Interview with the popularizer of science, the head of the only private school of astronomy in Russia, Pavel Skripnichenko
Science popularizer, teacher of the department of astronomy and geodesy at IENiM UrFU, head of the kantrSkrip school of astronomy Pavel Skripnichenko was one of the first to be called by the military after the fall of the Chelyabinsk meteorite with the question: “Are we 50 kilometers long cordoned off, is this enough or necessary more?” Paul told the interview what modern astronomers do, why he created his own school of astronomy, and whether the end of the world is real from the fall of a meteorite.
- Pavel, you are the founder and scientific director of the only private school of astronomy in Russia. Please tell us in more detail how your school is organized? What are you learning? Why did you decide to create it?
I have two options for how to answer this question. The official, correct option is an option about the need for astronomy to return to school (when we started, no one in the masses thought about it), talking about the need to first teach teachers how to teach this very hour in a week, that in the departments of astronomy in universities, and in Russia they can be counted on the fingers, crowds of applicants are not in queues. And unofficial, the wrong option, which is closer to me, and about which I will tell in detail.
')
By education I am a celestial mechanic, and the vast majority of my acquaintances, relatives, friends, colleagues in the university have no idea what I do and what my responsibilities are.
A person who has an astronomer specialty is for 80% of our country's population:
And to be honest, I began to popularize in order to dispel and break such myths, and all other reasons joined later.
And they turned out to be mass. Fighting native mythologization, for example: “A comet in the sky - we will all die!”, “Tomorrow is the end of the world from the fall of a 20-meter asteroid, they said so on REN-TV!”, “I saw a UFO, and it stole my cat, wife and retirement! ”,“ By horoscope I’m cancer and I’m playing MMO! ”
Formation of a scientific worldview: why teach physics, chemistry, and biology at school, if there is no astronomy that unites them together and answers fundamental, almost religious, questions?
And as a result - an increase in the technological level in the country. The quality of the nail, brick, pavement - and how did you think? Without mass education this will not happen.
There are less than ten thousand professional astronomers in the world, and the amount of information is constantly growing. We need mathematicians, IT specialists, big data specialists - and they should all be at least familiar with astronomy.
When I realized this, I decided to put my bones on the altar of education and popularization. Initially, I honestly tried to do this through the existing huge, funded budget organizations. But: “You cannot take out the equipment, the memo has not yet arrived on you. Yes, two weeks can go. Or like this: “Yes, we only pay for the train. And to Vladivostok, too, only the train. ” And so: “Could you take with you 20 kg of leaflets about our organization, they have remained since 2001?” And finally: “No, we have no money for wages to popularizers. Yes, we (100,500 people on salaries) will report on your activities, thank you. ”
And since it is a little less realistic than it is to act adequately in such conditions, we, a group of enterprising citizens, created our own structure with our educational programs: astrophysics, astrochemistry, planetology, cosmology, general astronomy; with its content - films (yes, we ourselves saw films for domes-planetariums and not only), presentations, video tutorials, popular science lectures, scripts of scientific shows and events, and all in the same vein. In a separate independent organization, there are much more freedoms, but this is more than compensated by all the shortcomings of running a social business in our country.
And, what is most annoying, there is such a class of organizations that we call "blowers." Small commercial, large NGOs, it does not matter, they hold events, win grants, cut the budget and from time to time call it “popularization of astronomy”. Most often show cartoons from the network and thereby discredit both the industry and science. Here we are also fighting with price-givers as far as possible. Of course, not all of them are - there are powerful and cool structures with which it is very pleasant to cooperate, but such ones can be counted on the fingers, for example, ITSAO from RosAtom.
In 2017, Pavel won Science Slam in Yekaterinburg. On the video - the winning performance
- From the outside, it seems that astronomy is not very popular in Russia, and it is difficult for a private school of astronomy to develop. This is true? In your opinion, what hinders the development? Is there any support from the state?
When a new organization is created, its main task is to enter the market. We did not have such a task, as there was no market. As it turned out, the number of people searching in the Astronomy School search engines is extremely small. But in order to survive: pay salaries to employees, pay for the office, create content, invent equipment, it was necessary to create a sustainable business model, if possible, with minimization of seasonality. And since we were initially positioned as a social business, we did not maximize the profit, but the social effect. Thus, several projects were born that are now active.
