Nikolai Kardashev | |
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Николай Кардашёв | |
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| Born | (1932-04-25)25 April 1932 Moscow,Russian SFSR, Soviet Union |
| Died | 3 August 2019(2019-08-03) (aged 87) Moscow, Russia |
| Known for | Kardashev scale |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Astrophysics |
| Doctoral advisor | Iosif Shklovsky |
Nikolai Semyonovich Kardashev (Russian:Никола́й Семёнович Кардашёв,romanized: Nikolay Semyonovich Kardashyov,IPA:[nʲɪkɐˈlajsʲɪˈmʲɵnəvʲɪtɕkərdɐˈʂof]; April 25, 1932 – August 3, 2019)[1] was a Soviet and Russianastrophysicist best known for theKardashev scale,[2] which measures a civilization's status in technological evolution based on the amount of energy it is capable of harnessing and using. He was also the deputy director of theAstro Space Center of theLebedev Physical Institute of theRussian Academy of Sciences.
He was born in Moscow to a family of professional revolutionaries involved with theBolshevik Party. His parents were Semyon Karlovich Brike and Nina Nikolaevna Kardasheva; his father was an important member of the party, and his mother joined as well before theOctober Revolution in 1917. Both of his parents were arrested during theGreat Purge of 1937 and 1938. His father was ultimately shot and his mother was assigned to labor camps and would not be released for many years.[3] Due to his parents’ absence, he was sent to an orphanage from which he was then taken by his mother's sister after a great deal of effort.[4] His aunt then died duringWorld War II when he was 16 years old and he then had to live on his own in a large communal flat.[4] His mother was released in 1956, by which time Nikolai had completed university.[3]
He attendedMoscow State University in the astronomy division of theFaculty of Mechanics and Mathematics. He concentrated his studies based on his interest inradio astronomy, a topic that was new and developing at the time.[3] After graduating in 1955, he worked at theSternberg Astronomical Institute and received hisdoctorate in physical and mathematical sciences in 1962.[5]
He joined the Space Research Institute (IKI) of theUSSR Academy of Sciences in 1967. He became deputy director of IKI in 1977. During the dissolution of the USSR, Nikolai became the director of the Astro Space Center of the Lebedev Physical Institute. In 1978, Nikolai started a space satellite project known asRadioAstron. The program endured for more than 30 years and a space satellite named Spektr-R was finally launched in 2011. The mission RadioAstron has become important for modern observationalastrophysics.[6]
In 1964, at a conference inSoviet Armenia, he presented a paper titled "Передача информации внеземными цивилизациями" ("Transmission of Information by Extraterrestrial Civilizations"). The paper proposed what would become known as theKardashev scale, the idea of measuring a civilization's technological advancement based on the amount of energy it is able to use, with a civilization that can use all the energy of a planet defined as Type I (the other Types, II and III, were defined as civilizations that can use all the energy of a star and a galaxy, respectively).[6] He also proposedVery Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI), which replaced conventional radio transmission lines withmagnetic tape recordings; it was demonstrated in 1967.[6]
He may have predicted the existence ofpulsars before they were actually discovered, in his paper ‘Transmission of Information by Extraterrestrial Civilizations'.[3]
He was an active participant of theInternational Astronomical Union, for which he was: Vice-president of Executive Committee (1997–2003), vice-president of Commission 51 Bio-Astronomy (1982–1991), Organizing Committee Member of Commission 40 Radio Astronomy (1967–1985), Member of Division B Facilities, Technologies and Data Science (2019), Member of Division F Planetary Systems and Astrobiology (2019), Member of Commission 40 Radio Astronomy (2015), Member of Commission 51 Bio-Astronomy (2015), Member of Division III Planetary Systems Sciences (2012), Member of Division X Radio Astronomy (2012), and Member of Special Nominating Committee (2000–2003).[7]
He was a member of theUSSR Academy of Sciences, Division of General Physics and Astronomy: first as a corresponding (associate) member (12 December 1976), then as a Full Member (21 March 1994), and served as director of the Russian Academy of Sciences Council on Astronomy from 1999 until his death.[8]
He was a participant of theCommittee on Space Research as vice president from 1982 to 1986.[6]
In 1980 he shared the USSR's State Prize for the development and experiments with the orbital radio telescope KRT-10,[9] and in 1988 he shared the USSR's State Prize for the discovery of Radio Recombination Lines.[6] In 2012, Nikolai received the Grote Reber Gold Medal for innovative lifetime contributions to radio astronomy.[6]
His first association with the movie industry was in 1981. He was asked to be a consultant on the set ofPetlya Oriona, a Russian television seriesdocumentary. He played himself in a TV show episode on the documentary seriesSpace's Deepest Secrets in 2018 as well as playing himself in a TV show episode on the documentary seriesHorizon in 2018.[10]
Kardashev died on August 3, 2019, at the age of 87.[4]
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