryakov: “A bright individuality, talent, the ability to quickly perceive new things, along with an open character, the capacity to work selflessly as part of a large team, such qualities are necessary for everyone…”

“115 years is a very long time, but with time the chaff falls away, and what matters remains," Mikhail Grigorievich’s niece, G.P. Meshcheryakova, said. “As V.V. Mayakovsky said, “locomotives, steamships, and other important and necessary things remain”. The town, the Institute, and the Laboratory remained. He understood that he had not fully realized his potential, but thanks to the nuclear shield, we survived as a country in the 1990s. Today, the Laboratory bears his name, it is a tribute to Mikhail Grigorievich; he has not faded into oblivion.”

Mikhail Grigorievich’s grandson, journalist I.V. Ivanov, presented his film about his grandfather from the Legends of Science series. He prepared this film based on his documentary “Grandfather. A Century of the Dubna Bison”, which was produced for the Russia – Culture channel to commemorate his 100th anniversary. “Before the seminar, I took a walk to my grandfather's monument and heard many kind words about him. They came from older people, but I want the younger generation to remember him too. I have two short video recordings of my grandfather’s stories, made during his visits to Leningrad – St. Petersburg. He refused to record a full interview. Mikhail Grigorievich, speaking, is a Renaissance man, a man of boundless energy and immense knowledge. His memory must certainly be preserved,” I.A. Ivanov said.

G.A. Ososkov was the first to share the memories of the Laboratory’s staff members: "When I arrived at JINR in 1961, Mikhail Grigorievich was 51 years old. He was young, active, physically strong, and deeply wounded by the story of his removal from power for refusing to comply with Khrushchev’s directive. He was not the Institute’s director, but only the head of a sector; nevertheless, together with his young colleagues, he made two scientific discoveries that left him remembered as a great scientist. I first saw M.G. Meshcheryakov at my friend Skif Sokolov’s Ph.D. thesis defense. Meshcheryakov was his opponent. He had a remarkable appearance and behaved unusually: he walked freely, did not read from a paper, and summarized the essence of the thesis in a few sentences. The experimental physicist grasped the work in computational mathematics.

He drastically changed my life several times, and this contributed to my continuous development. Ultimately, I learned to do what I have been doing my whole life, namely, physical experiment data processing. When I had accumulated a multitude of disparate papers, he said, “Is not it time to think about a doctoral thesis? We need to find a way to bring all this work together and produce a doctoral thesis.” He was a wonderful person, capable of understanding a big task, bringing everyone together to resolve it, engaging them, and completing it.”

A.A. Karlov, who had worked with M.G. Meshcheryakov for 10 years, joined the seminar via video link from Geneva. Once, as a young employee and member of the Impulse editorial board, he came to Meshcheryakov with a request to tell him about his visit to Bikini Atoll during American atomic bomb tests. He replied, “It is not time yet. Come back, young man, in about ten years.” Having eventually become Meshcheryakov’s deputy, A.A. Karlov learned the details during their joint trips to Moscow. Delegations from France, Great Britain, and China were officially invited to the tests. Meshcheryakov was on a scientific assignment in the United States. “The further this time goes, the more acutely I feel the good fortune that befell me, to work hand in hand with Mikhail Grigorievich and Nikolay Nikolaevich for 10 years,” A.A. Karlov concluded.

N.Yu. Shirikova, who taught programming in Dubna schools, recalled meeting M.G. Meshcheryakov as the parent of one of her pupils. “When he became our Laboratory’s director, I was delighted. He was very energetic and quickly resolved any issues that arose.”

V.I. Prikhodko (FLNP) spoke about Meshcheryakov's first anniversary, his 70th birthday. Young employees were trying to come up with an interesting and unusual way to congratulate him. On the street, V.I. Prikhodko spotted a manhole cover of a city pipeline with large letters “MG” on it. Removing it and dragging it to the Laboratory would not have been a problem for the young people, but how could they attach it to the door of Meshcheryakov’s office, as they had planned? They abandoned the idea, but when they later told Meshcheryakov about it, he appreciated it, “It is a good idea, I pity it was not implemented.” Perhaps we should implement it in the memorial room now?” Valentin Ivanovich wondered.

Concluding the seminar, V.V. Korenkov highlighted that the Laboratory had made considerable efforts to ensure that Mikhail Grigorievich’s memory would grow stronger over the years. For about 15 years, they had been working to have the Laboratory named after him. He shared his most vivid impression of his last meeting with M.G. Meshcheryakov, when the latter, no longer having enough strength, was slowly walking to the JINR International Conference Center because he could not help but participate in the Scientific Council: “I have been to 74 sessions, and I must be at the 75th...”

“This was his Institute, to which he dedicated his whole life,” Vladimir Vasilievich underlined. “Although most members of the current MLIT Directorate did not live to see M.G. Meshcheryakov, Tatiana Aleksandrovna and I hope that the traditions established by him and his associates will be preserved and passed on to future generations. We are proud that nothing has changed in Meshcheryakov’s office (not the memorial one, but the director’s), and that the entire furnishings have been preserved. I also occupied it for 10 years, and every morning I felt Meshcheryakov’s energy lingering there.”

We want to believe that the warmth of memory, preserved in the hearts of the older generation of Laboratory’s employees for many years, will be carried on by their younger colleagues, and the light of Mikhail Grigorievich’s personality will long illuminate the Laboratory.

Olga Tarantina