“Moscow is my Motherland 55 and will remain so forever: I was born there and there I suffered a lot and there I was too happy.” These are the words written by our great poet Mikhail Lermontov about the years spent in the old capital— a short but very significant period for his creative work. It is believed that to preserve purity of water 37 it is sufficient not to discharge contaminants into reservoirs in the quantities exceeding the limits of the permissible level. Studies carried on by scientists from the Moscow State University show that these priorities are insufficient for securing ecological safety of water supply sources. In the 1760s-1770s a group of scientists 75 headed by Peter Simon Pallas carried on a project unprecedented by the scale of works and involved territory—described a great number of Russian regions, including geological, mineralogical, animal and plant resources, historical, socio-economic and ethnographic peculiarities. No. 5 (203) 2014 CONTENTS According to archeological findings approximately SEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT 30-35 thous. years ago hunting Magnetohydrodynamics: From Galaxies to Problems tribes reached Arctic latitudes of Metallurgy, P. Frik .......................................................... 4 of Siberia. Extreme natural Predator As a Universal Breeder, conditions made people A. Severtsov, A. Shubkina ..............................................11 actively search for new means The Secret of the Nineteenth Layer: Listvenka Site, of procuring food. As a result Ye. Akimova ................................................................... 18 they could pay attention to wolves, who, as is well known, INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION use group driving-in hunting From the Infrared Region to Terahertzes, V. Shiryaev ......... 30 for animals. Presumably primitive man managed to domesticate TALKING POINTS the wolf, thus acquiring a reliable Quality of Water: New Criteria, S. Ostroumov .................... 37 friend and perfect assistant— a dog. The contemporary HISTORY Yakut Eskimo dog (photo on the “Great Turning Point in the Life of Mankind” ........................ 44 first page of the cover), Mission of the First Atomic Electric Power Station, a venturesome, universal, rather M. Khalizeva .................................................................. 45 hardy and clever hunter, has The 10th Century Family Portrait, V. Kulakov ..................... 71 even today a lot of characteristics of his remote ancestor. TO THE BICENTENARY OF THE BIRTH OF LERMONTOV “Moscow, My Homeland”, O. Bazanova ............................ 55 Editorial Office address: TO THE CENTENARY OF THE BEGINNING OF WORLD WAR I Science in Russia “The Country Which Could Have Been a Paradise 26, Maronovsky Pereulok, GSP-1 Moscow 119049, Russia Became a Den of Fire…”, A. Makarychev ......................... 63 Tel./Fax: 8-499-238-43-10 www.ras.ru HISTORY OF SCIENCE E-mail:[email protected] Major Academic Expeditions, N. Vekhov ........................... 75 Ways of Opening Up the Ussuri Taiga, S. Fisenko .............. 83 Nauka Publishers Moscow State University Botanical Gardens, 90, Profsoyuznaya St., GSP-7, B-485 V. Novikov, S. Yefimov .................................................... 89 Moscow 117997, Russia Журнал «Наука в России» № 5, 2014 HUMAN ENVIRONMENT (на английском языке) Kola Peninsula in Terms of Geobotany, N. Korolyova ......... 93 Artificial Climate Station in Irkutsk, PPE Nauka Printing House M. Rachenko, T. Kulakova ............................................. 99 6, Shubinsky per., Moscow 121099, Russia Reliable Assistants in Developing Arctic Regions, Licence No. 014339 (January 26, 1996) P. Kolosov, G. Arbugaev, M. Lyubavin .........................106 © Russian Academy of Sciences BOOKS AND PRESS REVIEW Presidium, Kompleks Averts Accidents ............................................... 27 Science in Russia, 2014 Autonomous Hybrid Mini Power System ............................. 53 On June 7, 1954, in a village of Obninskoye, Kaluga Region, at the Institute of Physics and Power Engineering named after A. Leipunsky (Laboratory “V”), was implemented starting of the first in the world atomic electric power station, equipped with uranium-graphite channel reactor with a water heat carrying agent of 5 MW capacity. This opened for Mankind a way to peaceful use of one of the most powerful sources of energy, based on reactions of fission of atomic nuclei. For the past 60 years from the historical event atomic power engineering has turned into an independent large-scale field of production. 