Minister Falkov mistakenly “awarded” the Nobel Prize to two Russian scientists

In his congratulatory speech for Science Day, he missed the mark on awards

I am far from being the Minister of Science, but I know the names of Nobel laureates; there are not many of them. Unfortunately, Valery Falkov, who occupies such a high position, has demonstrated his detachment from the sphere he controls. Instead of remembering every Russian Nobel laureate in his congratulatory speech for Science Day, including Pavlov, Mechnikov, Kapitsa, Landau, Basov, Alferov, Ginzburg…, he correctly named only the chemist Nikolai Semyonov and the economist Leonid Kontorovich, and then for some reason “presented” the Nobel Prize to those who did not receive it: physiologist Ivan Sechenov and again chemist, beekeeper Alexander Mikhailovich Butlerov (on video: from 1.25). No, none of us are certainly against additional awards to our scientists… Ivan Mikhailovich Sechenov made a great contribution to the study of the physiology of the central nervous system, thanks to him psychology began to be considered a science. It is to his works that we owe the fact that we have an 8-hour working day (in fact, Sechenov considered 6 hours a day the most optimal for work, 8 is the maximum).

Chemist Alexander Mikhailovich Butlerov, the author of the theory of the chemical structure of matter, could also qualify for a high prize… But we are talking about science, where everything must be reliable.

Of course, everything can be blamed on the illiterate assistants who wrote the text for the minister, but unacceptable mistakes still had to hurt the hearing of the relevant official.

A video of the speech “announcing” the new Nobel laureates appeared on the Ministry’s telegram channel on the holiday. The minister’s congratulations began to be reposted on university websites across the country. The mistake, oddly enough, was noticed only the next day, and the scandalous video on the TG channel was re-recorded. The printed transcript of the minister’s speech was also cleaned up. But in this regard, a new question has arisen: where did the real Nobel laureate Leonid Kontorovich disappear from the video and printed version of the corrected congratulations… Yes, it was bad luck for Leonid Vitalievich, who in 1975 took the Nobel Prize for his contribution to the theory of optimal resource allocation.. .

Now the piece about Nobel laureates looks like this: “The pride of Russia is our Nobel laureates. Among them is the outstanding chemist Nikolai Nikolaevich Semenov, whose name is associated with the creation of the theory of chemical chain reactions.”

Well, okay, let’s assume that Valery Falkov singled out specifically one Semenov only because, apparently, he was broadcasting from the scientist’s memorial office, which was opened at the Institute of Chemical Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Chernogolovka. Its visitors can see that it is thanks to the theory of chain reactions that he developed that humanity has nuclear power plants today.

By the way, until recently, Semenov was the only Russian chemist to receive the Nobel Prize, and so far (after editing on the official website of the Ministry of Education and Science) he remains so.