Nikolai Semyonovich Kardashev ( rus, Никола́й Семёнович Кардашёв, p=nʲɪkɐˈlaj sʲɪˈmʲɵnəvʲɪtɕ kərdɐˈʂof; 25 April 1932 – 3 August 2019) was a

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

and

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...

n astrophysicist, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, and the deputy director of the Astro Space Center of PN

Lebedev Physical Institute The Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (LPI RAS or just LPI) (in russian: Физи́ческий институ́т имени П.Н.Ле́бедева Российской академии наук (ФИАН)), situated ...

of the

Russian Academy of Sciences The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS; russian: Росси́йская акаде́мия нау́к (РАН) ''Rossíyskaya akadémiya naúk'') consists of the national academy of Russia; a network of scientific research institutes from across t ...

in Moscow.

Early life

He was born in Moscow to a family of professional revolutionaries involved with the

Bolshevik Party " Hymn of the Bolshevik Party" , headquarters = 4 Staraya Square, Moscow , general_secretary = Vladimir Lenin (first)Mikhail Gorbachev (last) , founded = , banned = , founder = Vladimir Lenin , newspaper ...

. 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 the

October Revolution The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key mom ...

in 1917. Both of his parents were arrested during the

Great Purge The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Yezhov'), was Soviet General Secreta ...

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. 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. His aunt then died during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

when he was 16 years old and he then had to live on his own in a large communal flat. His mother was released in 1956, by which time Nikolai had completed university.

Education

He attended

Moscow State University M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU; russian: Московский государственный университет имени М. В. Ломоносова) is a public research university in Moscow, Russia and the most prestigious ...

(Russian abbreviation MGU) in the Astronomy division of the Mechanics and Mathematics Department. Here he concentrated his studies/interests in

radio astronomy Radio astronomy is a subfield of astronomy that studies celestial objects at radio frequencies. The first detection of radio waves from an astronomical object was in 1933, when Karl Jansky at Bell Telephone Laboratories reported radiation comin ...

, a topic which was new and developing.

Career

He joined the Space Research Institute (IKI) of the

USSR Academy of Sciences The Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union was the highest scientific institution of the Soviet Union from 1925 to 1991, uniting the country's leading scientists, subordinated directly to the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union (until 1946 ...

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 project known as the Space VLBI mission RadioAstron. This mission endured for more than 30 years and a spacecraft was finally launched in 2011. The RadioAstron mission has become important to modern observational

astrophysics Astrophysics is a science that employs the methods and principles of physics and chemistry in the study of astronomical objects and phenomena. As one of the founders of the discipline said, Astrophysics "seeks to ascertain the nature of the h ...

. He invented the

Kardashev scale The Kardashev scale ( Russian: Шкала Кардашева, ''Shkala Kardasheva'') is a method of measuring a civilization's level of technological advancement based on the amount of energy it is able to use. The measure was proposed by S ...

, a theoretical method of measuring a civilization's degree of technological advancement based on the amount of energy it is able to use, in 1964. He also proposed

Very Long Baseline Interferometry Very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI) is a type of astronomical interferometry used in radio astronomy. In VLBI a signal from an astronomical radio source, such as a quasar, is collected at multiple radio telescopes on Earth or in space. T ...

(VLBI), which replaced conventional radio transmission lines with

magnetic tape Magnetic tape is a medium for magnetic storage made of a thin, magnetizable coating on a long, narrow strip of plastic film. It was developed in Germany in 1928, based on the earlier magnetic wire recording from Denmark. Devices that use magnet ...

recordings; it was demonstrated in 1967. He may have predicted the existence of

pulsar A pulsar (from ''pulsating radio source'') is a highly magnetized rotating neutron star that emits beams of electromagnetic radiation out of its magnetic poles. This radiation can be observed only when a beam of emission is pointing toward Ea ...

s before they were actually discovered, in his paper ‘Transmission of Information by Extraterrestrial Civilizations'.

Organizations

He was an active participant of the

International Astronomical Union The International Astronomical Union (IAU; french: link=yes, Union astronomique internationale, UAI) is a nongovernmental organisation with the objective of advancing astronomy in all aspects, including promoting astronomical research, outreac ...

where 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). He was a member of the

'', 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 chair of the Russian Academy of Sciences Council on Astronomy from 1999 until his death. He was a participant of the

Committee on Space Research The Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) was established on October 3, 1958 by the International Council for Scientific Unions (ICSU). Among COSPAR's objectives are the promotion of scientific research in space on an international level, wi ...

as Vice President from 1982-1986.

Awards and honors

In 1980 he shared the USSR's State Prize for the development and experiments with the orbital radio telescope KRT-10, and in 1988 he shared the USSR's State Prize for the discovery of Radio Recombination Lines. In 2012, Nikolai received the Grote Reber Gold Medal for innovative lifetime contributions to radio astronomy.

Film career

His first association with the movie industry was in 1981. He was asked to be a consultant on the set of ''Petlya Oriona'', a Russian television series documentary. He played himself in a TV show episode on the documentary series ''

Space's Deepest Secrets ''Space's Deepest Secrets'' is a documentary science television series narrated by David O'Brien. Aired by the Science Channel, it premiered on April 26, 2016. According to the Science Channel, "''Space's Deepest Secrets'' shares the stories of ...

'' in 2018 as well as playing himself in a TV show episode on the documentary series ''

Horizon The horizon is the apparent line that separates the surface of a celestial body from its sky when viewed from the perspective of an observer on or near the surface of the relevant body. This line divides all viewing directions based on whether i ...

'' in 2018.

Death

Kardashev died on 3 August 2019 at the age of 87.

Publications

* * 1963 - "Candidate of Science" dissertation, later promoted to higher level of doctoral thesis. * 1964 - “Transmission of Information by Extraterrestrial Civilizations” which presented a classification of civilizations based on their degree of power consumption spanning 20 orders of magnitude, which became known as the Kardashev Scale.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kardashev, Nikolai Semenovich 1932 births 2019 deaths 20th-century Russian astronomers Corresponding Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences Full Members of the Russian Academy of Sciences Members of Academia Europaea Moscow State University alumni Demidov Prize laureates Recipients of the Order of Honour (Russia) Recipients of the USSR State Prize Radio astronomers Russian astrophysicists Russian inventors Soviet astronomers Soviet astrophysicists Interstellar messages Search for extraterrestrial intelligence Burials in Troyekurovskoye Cemetery 21st-century Russian astronomers