Craftsmen of education

Craftsmen of education

In the wonderful "Chemistry and Life" book series there is a book called "Craftsmen of Science." It is about people who did not fly to the Moon and did not receive a Nobel Prize, but without whom science and progress are impossible. This post is my modest tribute to a person I briefly crossed paths with thirty-four years ago.

Yuri Grigoryevich Ivchenko: educator, inventor, enthusiast, creator, master of everything. Links to his work can be found on TRIZ resources, online libraries, and a Novogireevo news page.

As a candidate of phys-math sciences with publications in Russian VAK-listed journals and international ones, I take off my hat and bow deeply to Yuri Grigoryevich’s publication list. "Science and Life" and "Young Technician" are magazines that formed my backbone; my interest in physics and invention comes from there too.

A bit later I want to write about the exhibits that made up the Fizbar in the VDNKh discovery-and-creativity town. For now, the key point: many of them were built by Yuri Grigoryevich’s golden hands. Colleagues from AITA can confirm: I tried to build a levitating top using advanced 21st-century tech - 3D printing, powerful magnets. I failed.

Yuri Grigoryevich built a Levitron in 1990, just three years after an enthusiastic self-taught inventor created the device in England. This top seems to violate some fundamental electrodynamics theorems, and in fact its physics is much more interesting than what is written in Wikipedia.

I was 12 and remember only vaguely a walk through inner passages of the central VDNKh pavilion that ended in a tight but very dense room, apparently Yuri Grigoryevich’s. Dim light, lots of equipment, blinking indicators. Something of a hermit wizard’s lair. But wizards are supposed to be evil. This one was a kind wizard. Other wizards do not survive this long in education.

The wizard association is not accidental. There is also a publication about Yuri Grigoryevich on the Russian Association of Illusionists page.

The most recent publication I found about him is already five years old. I very much hope Yuri Grigoryevich is alive, healthy, and still continuing his work after celebrating his 91st birthday.