This book is the first substantial study in any language of one of revolutionary Russia's most distinguished and controversial engineers - Iurii Vladimirovich Lomonosov (1876-1952). Not only does it ...provide an outline of his remarkable life and career, it also explores the relationship between science, technology and transport that developed in late tsarist and early Soviet Russia. Lomonosov's importance extends well beyond his scientific and engineering achievements thanks to the rich variety and public prominence of his professional and political activities. His generation - Lenin's generation - was inevitably at the forefront of Russian life from the 1910s to the 1930s, and Lomonosov took his place there as one of the country's best known and ultimately notorious engineers. As well as an innovative engineer who campaigned to enhance the role of science, he played a major role in shaping and administering the Russian railways, and undertook several diplomatic and scientific missions to the West during the early years of the Revolution. Falling from political favour during an assignment in Germany (1923-1927), he achieved notoriety in Russia as a 'non-returner' by apparently declining to return home. Thereby escaping probable arrest and execution, he began a new life abroad (1927-1952) which included a research post at the California Institute of Technology in 1929-1930, collaborative projects with the famous physicist P.L. Kapitsa in Cambridge, a long-time association with the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in London, and work for the British War Office during the Second World War. From Marxist revolutionary to American academic, this study reveals Lomonosov's extraordinary life. Drawing on a wide variety of official Russian sources, as well as Lomonosov's own diaries and memoirs, a vivid portrait of his life is presented, offering a better understanding of how science, technology and politics interacted in early-twentieth-century Russia.
For more than two hundred years, the eighteenth-century polymath Mikhail Vasil’evich Lomonosov (1711–1765) has been glorified in Russian culture as the “father” of Russian science, literature, and, ...more generally, learning. This study traces the evolution of Lomonosov’s imposing stature in Russian thought from the middle of the eighteenth century to the closing years of the Soviet period. It reveals much about the attitudes toward the meaning and significance of science in Russian culture, as well as about the rise of a Russian national identity, of which Lomonosov became an outstanding symbol. Steven Usitalo argues that Lomonosov’s fame has surpassed any realistic association with the known details of his life; he is of interest primarily as a symbolic figure who fulfilled the tangible intellectual and emotional requirements that Russian pride demanded in a national myth.
Recently, the use of “extinction ages” of excesses in U-series isotopes (230Thxs, 231Paxs) has been proposed for the setting of benchmark ages of up to ~350 and ~150 ka, respectively, in late ...Quaternary marine records from the Arctic Ocean. However, the use of such U-series-based chronostratigraphic approaches has some limitations. These limitations are illustrated by U-series measurements in a cored sequence from the southern Lomonosov Ridge (PS2757). In this core, the final measurable excess in 230Th (230Thxs), strictly linked to the sedimentary flux of this isotope from the overlying water column (230Thxs-marine), is observed at a depth of ~590 cm downcore. An “extinction age” of ~230 ka can be estimated for the residual 230Thxs at this depth. It approximately matches the Marine Isotope Stage 7/8 transition. Below this transition, strong redox gradients constrained by a layer enriched in organic carbon resulted in a late-diagenetic relocation of uranium leached from detrital minerals in the over- and underlying oxidized layers. This uranium relocation resulted in large amplitude radioactive disequilibria within a core section otherwise characterized by near secular equilibria between inventories of 238U-series isotopes, implying an age greater than the “230Thxs-marine extinction age” for the whole section. In the overlying part of the core, the 230Thxs distribution correlates with other 230Thxs-documented sequences from the Central Arctic Ocean. 230Thxs can be thus used for stratigraphic correlations between the relatively low-sedimentation rate marine sequences of this basin, over the last two or three glacial cycles, but special attention to potential diagenetic effects is recommended. Moreover, as for a given 230Thxs-marine flux at the seafloor, initial 230Thxs-values are broadly inversely-proportional to the sedimentation rate, the resulting estimates of 230Thxs “extinction age” vary accordingly. This variability restricts the chronostratigraphic use of 230Thxs to sequences with relatively low sedimentation rates, such as those where the initial 230Thxs-marine significantly exceeds the 230Th-fraction carried by detrital minerals.
