Their names are in the history of science

To pass on the memory to new generations

On 10 April, a jubilee seminar dedicated to the 110th anniversary of the birth of one of the founders of the Laboratory, Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences F.L.Shapiro was held at FLNP.

"6 April marked the 110th anniversary of the birth of a man whose name, like that of Ilya Frank, is inextricably related to the history of the Laboratory and to the entire Institute," FLNP Director Egor Lychagin opened the seminar. "During the anniversary years, we have held memorial seminars and a conference on the research areas proposed by Fyodor Shapiro. Today, we decided to change the tradition and to unite the seminar with the presentation of awards to the winners of the competition for Scholarships named after F.L.Shapiro and the scholarship holders will present their papers. Today, there are many young people in the hall but fortunately, there are also employees that remember Fyodor L.Shapiro and worked together with him.

"I congratulate the Laboratory and the whole Institute on the birthday of Fyodor L.Shapiro, an outstanding scientist and one of the founders of FLNP," JINR Director Grigory Trubnikov addressed the participants. "This pleiad of scientists laid the development area of our Institute: several strong teams - Bogolyubov School, scientists from LPI, Institute of Atomic Energy met on this land. Fyodor Shapiro set a high bar for the scientific level and culture of communication in the Laboratory for many years to come. Thank you for keeping his memory alive and I take this opportunity to congratulate the Scholarship winners."

FLNP veterans: E.P.Shabalin, V.I.Furman and A.V.Strelkov

Certificates, Fyodor Shapiro's works and a book with reminiscences about him were presented to the winners of the competition by the Chairman of the Competition Committee Valter Furman. He stated that Fyodor Shapiro's works have not lost their relevance and young scientists should look into them more often to understand how to organize their experiments. He recalled the main milestones of Fyodor Shapiro's fate and his path in science. Walter Furman illustrated his story with photos and scans of historical documents - certificates, characteristics, protocols of STC meetings that captured the spirit of the time.

Pavel Prusachenko, Polina Filonchik (section "Neutron Spectroscopy"), Asif Asadov ("Condensed Matter Physics"), Maxim Podlesnyy ("Methodological support of neutron physics experiments") became Scholarship winners. Maxim showed not only current results, but also some perspective in his report: the new ASTRA-2M detector that is currently developed for the HRFD IBR 2 diffractometer and the results obtained in the Group of a New Neutron Source, recalling that it was Fyodor Shapiro that initiated development of a new, more powerful IBR 2 reactor.

At the end of the seminar, we watched a movie prepared by Dubna TV for the 90th anniversary of F.L.Shapiro's birth. It well conveys the warm feelings towards Fyodor Shapiro by his Laboratory colleagues and associates from other institutes. The seminar was over and the memories about Fyodor Shapiro and the young years of the laboratory life were still going on.

Olga TARANTINA,
photo by Elena PUZYNINA