Project 1. We come to school, gymnasium, lyceum, to the office and spend the Day of Science. With lectures, laboratory work (mainly in chemistry and physics), with a planetarium dome, with interactive games, with "round tables", etc. 200-400 children easily pass during the day, and during several lessons they receive a powerful dose of relevant, useful and interesting knowledge.
What were our problems? Find money for equipment, truck, content, make branding, register an organization - it’s not scary, you take out a loan and pay your whole life.
And it’s scary to hear back when you call the school: “Astronomy? We are not interested in astronomy ”or“ We do not provide paid services on the school’s territory, we have been banned. Who! Do not say. “Federal law on education - no, they did not read” or “We are not interested in astronomy. Yes, I'm sure all of our children are not interested in astronomy. I am not interested, it means children too. ” Again, not in all organizations, but regularly you have to hear that. And what is most curious, most of the budget organizations are piously convinced that we should do everything at our own expense, since we ourselves have called.
Project 2 - educational courses. Initially for children to prepare and motivate to enter the university for the relevant specialty. Everything is clear here, there are simpler courses - General Astronomy, for example. There are special courses - Astrophysics, Planetology, etc., there is Olympiad astronomy as a method of immersion in basic science.
There was no limit to our surprise when it turned out that there were as many adults who would like to study as children. Someone works as a journalist and wants to write articles competently, someone is engaged in amateur astronomy and is eager to understand what he is watching, and someone even needs quality knowledge to answer the child’s questions. Motivation can be any.
Getting back to the topic of the question, is it difficult? Yes, difficult. Popular astronomy is very. Unfortunately, 90% of Russian-language content on the network is profanation and hype, and what is translated from English is not so terrible as its localization. Therefore, it is difficult for even an interested person to find an adequate source of information.
Is the level of knowledge high? Unfortunately not. There is a narrow class of young technical specialists and people with fundamental education from the Union who have a level of knowledge. However, the overwhelming majority of the population does not realize why seasons change on Earth, what polar days and polar nights are, why every day is almost equal at the equator, why a leap year is needed, why October is the tenth month, and in theory “octa” - eight, where did the elements from the periodic table come from, and what is the redshift.
What hinders the development? The low level of legal literacy of managers in educational institutions and lower-level officials. Profanation from the side of the blowers. Mythology in the minds of people, especially the older generation. We had a child whom grandmother forbade to attend courses. And why? Because he could not answer the question "on which lunar day pickle cucumbers." Closeness of middle-level officials. By the way, to the highest level - the minister, for example, is much easier to get into. And the higher the official, the more adequate and friendlier he is. The difficulty in the affiliate program with large structures. Initially, no one wanted to talk to us at all, even his own alma mater. And when we traveled around 35,000 children with lectures for the year, it became more interesting.
Is there any support from the state? Special - no, or we do not know how all this. One time we received support as a small business from a local entrepreneurship support fund. The social business support funds “Our Future”, “Towards Change” helped us a lot. Thanks to them, they are great.
However, money has to be earned by oneself - and this is more difficult psychologically. You could also choose another way of life, without getting up at 4 am to go to a lecture to the other end of the region, but we hold. That is our way.
- Is there any recipe for capturing a child with astronomy? How do you find a balance between exciting activities and a bunch of formulas that scare many away?
The balance is by itself, it is in science itself. If someone comes for a worldview, for an awareness of his place in the Universe, he finds it. The guys who come to become astrophysicists and work in Europe are more pragmatic. There are those who are looking for related specialties - space medicine, for example, i.e. I want to be a doctor, but not ordinary, so they teach astronomy.
How to interest? The topic is fertile, according to our research, 90% of those who attended events and lectures in questionnaires write that they are interested in making astronomy and astronautics a part of their life. About 15% - to find a profession in this industry. This is a good starting alignment.
And if you answer the question specifically - to interest, you need to be interested in yourself and be able to feel the audience.
- A couple of years ago, astronomy was returned to the school curriculum. Can you explain why it was removed and returned again?
The history of experiments with education in our country is not an area of ​​my scientific interests, at least due to the disruption of the activity of the gastrointestinal tract when receiving relevant information.
The fact is that, as such, they are, perhaps, quite good as ideas. Limping implementation. Here, in real schools, with real children, the situation does not look like it is on paper, but they report upstairs - yes, everything is round. Although all square. And nothing can be done about it.