4 Search and Development MAGNETOHYDRODYNAMICS:MAGNETOHYDRODYNAMICS: FROMFROM GALAXIESGALAXIES TOTO PROBLEMSPROBLEMS OFOF METALLURGYMETALLURGY by Pyotr FRIK, Dr. Sc. (Phys. & Math.), Head of Physical Hydrodynamics Laboratory, Institute of Continuum Mechanics, RAS Ural Branch (Perm) When Academician of the Latvian Academy of Sciences Igor Kirko came to Perm in 1972, the spectrum of conducted studies was expanded by magnetohydrodynamics (MHD), a section of mechanics which studies flows of electroconducting liquids and their interaction with magnetic fields. Today the physical hydrodynamics laboratory of the Institute of Continuum Mechanics is perhaps the only scientific division in Russia which carries out theoretical and experimental work on practically all problems in this area of knowledge, from galactic magnetic fields, stellar and planetary magnetism to applied problems associated with formation and monitoring of liquid metal flows in production conditions. BIRTH OF A NEW SCIENCE sars, accretion disks and neutron stars excite interest in As far as magnetohydrodynamics is concerned, non- a relatively small circle of astrophysical scientists and expert can imply a range of phenomena which have no astronomy enthusiasts, the similar fields of the Sun and direct relationship with man’s life and the environment. the Earth have a direct effect on human life. The Solar But it is not the case. The natural magnetic fields not magnetic field which is largely responsible for flashes only exist in many cosmic objects—from planets and causing bombardment of our planet by particle flows, stars to pulsars and galaxies but also largely determine complies with the eleven-year cycle of activity changing their evolution. And if magnetic fields of galaxies, qua- its direction to the opposite one every time upon its Search and Development 5 Galaxy М31 (Andromeda Nebula), as many others, has its own magnetic field whose origin is possible only due to the MHD dynamo effect. completion. But the Earth’s magnetic field which pro- tects it from dangerous cosmic particles seems to be constant and unchanged. In reality it is not so, and its manifestations bear a lot of mystery. According to spe- cialists during a whole period of history of our planet’s existence, its magnetic field “turned over” several hun- dreds of times. The instances of these “turns” follow randomly one after another, and the interval between them varies from 10,000 to 100 mln years. During a polarity reversal, which can last for centuries, the mag- netic field disappears (hence “the shield” disappears also), and it is impossible to predict them up to date. Of course, the facts are interesting, but what hydro- dynamics and conducting liquids do here? The point is that magnetic fields of celestial bodies and our planet are created by fluxes of conducting liquid which is in the form of a liquid metal in the outer core of the Earth and plasma in the convective shell of the Sun. It is interesting to note that the very problem of the origin of cosmic fields was a topmost incentive for development of magnetohydrodynamics. The Solar magnetic field At about the same time with the appearance of was the first puzzle, and to interpret its nature the Irish Alfven’s ideas, Julius Hartmann (Denmark) carried out physicist and mathematician, Professor of the Cam- the first experiments in MHD, namely, studies of mer- bridge University Joseph Larmor was the first who in cury flow resistance in the pipe under action of a lateral 1919 advanced a hypothesis on its possible generation magnetic field. by a moving conducting plasma in the convective shell The above-mentioned Acad. Igor Kirko was one of of the star. the founders of magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) in the It was long assumed that the interstellar medium was Soviet Union, the initiator of scientific schools in Riga vacuum. Sure enough, density of its substance makes and Perm, the founder of the Magnetohydrodynamics up only from 0.1 to 1,000 atoms per cubic centimeter. journal. He headed the physical hydrodynamics labora- When in 1937 the pioneer of research in the MHD tory in our institute from 1972 to 1986 and played a theory Swedish scientist and specialist in plasma phys- significant role in selection of the studied problems. ics Hannes Alfven voiced for the first time a hypothesis that the interstellar medium was filled with ionized gas, MHD-DYNAMO the scientific community did not accept it. He sup- The process of magnetic field generation by conduct- posed that if plasma filled the Universe, it was capable ing liquid (gas) flows was named MHD-dynamo. This to conduct electrical currents but the latter gave rise to scientific problem formulated almost a century ago a galactic magnetic field which in its turn worked on remains one of the most intriguing in modern funda- passage of cosmic rays. Later these ideas were con- mental science, first of all in hydrodynamics and astro- firmed and are now universally recognized. Hannes physics.