That's lovely writing about physics, people, and life in the Soviet times.
> We had some wild parties in Chernogolovka, with rivers of vodka, lots of dances, flirtation, sometimes ending with fistfights. We were young, talented, brazen, careless and free. I have never been so free in my life since then. When I came into the Big Real World where I happily live now I realized that one cannot live without responsibilities, but we had almost no responsibilities back then, in the golden 70-ties. Money meant very little, nobody had any money by modern standards, but all the good things of life were free back then, or so it seemed to us.
But is the difference mostly in the society, or in their lost youth? I reckon it's mostly in the second, as my parents didn't do rivers of schnapps (not a vodka land there) or fistfights at the times when I was doing them. Where I will agree though, is that my youth ran much different than my kid's (aka much wilder and that was quite common) but again, isn't this difference always showing between generations? Shortly put, aren't we witnessing more of the same history?
>Am I missing these crazy, happy, funny, exciting times? Sure I am, but they are gone to never come back.
Well, some aspects of that paradise are coming back - new law in Russia puts FSB back into the science curator position, and all the scientific contacts with foreigners, people/companies/organizations, must be approved by FSB.
what an amazing article packed with very useful physics insights. Need to follow up more on the last idea of the gaussian random force and the quantization of Newton's equations. Even the opening sentence had me try to remember some of my DE by expressing the rational faction via the technique of the variation of constants :) (have to admit that i felt too rusty...). Thank you for posting this!
lioeters|7 months ago
> We had some wild parties in Chernogolovka, with rivers of vodka, lots of dances, flirtation, sometimes ending with fistfights. We were young, talented, brazen, careless and free. I have never been so free in my life since then. When I came into the Big Real World where I happily live now I realized that one cannot live without responsibilities, but we had almost no responsibilities back then, in the golden 70-ties. Money meant very little, nobody had any money by modern standards, but all the good things of life were free back then, or so it seemed to us.
soco|7 months ago
trhway|7 months ago
Well, some aspects of that paradise are coming back - new law in Russia puts FSB back into the science curator position, and all the scientific contacts with foreigners, people/companies/organizations, must be approved by FSB.
wegwerf0815|7 months ago
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ramrunner0xff|7 months ago
rml|7 months ago
gnabgib|7 months ago