Astronomy was removed from the school course, probably because there is no one to teach, this is my guess. My activity as an astronomer began in an era when the scientific community struggled to return astronomy to school. And I struggled because of the possibilities. Astronomy returned, but as usual, not without problems.
Available textbooks are outdated hopelessly. Most of the teachers of physics (and in fact they teach) were in an awkward position - and what to read? But as? About a third of the teachers that went through our refresher courses openly reported that it would be better to spend an extra hour on physics.
We retrained more than 150 school teachers with our partners. Unfortunately, the level of training is not always high. We are waiting for a lot of interesting things in the future if the country does not have conditions for the professional growth of teachers. While they are forced to deal with papers and take 1.5 or 2 bets to feed themselves. Of course, this is to the detriment of the quality of education as such.
- How and why did you start promoting science?
I have already partially spoken about popularization, but I would like to reinforce this thought with my own, absolutely self-serving and vile need - for security. The thing is that the system of my beliefs, based on materialism, secular humanism and other isms, as I feel, is rapidly losing popularity in our society. I will not philosophize whether it is good or bad, but everyone must defend his convictions. As a representative of science, as a person who believes in scientific and technological progress, and who believes that without a quality education, we will return to the darkness of the Middle Ages, I am engaged in popularization. This is not only from the desire to make the world better, it is also from the desire that there is a place left for me and those like me.
- Is it difficult to be a popularizer of science in Russia? What problems do you face?
Popularizer in Russia is a wonder. There is no such profession. It is not there, scientific centers and universities do not pay for it, because they do not even recognize its existence. Even many fellow scientists do not consider the promotion of a separate activity. And this is a separate activity.
“Today you have 6 lectures and 2 master classes,” the director of the school of astronomy tells me. At the first - elementary school, at the second - the average, at the third - the oldest, at the fourth - mixed up all those who did not get to the first or third, at the fifth you act as part of our concept of charity to blind children, at the sixth - before the meeting of veterans labor in the local library. Themes are different everywhere - from the construction of Stonehenge to methods for detecting gravitational waves. Everyone should be clear. Everyone should be interested.
It is not enough to be able to speak in public and to brilliantly know your material. It is necessary to improvise, feel the audience, formulate short answers to questions (and the question can be for a whole lecture), make jokes in time, look pretentious in time, catch up in time ... Normal work, in fact, a translator from the language of basic science to the philistine.
Problems of a purely psychological nature - you do not sleep, speak, work on the material, translate the newly published articles. This is all so that more intelligent applicants come to the university, school performance grows, and people more often raise their heads to look at the stars. What do you want from this? If the answer to this question is, you can engage in popularization.
To go once or twice a year to speak to an initially interested audience somewhere in the capital at an event that was organized by someone else — that, excuse me, is a drop in the ocean. And the children in the villages? And in orphanages? Are there no future astrophysicists there?
- How much time do you spend on the popularization of science, and how much - on the lessons of science?
Popularization and teaching takes almost all the time. It got to the point that I am specifically engaged in science in the intervals between lectures and couples. Of course, this is no good, but while the pool of future popularizers and teachers is growing, and we are developing a school of popularization too, there is no other way.
- What are astronomers all over the world doing today? What is the most urgent task?
Probably a representative of each branch of astronomy will highlight the most pressing issues in their specifics. Therefore, without pretending to objectivity, I would choose what is most interesting to me.
Theory of everything . A concept that allows all kinds of fundamental interactions to be described in a single way. We have found gravitational waves, but the particle responsible for the gravitational interaction is not yet available. I would like to know if the standard model is correct and to be in the era of gravitonics.
Dark energy . It appeared to explain the discrepancy between the theoretically calculated and actually observed velocities of the motion of astronomical objects in the galaxy. What is it like? There is no intelligible explanation. So much so that even there are very controversial articles stating that there is no dark energy, but the law of conservation of momentum does not work.
Life not related to earthly origin . Extremely important thought for the destruction of their own identity. We discovered other solar systems, including exoplanets similar to Earth, found water almost everywhere (on Mars, in the asteroid ground, on the Moon), found organic matter near hot stars. It remains only to discover life. If we find, we will cease to be elected, and become one of the many. It seems to me that it is necessary for the majority to realize this - we are not the pinnacle of biological evolution and everything is possible for us, but only one of the options. Be modest. Be proud of achievements, but not an origin.
