May Putin Not Cost the World Russian Science.

[NNadir]

I often find myself thinking of the remarkable physical/chemical properties of a class of intermetallic compounds known a Zintl salts for use in high temperature systems.

Tonight, in writing a note to my son on this subject, I came across this paper:

The interdiffusion in liquid alloys of alkali metals with lead

R N Abdullaev1, R A Khairulin1 and S V Stankus1

Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd
Journal of Physics: Conference Series, Volume 2119, The XXXVII Siberian Thermophysical Seminar (STS37) 2021 14-16 September 2021, Novosibirsk, Russia

Siberian...

The paper is open sourced and frankly very esoteric, and probably not of much interest to people.

My point is that Russian science is important; not all Russians are Putin or his supporters. One hopes that Russian science will remain available to the world, that we will not lose access to them because of some vicious fascist.

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Be positive. The Third Reich couldn't destroy Einstein.

Maybe the Russian scientists will be able to defect. Most academics are apolitical, save for academic freedom.

[NNadir]

4. Had they not escaped, the Nazis would have killed Einstein, Bohr, and Meitner.

For the last two of these giants, the escape was a near thing, Meitner in particular. She got out with just a suitcase with a change of clothes.

[Sherman A1]

2. I'm hoping that he doesn't cause us to lose all of science

And all of humanity. What happens to Russian science is very much tied to those concerns.

[Anon-C]

3. Well played!

[lastlib]

5. At this point, it may be up to the fascist.....

Putin's behavior might determine a great deal of what happens in the academic world. For now, they are still cooperating with other countries on the international space station, but one Putin temper-tantrum could change that in a heartbeat. It's likely the same in many other fields of endeavor.