•230Th-excess reveal a chronostratigraphy of low sedimentation rate marine sequences.•Redox-driven uranium diagenetic processes impact 230Th-excess calculation.•U-series data illustrate sporadic and short sedimentary pulses in the Arctic Ocean.•230Th-excesses peak under high sea-level, high sea-ice productivity intervals.
The TUS (Tracking Ultraviolet Set-up) detector is the first fluorescence telescope aimed to measuring Extensive Air Showers (EAS) from space and operated till December 4th, 2017. Despite the main ...operation mode with a 0.8 μs temporal resolution of the TUS detector was devoted for EAS detection, also it was able to measure different slower luminescent phenomena in the near ultraviolet range. One of the TUS operation modes had 6.6 ms temporal resolution and was used to measure micro-meteors and thunderstorm activity. The high sensitivity of the device due to large area of an optical system, makes it a potentially powerful tool for studying dim and fast glow in the Earth's atmosphere. In this work we present the kinematics reconstruction of 13 events recorded by the TUS during 250 h of operation, which possess the expected characteristics produced by a meteor (characteristic linear track and light curve). We discuss the possible source of them and their luminosity. This experience of orbital meteor observations is useful for planning similar research in the future more sensitive space missions.
•Reconstruction of meteoroid kinematics measured by orbital detector.•Meteor detection with temporal resolution of milliseconds.•Orbital highly sensitive UV telescope is a powerful detector of weak meteor glow.
Lomonosov is the founder of secular education in Russia. The long process of forming the educational principles that created the basis for scientific development and the training of academic ...personnel resulted in the creation of Moscow University. The university under Lomonosov's plan embodied the unity of natural science and humanities, elimination of theology and the secular education system, training of national academic personnel, combining education and upbringing, implementation of the principles of self-government. This article considers the outstanding ideas of the scientist and thinker in terms of their interrelationship, interdependence, and mutual influence, thereby offering a holistic view of this Russian scientist's work. The methods used in this study are based on philosophical research traditions. The findings of this research can be used to advance research on the relationship between science and philosophical knowledge, both in the scientist's activity and in the education system.
The hypothesis of a km-thick ice shelf covering the entire Arctic Ocean during peak glacial conditions was proposed nearly half a century ago. Floating ice shelves preserve few direct traces after ...their disappearance, making reconstructions difficult. Seafloor imprints of ice shelves should, however, exist where ice grounded along their flow paths. Here we present new evidence of ice-shelf groundings on bathymetric highs in the central Arctic Ocean, resurrecting the concept of an ice shelf extending over the entire central Arctic Ocean during at least one previous ice age. New and previously mapped glacial landforms together reveal flow of a spatially coherent, in some regions >1-km thick, central Arctic Ocean ice shelf dated to marine isotope stage 6 (∼ 140 ka). Bathymetric highs were likely critical in the ice-shelf development by acting as pinning points where stabilizing ice rises formed, thereby providing sufficient back stress to allow ice shelf thickening.
This article studies the emergence and development of the iambic tetrameter in Ukrainian poetry. Its genesis and evolution are examined against the background of Russian metrical verse. The evolution ...of the Ukrainian iamb’s features is traced from 1761 to Taras Shevchenko. The main hypothesis of this study is that, despite a certain dependence on Russian models, the rhythm of Ukrainian verse develops independently: while the early forms of the Ukrainian tetrameter are closely connected with the poetic work of Mikhail Lomonosov and Alexander Sumarokov, afterward the originality of the Ukrainian iamb intensifies. The Ukrainian tetrameter represents a new evolutionary stage of European metrical versification, which is drifting further away from the continental prosodic canons.
The payload of the UFFO (Ultra-Fast Flash Observatory)-pathfinder now onboard the
Lomonosov
spacecraft (hereafter UFFO/
Lomonosov
) is a dedicated instrument for the observation of GRBs. Its primary ...aim is to capture the rise phase of the optical light curve, one of the least known aspects of GRBs. Fast response measurements of the optical emission of GRB will be made by a Slewing Mirror Telescope (SMT), a key instrument of the payload, which will open a new frontier in transient studies by probing the early optical rise of GRBs with a response time in seconds for the first time. The SMT employs a rapidly slewing mirror to redirect the optical axis of the telescope to a GRB position prior determined by the UFFO Burst Alert Telescope (UBAT), the other onboard instrument, for the observation and imaging of X-rays. UFFO/Lomonosov was launched successfully from Vostochny, Russia on April 28, 2016, and will begin GRB observations after completion of functional checks of the Lomonosov spacecraft. The concept of early GRB photon measurements with UFFO was reported in 2012. In this article, we will report in detail the first mission, UFFO/Lomonosov, for the rapid response to GRB observations.