Refinement of the parameters of the quasi-inertial coordinate system - let's call it that. The point is that all the coordinate systems used by mankind are tied to the grid of quasars - distant objects, whose own movements in the sky are insignificant. I, as a person who passed astrometry, would like very much to know whether the current quasi-inertial system will be reformed taking into account new observations, and when the time counting system based on pulsar observations will appear.
- What recent discovery in astronomy impressed you most?
Gravitational waves, of course. I already jumped for joy - this is a miracle when a theory that has been developed for more than 100 years is confirmed by new observation technologies. And the asteroid Oumuamua - migrating from one star system to another. This is a very weighty confirmation of the transfer of matter on the scale of the Milky Way.
- You are actively involved in issues of asteroid-comet hazard. Please tell us more about it? What exactly are you doing? What research do you do?
My task, both within the framework of the thesis and subsequently, is the use of numerical methods for studying the long-term orbital evolution of asteroids. Speaking directly, my task is to calculate how the elements of the orbit (count the coordinates) of the asteroids will change at intervals of hundreds and thousands of years.
The fact is that any mathematical calculation is a model problem, i.e. the accuracy of the calculations will depend not only on rounding errors and other purely algorithmic influences, but also on what set of forces acting on the object in reality, I take into account in the equations.
Another problem is that the study of the motion of asteroids is based on their observation, and even the most precise observations contain errors. When I determine the errors of observations, I take model calculations as a basis, and when I check model calculations, should I take observations? It turns out that bad observations can get along well with bad calculations, and my calculations will have nothing to do with the real movement of the asteroid.
My task is intermediate, between the discoveries and observations of potentially dangerous asteroids and the counteraction to an object that can actually threaten the Earth with a collision. On how well developed the mechanisms of calculations and forecasts will depend on our possible response to the threat of a collision of the Earth with an asteroid. In addition, such studies are important from a fundamental point of view, not only within the framework of the asteroid-comet hazard.
- I know that you saw with your own eyes the fall of the Chelyabinsk meteorite. What did you feel at that moment? What did it look like?
It looked like the second Sun, which appeared from behind a cloud where it should not be at all. The flash caught my attention, the brain almost independently estimated the brightness, the height above the horizon, the angle of inclination relative to the horizon and the azimuth of the direction. Seeing fragmentation, I realized that I was observing the passage of an object through the dense layers of the atmosphere. And since I did not know the size of the object, I could not estimate the energy of the shock wave either. I had to stand at the traffic lights - waiting for the shock wave. When she did not come, went to work.
Was it scary? Well, scary. In these dates, object 2012 DA14 Duende, a stone with a mass of 40,000 tons, approached the Earth. It should not have fallen, the probability was very small, but suddenly? As a result, the object fell almost two times smaller, which was unknown to science before entering the atmosphere. The day immediately changed the working mode: communicated with the media, with eyewitnesses, with different structures.
- Did the scientists know that he would fall? Can this story repeat?
No, they did not. Yes maybe. From the point of view of the asteroid-comet hazard, an object like Chelyabinsky is a small and modest piece of substance 4.5 billion years old. From the point of view of global catastrophes, this object does not deserve any attention at all, we considered. Indeed, within the framework of the AOC, it is believed that a global catastrophe is the fall of an object from 1 kilometer or more, and a regional one - from 100 meters to 1 kilometer.
Obviously, these numbers are conditional, and are associated not only with the need to introduce a scale of danger, but also with purely political motives — we can observe large objects strongly in advance and warn them in time.
Chelyabinsky was not lucky: it could be fixed if he flew up from the night side, such precedents happened more than once, but he decided to fly from the morning side, from the side lit by the sun sky. Of course, given the small size, its brightness against a bright sky background was unremarkable, so no one found it.
Why was there such a rush? Because the meteorite fell in the area of ​​a large city. On Earth, ⅔ of the surface is covered with water, and not all land is inhabited. Objects fell before the Chelyabinsk event and will fall after. This date is resonant only due to its media coverage and the appearance of harsh Chelyabinsk meteorite folklore.
- The end of the world is a myth? Could something fall to Earth, leading to the end of the world? ?
