Why, after the AK-47 we have not managed to create a new domestic brand is the envy of the world?
One hundred years ago, was born Mikhail Kalashnikov, the inventor of the machine, which became one of the most famous Russian brands. If you don’t count politicians, one of Russian, who lived in the twentieth century, you know in the world except Gagarin and Kalashnikov? The legendary machine was created in 1947, but it is difficult to name another construction, which, even with modifications, still remain the best on the planet. Enthusiastic od to the address of a self-taught inventor folded enough. But the question remains, why already a few decades Russia can’t create a new domestic brand is the envy of the world?
A Kalashnikov rifle is in the armies of 55 countries. All at the hands of not less than one hundred million different modifications of AK, which are made often without a license, artisanal. The Kalashnikov gun is depicted on state flags of Mozambique and cook Islands as well as on the arms of Zimbabwe and East Timor. We can say, established on the planet, the cult of the Kalashnikov. But never the designer did not Express any shadow of joy on this occasion. He was absolutely alien to vanity, he overcame quite different thoughts about the spread of his arms.
Died Mikhail Kalashnikov in 2013. Soon became aware of the designer letter to Patriarch Kirill, written five months before his death: “My heartache unbearable same insoluble question: if my rifle deprive people of life, therefore, I, Mikhailo Kalashnikov, 93 years old, son of a peasant, Christian and Orthodox by faith, responsible for the death of people, let even an enemy? Good and evil live side by side, fighting and, most terrible, accept each other in the hearts of people — that’s what I came at the end of his earthly life. It turns out some perpetual motion I wanted to invent in my younger years.”
Scientist it is easy to calm the soul a convenient excuse, saying you elegantly solve a very complicated problem, and the responsibility for the use of weapons lies on the conscience of politicians. Responsibility of the scientist for his creation — for our age, the key theme that is not abstract, as was the case with Frankenstein and his monster. In recent decades, traditional threats added genetic manipulation and bioengineering. Many scientists prefer not to shake their nerves and consider a scientific exercise is valuable in itself absolute.
In a philosophical novel by Kurt Vonnegut “cat’s Cradle” Dr. Felix Hoenikker created a new weapon, “ice-nine”, which is able to destroy life on Earth. However, the threat to mankind it is not occupied, and he moved on to the next interesting problem — how to reduce spine turtles in the retraction of the head under the carapace. The life of a scientist — a skewer on which are strung the puzzles, and how else you will use the skewer and kindled a fire under it, it is not.
Could be mistaken, but I think that the morality of the scientist and his scientific genius, a dependent variable. Conversely, an immoral scientist is usually fruitless in his research. You can find many explanations of this pattern, one of them is that real science is the highest form of spiritual work, the conversation of man with God. It is no coincidence Peter Kapitsa was the moral standard of a terrible era. There are many examples where the Creator of the weapons were horrified at his creation and was not looking for duty thrilling calm, and committed acts that talk about moral clarity.
The inventor of dynamite, Alfred Nobel, having read a mistaken obituary about his death, saying “death monsters”, established a prize for achievements that have benefited mankind. The father of the atomic bomb, Robert Oppenheimer after Hiroshima and Nagasaki became an opponent of nuclear race, lost his work permit and there is a version, had contacts with Soviet intelligence.
After the test of Soviet nuclear bomb Igor Kurchatov said, “It is a monstrous sight! We cannot allow these weapons have begun to use”. In 1956 Kurchatov, constructing the first nuclear power plant, invited all Nations to join in a peaceful program of nuclear fusion and said the remarkable words: “the Atom must be a worker, not a soldier”. Andrei Sakharov after h-bomb tests was so shocked that he came to the new world, eventually became the most famous Soviet dissident and lost all the awards.
A letter of repentance Kalashnikov — from the same series. Old designer was not convinced that the creation of the machine in an era when not even the dust settled from the battles of World war II, may serve as an indulgence at all times. In the end, the Palestinians who killed Israeli athletes at the Olympics in Munich were Kalashnikovs. Many of the militants and terrorists too. The death of Russian soldiers from the machine in hot spots was no exception.
In Russia today, many powerful corporations that receive generous funding: RUSNANO, the Russian space Agency, the Kurchatov centre. About any breakthroughs that are made these overfed monsters, society is not known. But we know about the fabulous embezzlement, enormous appetites, and the bragging rights leaders.
I think, Kapitsa, Kurchatov and Sakharov would now outcasts in the Russian science. After all, the conscientiousness, the modesty, the feeling of great responsibility for their work and its implications, a concept infinitely far away to its current leaders. And here, so I think the futility of their work. Although we know how they become skilled in presenting their non-existent achievements.
This week, there was a General meeting of the Russian Academy of Sciences. A letter of repentance Kalashnikov useful to read from the podium instead of on-duty report with no visible success. The message designer is a mirror that is useful to look at each scholar, because in it you can see your own portrait.
The leaders of the Russian science of living large, though she stands with an outstretched hand. But Kalashnikov lived in a modest apartment on the third floor with no lift. Only now his name is known all over the world, but none of the academics sitting at the General meeting, do not know even citizens. Empty space.
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