Legendary Russian scientist, country’s longest-running TV host, dies
Sergey Kapitsa, a versatile Russian researcher known for his record-breaking tenure as host of a popular TV show about science and future, died in Moscow on Tuesday at age of 84.
Kapitsa was born in Cambridge, UK, in 1928 to Nobel Award-winning physicist Pyotr Kapitsa.Sergey Kapitsa's scientific work focused on supersonic aerodynamics, earth magnetism, applied electrodynamics and elementary particle physics. In his later years he studied demographics and globalization, developing mathematical models charting the growth of the world’s population.He is better known, however, for his efforts to make science a part of pop-culture. In 1973, he hosted a TV show ‘Evident, but Incredible,’ eventually becoming Russia's longest-running television host.Kapitsa organized the publication of the Russian version of the Scientific American magazine in 1983. He served as Editor-in-Cheif of the magazine for the rest of his life. He was also a pioneer of underwater filming in Russia, and an enthusiastic diver.Kapitsa was a vocal advocate of world peace and nuclear disarmament. He made a presentation before the US Senate in 1983 on the possibility that a nuclear war between the US and Soviet Union would result in a nuclear winter.The man's work as a scientist and public figure was marked by a number of awards, both in Russia and internationally.