— . . - , , , .
, — , . — . , .
— 100 . «», , , — , , , .
, , , . : , , , .
: Science Slam Ekaterinburg
About school and teaching
- Pavel, you are the founder and scientific director of the only private school of astronomy in Russia. Please tell us in more detail how your school is organized? What are you learning? Why did you decide to create it?
I have two options for how to answer this question. The official, correct option is an option about the need for astronomy to return to school (when we started, no one in the masses thought about it), talking about the need to first teach teachers how to teach this very hour in a week, that in the departments of astronomy in universities, and in Russia they can be counted on the fingers, crowds of applicants are not in queues. And unofficial, the wrong option, which is closer to me, and about which I will tell in detail.
')
By education I am a celestial mechanic, and the vast majority of my acquaintances, relatives, friends, colleagues in the university have no idea what I do and what my responsibilities are.
A person who has an astronomer specialty is for 80% of our country's population:
- staring at the stars
- not of this world
- makes horoscopes
And to be honest, I began to popularize in order to dispel and break such myths, and all other reasons joined later.
And they turned out to be mass. Fighting native mythologization, for example: “A comet in the sky - we will all die!”, “Tomorrow is the end of the world from the fall of a 20-meter asteroid, they said so on REN-TV!”, “I saw a UFO, and it stole my cat, wife and retirement! ”,“ By horoscope I’m cancer and I’m playing MMO! ”
Formation of a scientific worldview: why teach physics, chemistry, and biology at school, if there is no astronomy that unites them together and answers fundamental, almost religious, questions?
And as a result - an increase in the technological level in the country. The quality of the nail, brick, pavement - and how did you think? Without mass education this will not happen.
There are less than ten thousand professional astronomers in the world, and the amount of information is constantly growing. We need mathematicians, IT specialists, big data specialists - and they should all be at least familiar with astronomy.
When I realized this, I decided to put my bones on the altar of education and popularization. Initially, I honestly tried to do this through the existing huge, funded budget organizations. But: “You cannot take out the equipment, the memo has not yet arrived on you. Yes, two weeks can go. Or like this: “Yes, we only pay for the train. And to Vladivostok, too, only the train. ” And so: “Could you take with you 20 kg of leaflets about our organization, they have remained since 2001?” And finally: “No, we have no money for wages to popularizers. Yes, we (100,500 people on salaries) will report on your activities, thank you. ”
And since it is a little less realistic than it is to act adequately in such conditions, we, a group of enterprising citizens, created our own structure with our educational programs: astrophysics, astrochemistry, planetology, cosmology, general astronomy; with its content - films (yes, we ourselves saw films for domes-planetariums and not only), presentations, video tutorials, popular science lectures, scripts of scientific shows and events, and all in the same vein. In a separate independent organization, there are much more freedoms, but this is more than compensated by all the shortcomings of running a social business in our country.
And, what is most annoying, there is such a class of organizations that we call "blowers." Small commercial, large NGOs, it does not matter, they hold events, win grants, cut the budget and from time to time call it “popularization of astronomy”. Most often show cartoons from the network and thereby discredit both the industry and science. Here we are also fighting with price-givers as far as possible. Of course, not all of them are - there are powerful and cool structures with which it is very pleasant to cooperate, but such ones can be counted on the fingers, for example, ITSAO from RosAtom.
In 2017, Pavel won Science Slam in Yekaterinburg. On the video - the winning performance
- From the outside, it seems that astronomy is not very popular in Russia, and it is difficult for a private school of astronomy to develop. This is true? In your opinion, what hinders the development? Is there any support from the state?
When a new organization is created, its main task is to enter the market. We did not have such a task, as there was no market. As it turned out, the number of people searching in the Astronomy School search engines is extremely small. But in order to survive: pay salaries to employees, pay for the office, create content, invent equipment, it was necessary to create a sustainable business model, if possible, with minimization of seasonality. And since we were initially positioned as a social business, we did not maximize the profit, but the social effect. Thus, several projects were born that are now active.
Project 1. We come to school, gymnasium, lyceum, to the office and spend the Day of Science. With lectures, laboratory work (mainly in chemistry and physics), with a planetarium dome, with interactive games, with "round tables", etc. 200-400 children easily pass during the day, and during several lessons they receive a powerful dose of relevant, useful and interesting knowledge.
