We cordially invite you to the next event, in an online format, within our “Science first hand” lecture series:
Announcement (download in Ukrainian)
Speaker: Dr. Oleg Feia, researcher at the Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research Dresden, junior research fellow at Kyiv Academic University, science reporter for the magazine “Український тиждень” (Ukrainian Week).
Date: Thursday, 17 December 2020
Time: 18:00 – 19:30 (Berlin, CEST)
Language: Ukrainian
Summary of the talk: In the 1930s, the physical science school, which was established at the Ukrainian Institute of Physics and Technology (UFTI, now the Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology), flourished. Under the leadership of physicist Ivan Obreimov, UFTI attracted the most famous scientists of the time. Kharkiv (then capital of Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic) was visited by Niels Bohr, one of the founders of quantum physics. Nobel laureate Paul Dirac became an honorary member of the institute’s scientific council, and Boris Podolsky, co-author of the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen quantum paradox, which became the foundation for the discovery of “quantum entanglement,” worked there for several years. Lev Landau worked at UFTI, where he founded his famous school of theoretical physics and developed the theory of the second-order phase transitions. He received the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physics for his development of a mathematical theory of superfluidity. In Kharkiv, there was a state-of-the-art cryogenic laboratory at that time, where pioneering work on the physics of ultra-low temperatures, including superconductivity, was being carried out. The experiment to split the nucleus of lithium was performed as the second in the world. But this all came to an abrupt end when, in the mid-1930s, the NKVD (the infamous The People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs) started the investigation into the activities of “Professor Landau’s counterrevolutionary group,” which resulted in “The great UFTI case”. In this presentation the speaker will talk about the achievements of Kharkiv scientists at that time, as well as about the terrible price paid by Ukrainian science during the repressions.
This event will be carried out using the BigBlueButton (BBB) web-platform. Please register by 16 December per e-mail: berlin (at) ukrainet.eu. Specific access information will be sent to all those who have registered shortly before the event.
This event is organized by the regional Berlin-Brandenburg chapter of the German-Ukrainian Academic Society in cooperation with the Embassy of Ukraine of the Federal Republic of Germany.