Early Eocene global climate was warmer than much of the Cenozoic and was punctuated by a series of transient warming events or ‘hyperthermals’ associated with carbon isotope excursions when ...temperature increased by 4–8 °C. The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM, ~55 Ma) and Eocene Thermal Maximum 2 (ETM2, 53.5 Ma) hyperthermals were of short duration (<200 kyr) and dramatically restructured terrestrial vegetation and mammalian faunas at mid-latitudes. Data on the character and magnitude of change in terrestrial vegetation and climate during and after the PETM and ETM2 at high northern latitudes, however, are limited to a small number of stratigraphically restricted records. The Arctic Coring Expedition (ACEX) marine sediment core from the Lomonosov Ridge in the Arctic Basin provides a stratigraphically expanded early Eocene record of Arctic terrestrial vegetation and climates. Using pollen/spore assemblages, palynofacies data, bioclimatic analyses (Nearest Living Relative, or NLR), and lipid biomarker paleothermometry, we present evidence for expansion of mesothermal (Mean Annual Temperatures 13–20 °C) forests to the Arctic during the PETM and ETM2. Our data indicate that PETM mean annual temperatures were ~2° to 3.5 °C warmer than those of the Late Paleocene. Mean winter temperatures in the PETM reached ≥5 °C (~2 °C warmer than the late Paleocene), based on pollen-based bioclimatic reconstructions and the presence of palm and Bombacoideae pollen. Increased runoff of water and nutrients to the ocean during both hyperthermals resulted in greater salinity stratification and hypoxia/anoxia, based on marked increases in concentration of massive Amorphous Organic Matter (AOM) and dominance of low-salinity dinocysts. During the PETM recovery, taxodioid Cupressaceae-dominated swamp forests were important elements of the landscape, representing intermediate climate conditions between the early Eocene hyperthermals and background conditions of the late Paleocene.
•Arctic vegetation in the PETM and ETM2 included broadleaf forests, palms, and subtropical taxa.•Taxodioid swamp forests dominated Arctic landmasses during the PETM recovery.•Mixed conifer-broadleaf forests occupied Arctic sites during non-hyperthermals.•Proxy data indicate increased runoff and hypoxia during Eocene hyperthermals.•Bioclimatic and brGDGT indicators show ~2–3.5 °C warming during hyperthermals.
The origin and nature of extreme energy cosmic rays (EECRs), which have energies above the
5
⋅
10
19
eV
—the Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin (GZK) energy limit, is one of the most interesting and complicated ...problems in modern cosmic-ray physics. Existing ground-based detectors have helped to obtain remarkable results in studying cosmic rays before and after the GZK limit, but have also produced some contradictions in our understanding of cosmic ray mass composition. Moreover, each of these detectors covers only a part of the celestial sphere, which poses problems for studying the arrival directions of EECRs and identifying their sources. As a new generation of EECR space detectors, TUS (Tracking Ultraviolet Set-up), KLYPVE and JEM-EUSO, are intended to study the most energetic cosmic-ray particles, providing larger, uniform exposures of the entire celestial sphere. The TUS detector, launched on board the Lomonosov satellite on April 28, 2016 from Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia, is the first of these. It employs a single-mirror optical system and a photomultiplier tube matrix as a photo-detector and will test the fluorescent method of measuring EECRs from space. Utilizing the Earth’s atmosphere as a huge calorimeter, it is expected to detect EECRs with energies above
10
20
eV
.
It will also be able to register slower atmospheric transient events: atmospheric fluorescence in electrical discharges of various types including precipitating electrons escaping the magnetosphere and from the radiation of meteors passing through the atmosphere. We describe the design of the TUS detector and present results of different ground-based tests and simulations.
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