What were our problems? Find money for equipment, truck, content, make branding, register an organization - it’s not scary, you take out a loan and pay your whole life.
And it’s scary to hear back when you call the school: “Astronomy? We are not interested in astronomy ”or“ We do not provide paid services on the school’s territory, we have been banned. Who! Do not say. “Federal law on education - no, they did not read” or “We are not interested in astronomy. Yes, I'm sure all of our children are not interested in astronomy. I am not interested, it means children too. ” Again, not in all organizations, but regularly you have to hear that. And what is most curious, most of the budget organizations are piously convinced that we should do everything at our own expense, since we ourselves have called.
Project 2 - educational courses. Initially for children to prepare and motivate to enter the university for the relevant specialty. Everything is clear here, there are simpler courses - General Astronomy, for example. There are special courses - Astrophysics, Planetology, etc., there is Olympiad astronomy as a method of immersion in basic science.
There was no limit to our surprise when it turned out that there were as many adults who would like to study as children. Someone works as a journalist and wants to write articles competently, someone is engaged in amateur astronomy and is eager to understand what he is watching, and someone even needs quality knowledge to answer the child’s questions. Motivation can be any.
Getting back to the topic of the question, is it difficult? Yes, difficult. Popular astronomy is very. Unfortunately, 90% of Russian-language content on the network is profanation and hype, and what is translated from English is not so terrible as its localization. Therefore, it is difficult for even an interested person to find an adequate source of information.
Is the level of knowledge high? Unfortunately not. There is a narrow class of young technical specialists and people with fundamental education from the Union who have a level of knowledge. However, the overwhelming majority of the population does not realize why seasons change on Earth, what polar days and polar nights are, why every day is almost equal at the equator, why a leap year is needed, why October is the tenth month, and in theory “octa” - eight, where did the elements from the periodic table come from, and what is the redshift.
What hinders the development? The low level of legal literacy of managers in educational institutions and lower-level officials. Profanation from the side of the blowers. Mythology in the minds of people, especially the older generation. We had a child whom grandmother forbade to attend courses. And why? Because he could not answer the question "on which lunar day pickle cucumbers." Closeness of middle-level officials. By the way, to the highest level - the minister, for example, is much easier to get into. And the higher the official, the more adequate and friendlier he is. The difficulty in the affiliate program with large structures. Initially, no one wanted to talk to us at all, even his own alma mater. And when we traveled around 35,000 children with lectures for the year, it became more interesting.
Is there any support from the state? Special - no, or we do not know how all this. One time we received support as a small business from a local entrepreneurship support fund. The social business support funds “Our Future”, “Towards Change” helped us a lot. Thanks to them, they are great.
However, money has to be earned by oneself - and this is more difficult psychologically. You could also choose another way of life, without getting up at 4 am to go to a lecture to the other end of the region, but we hold. That is our way.
- Is there any recipe for capturing a child with astronomy? How do you find a balance between exciting activities and a bunch of formulas that scare many away?
The balance is by itself, it is in science itself. If someone comes for a worldview, for an awareness of his place in the Universe, he finds it. The guys who come to become astrophysicists and work in Europe are more pragmatic. There are those who are looking for related specialties - space medicine, for example, i.e. I want to be a doctor, but not ordinary, so they teach astronomy.
How to interest? The topic is fertile, according to our research, 90% of those who attended events and lectures in questionnaires write that they are interested in making astronomy and astronautics a part of their life. About 15% - to find a profession in this industry. This is a good starting alignment.
And if you answer the question specifically - to interest, you need to be interested in yourself and be able to feel the audience.
- A couple of years ago, astronomy was returned to the school curriculum. Can you explain why it was removed and returned again?
The history of experiments with education in our country is not an area of ​​my scientific interests, at least due to the disruption of the activity of the gastrointestinal tract when receiving relevant information.
The fact is that, as such, they are, perhaps, quite good as ideas. Limping implementation. Here, in real schools, with real children, the situation does not look like it is on paper, but they report upstairs - yes, everything is round. Although all square. And nothing can be done about it.
Astronomy was removed from the school course, probably because there is no one to teach, this is my guess. My activity as an astronomer began in an era when the scientific community struggled to return astronomy to school. And I struggled because of the possibilities. Astronomy returned, but as usual, not without problems.
