Horizons of scientific research

Great scientific forum in Dubna

As already reported in our newspaper, on 1 - 5 April, a scientific session of the Nuclear Physics Section of the Department of Physical Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences "Physics of fundamental interactions" was held in Dubna, at which a wide programme of physical research was presented. Today, the participants of the meeting share their impressions of the great scientific forum held at JINR.

Dmitry KAZAKOV, Corresponding Member of the RAS, Director of the Laboratory of Theoretical Physics of JINR:

This year is special for us, since we celebrate the 300th anniversary of the Russian Academy of Sciences and a session of the Nuclear Physics Section of the Division of Nuclear Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences that is held at our Institute is dedicated to this anniversary. This traditional conference has existed for about 50 years. I participated in it for the first time in 1973. And it has always been distinguished by its democracy. That is, when the author proposes his report, as a rule, it is accepted. And I should say that this year, we have presented more than 250 reports. When the organizing committee reviewed the submitted reports, all of them were highly appreciated and not a single one was rejected. And this is the peculiarity of this conference. But we have to limit speakers in time. Five working days, four parallel sections... 10-15 minutes for the shortest reports. But the plenary reports followed the full programme.

That is, such a democratic conference is different from many others and it is important not only for the organizers, but above all, for the Russian scientific community. It has always been predominantly Russian. In previous years, it was held with foreign participation, but today, the situation has changed. And scientists not only from leading Russian institutes, but also from any universities and research centres always feel at home here. This is its peculiarity and it seems to me that it is important for scientists throughout Russia.

Of course, today, we have all the leading scientific organizations: the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, the Institute for Nuclear Research in Moscow, the Institute of Physics, the Mathematical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Kurchatov Institute, the St. Petersburg Institute of Nuclear Physics, the Institute of Nuclear Physics of Novosibirsk University, Moscow and St. Petersburg Universities, SINP MSU, Samara, Dubna University, Phystech, MEPhI - in general, a huge number of participants from almost everywhere where nuclear and particle physics is studied. And a lot of young people. This is also a characteristic feature of the conference. We provided students with the opportunity to make poster reports. About forty messages were presented at the poster session. The students were supported and accommodated in JINR dormitories.

370 people signed up for the conference. There are 110 of them from JINR. We were even afraid that everyone would not fit into our conference room that is designed for 300 people. On the first day, some participants sat on the steps. This is an indicator of the enormous interest that the event aroused throughout Russia. Many thanks to everyone who helped to organize this conference, both members of the organizing committee and the JINR services, who did an excellent job in organizing and holding such a large and complex event.

Dmitry GORBUNOV, corresponding member of the RAS, professor of the RAS, INR RAS:

This session aroused great interest among the specialists gathered in Dubna. Theoretical reports, the most significant experimental achievements, the development of physics and technology of accelerators, detectors and techniques for analyzing experimental data were simultaneously presented here, that is, it has been, from my point of view, a very significant event in the life of the physics community in recent years.

And the main thing is that the speakers were leading experts that are directly involved in research in these areas. Not all of this is reflected in the texts of the articles and we got the opportunity to learn about the latest events in scientific life first-hand and directly discuss with the authors of the reports details that are not always available.

Alexander BONDAR, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, BINP SB RAS:

I have very good impressions of these five days spent in Dubna. Firstly, a large number of young participants. I think this is very important. It means that our field of science develops, new people come, new ideas emerge and the activity at the conference, including among young people, shows that our research is still in demand for the new generation.

It seems to me that Russian fundamental science currently goes through difficult times, for reasons known to all. And there is a great demand that we, through joint efforts, still support the development of fundamental science, including particle physics, cosmology, science of the Universe. These are all very important sections of our understanding of the world that do not provide direct access to the national economy... Especially in a difficult political and economic situation. We need to make every effort to ensure that this science is preserved, developed, attracts young people and thus survives these difficult times. And in this sense, it seems to me that our conference played an important role, uniting physicists working in related areas of this fundamental science and giving them the opportunity to freely communicate to exchange ideas, knowledge and experience. It is wonderful that JINR organized such a conference, it went very well, at a decent international level and I am grateful to the organizers, colleagues at JINR for doing it all wonderfully.

We thank JINR UC video editing specialist Gleb Sobolev for his help in preparing the article.

Article prepared by Evgeny MOLCHANOV,
photo by Elena PUZYNINA