Available textbooks are outdated hopelessly. Most of the teachers of physics (and in fact they teach) were in an awkward position - and what to read? But as? About a third of the teachers that went through our refresher courses openly reported that it would be better to spend an extra hour on physics.
We retrained more than 150 school teachers with our partners. Unfortunately, the level of training is not always high. We are waiting for a lot of interesting things in the future if the country does not have conditions for the professional growth of teachers. While they are forced to deal with papers and take 1.5 or 2 bets to feed themselves. Of course, this is to the detriment of the quality of education as such.
On the popularization of science
- How and why did you start promoting science?
I have already partially spoken about popularization, but I would like to reinforce this thought with my own, absolutely self-serving and vile need - for security. The thing is that the system of my beliefs, based on materialism, secular humanism and other isms, as I feel, is rapidly losing popularity in our society. I will not philosophize whether it is good or bad, but everyone must defend his convictions. As a representative of science, as a person who believes in scientific and technological progress, and who believes that without a quality education, we will return to the darkness of the Middle Ages, I am engaged in popularization. This is not only from the desire to make the world better, it is also from the desire that there is a place left for me and those like me.
- Is it difficult to be a popularizer of science in Russia? What problems do you face?
Popularizer in Russia is a wonder. There is no such profession. It is not there, scientific centers and universities do not pay for it, because they do not even recognize its existence. Even many fellow scientists do not consider the promotion of a separate activity. And this is a separate activity.
“Today you have 6 lectures and 2 master classes,” the director of the school of astronomy tells me. At the first - elementary school, at the second - the average, at the third - the oldest, at the fourth - mixed up all those who did not get to the first or third, at the fifth you act as part of our concept of charity to blind children, at the sixth - before the meeting of veterans labor in the local library. Themes are different everywhere - from the construction of Stonehenge to methods for detecting gravitational waves. Everyone should be clear. Everyone should be interested.
It is not enough to be able to speak in public and to brilliantly know your material. It is necessary to improvise, feel the audience, formulate short answers to questions (and the question can be for a whole lecture), make jokes in time, look pretentious in time, catch up in time ... Normal work, in fact, a translator from the language of basic science to the philistine.
Problems of a purely psychological nature - you do not sleep, speak, work on the material, translate the newly published articles. This is all so that more intelligent applicants come to the university, school performance grows, and people more often raise their heads to look at the stars. What do you want from this? If the answer to this question is, you can engage in popularization.
To go once or twice a year to speak to an initially interested audience somewhere in the capital at an event that was organized by someone else — that, excuse me, is a drop in the ocean. And the children in the villages? And in orphanages? Are there no future astrophysicists there?
- How much time do you spend on the popularization of science, and how much - on the lessons of science?
Popularization and teaching takes almost all the time. It got to the point that I am specifically engaged in science in the intervals between lectures and couples. Of course, this is no good, but while the pool of future popularizers and teachers is growing, and we are developing a school of popularization too, there is no other way.
About astronomy
- What are astronomers all over the world doing today? What is the most urgent task?
Probably a representative of each branch of astronomy will highlight the most pressing issues in their specifics. Therefore, without pretending to objectivity, I would choose what is most interesting to me.
Theory of everything . A concept that allows all kinds of fundamental interactions to be described in a single way. We have found gravitational waves, but the particle responsible for the gravitational interaction is not yet available. I would like to know if the standard model is correct and to be in the era of gravitonics.
Dark energy . It appeared to explain the discrepancy between the theoretically calculated and actually observed velocities of the motion of astronomical objects in the galaxy. What is it like? There is no intelligible explanation. So much so that even there are very controversial articles stating that there is no dark energy, but the law of conservation of momentum does not work.
Life not related to earthly origin . Extremely important thought for the destruction of their own identity. We discovered other solar systems, including exoplanets similar to Earth, found water almost everywhere (on Mars, in the asteroid ground, on the Moon), found organic matter near hot stars. It remains only to discover life. If we find, we will cease to be elected, and become one of the many. It seems to me that it is necessary for the majority to realize this - we are not the pinnacle of biological evolution and everything is possible for us, but only one of the options. Be modest. Be proud of achievements, but not an origin.
Refinement of the parameters of the quasi-inertial coordinate system - let's call it that. The point is that all the coordinate systems used by mankind are tied to the grid of quasars - distant objects, whose own movements in the sky are insignificant. I, as a person who passed astrometry, would like very much to know whether the current quasi-inertial system will be reformed taking into account new observations, and when the time counting system based on pulsar observations will appear.
- What recent discovery in astronomy impressed you most?
Gravitational waves, of course. I already jumped for joy - this is a miracle when a theory that has been developed for more than 100 years is confirmed by new observation technologies. And the asteroid Oumuamua - migrating from one star system to another. This is a very weighty confirmation of the transfer of matter on the scale of the Milky Way.
- You are actively involved in issues of asteroid-comet hazard. Please tell us more about it? What exactly are you doing? What research do you do?
My task, both within the framework of the thesis and subsequently, is the use of numerical methods for studying the long-term orbital evolution of asteroids. Speaking directly, my task is to calculate how the elements of the orbit (count the coordinates) of the asteroids will change at intervals of hundreds and thousands of years.
The fact is that any mathematical calculation is a model problem, i.e. the accuracy of the calculations will depend not only on rounding errors and other purely algorithmic influences, but also on what set of forces acting on the object in reality, I take into account in the equations.
Another problem is that the study of the motion of asteroids is based on their observation, and even the most precise observations contain errors. When I determine the errors of observations, I take model calculations as a basis, and when I check model calculations, should I take observations? It turns out that bad observations can get along well with bad calculations, and my calculations will have nothing to do with the real movement of the asteroid.
My task is intermediate, between the discoveries and observations of potentially dangerous asteroids and the counteraction to an object that can actually threaten the Earth with a collision. On how well developed the mechanisms of calculations and forecasts will depend on our possible response to the threat of a collision of the Earth with an asteroid. In addition, such studies are important from a fundamental point of view, not only within the framework of the asteroid-comet hazard.
- I know that you saw with your own eyes the fall of the Chelyabinsk meteorite. What did you feel at that moment? What did it look like?
It looked like the second Sun, which appeared from behind a cloud where it should not be at all. The flash caught my attention, the brain almost independently estimated the brightness, the height above the horizon, the angle of inclination relative to the horizon and the azimuth of the direction. Seeing fragmentation, I realized that I was observing the passage of an object through the dense layers of the atmosphere. And since I did not know the size of the object, I could not estimate the energy of the shock wave either. I had to stand at the traffic lights - waiting for the shock wave. When she did not come, went to work.
Was it scary? Well, scary. In these dates, object 2012 DA14 Duende, a stone with a mass of 40,000 tons, approached the Earth. It should not have fallen, the probability was very small, but suddenly? As a result, the object fell almost two times smaller, which was unknown to science before entering the atmosphere. The day immediately changed the working mode: communicated with the media, with eyewitnesses, with different structures.
- Did the scientists know that he would fall? Can this story repeat?
No, they did not. Yes maybe. From the point of view of the asteroid-comet hazard, an object like Chelyabinsky is a small and modest piece of substance 4.5 billion years old. From the point of view of global catastrophes, this object does not deserve any attention at all, we considered. Indeed, within the framework of the AOC, it is believed that a global catastrophe is the fall of an object from 1 kilometer or more, and a regional one - from 100 meters to 1 kilometer.
Obviously, these numbers are conditional, and are associated not only with the need to introduce a scale of danger, but also with purely political motives — we can observe large objects strongly in advance and warn them in time.
Chelyabinsky was not lucky: it could be fixed if he flew up from the night side, such precedents happened more than once, but he decided to fly from the morning side, from the side lit by the sun sky. Of course, given the small size, its brightness against a bright sky background was unremarkable, so no one found it.
Why was there such a rush? Because the meteorite fell in the area of ​​a large city. On Earth, ⅔ of the surface is covered with water, and not all land is inhabited. Objects fell before the Chelyabinsk event and will fall after. This date is resonant only due to its media coverage and the appearance of harsh Chelyabinsk meteorite folklore.
- The end of the world is a myth? Could something fall to Earth, leading to the end of the world? ?
— . . - , , , .
, — , . — . , .
— 100 . «», , , — , , , .
, , , . : , , , .
: Science Slam Ekaterinburg
19 DUMP . , - , , , . !
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/447226/
All Articles