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Their names are in the history of the Institute
Nikolay Govorun is a phenomenon in science
On 18 March, on the birthday of Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences Nikolay N.Govorun, a memorial seminar dedicated to the 95th anniversary of the birth of the outstanding scientist was held at the Laboratory of Information Technologies.
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| MLIT Director Sergey Shmatov |
The conference hall of MLIT was attended by JINR Vice-Directors, Laboratory Directors, MLIT staff, colleagues of N.N.Govorun from other scientific centres and relatives.
"Today is a truly significant day. We have gathered in this hall to celebrate a significant date in the life of our laboratory, the Institute and the whole Russian and Soviet science - the 95th anniversary of the birth of Nikolay Govorun," MLIT Director Sergey Shmatov opened the seminar.
"He was a great scientist and a remarkable person that lived a short but bright life," JINR Vice-Director Vladimir Kekelidze began his opening remarks. "In LCTA, founded by Order No.149 of JINR Director N.N.Bogolyubov, Nikolay Govorun held the leading role of the Deputy Director for Science in tandem with the Laboratory Director M.G.Meshcheryakov. BESM-6 that had obtained a Fortran translator under him in 1969, became the basic facility of the entire Soviet space. Afterwards, cooperation with CERN started, research on the Serpukhov accelerator and the era of electron experiments was born and Nikolay Govorun's role in this process can hardly be overestimated. Fortran and BESM-6 opened colossal opportunities. N.N.Govorun could have done much more but the trace that he left is significant. Today, the supercomputer "Govorun" operates at JINR and the Data Processing Centre of the Federal Tax Service of the Russian Federation is on Nikolay Govorun Street in Dubna - the memory of him lives on in great deeds. I wish the Laboratory prosperity and great success in developing the impetus that Nikolay Govorun laid in its foundation."
"The whole scientific programme of MLIT is permeated with the spirit and is based on the brilliant ideas of Nikolay Govorun. He was a man that was ahead of his time," S.V.Shmatov emphasized. "The vector set by N.N.Govorun determined the area of implementation of scientific experiments at large physical facilities for many years. I am sure that all of us will make maximum efforts to develop and multiply the scientific heritage that he left us."
The report of MLIT Scientific Leader Vladimir Korenkov was dedicated to the role of Nikolay Govorun in the development of LCTA-MLIT. "It is both easy and difficult to speak about him. He was an outstanding specialist, organizer, result-oriented, sociable, friendly person," Vladimir Korenkov began his speech. "Nikolay Govorun stood at the origin of computer application in experimental data processing and automation of scientific research". Vladimir Korenkov said that even before the foundation of LCTA, N.N.Govorun together with his mathematical colleagues had implemented venture in the JINR Computing Centre. In 1962, the first real step towards the construction of a multi-machine complex was made, including the level of computers for accumulation and preliminary processing of data from the physical experiment equipment in FLNP, as well as a communication channel with the "Minsk-2" and "M-20" computers of the JINR CC. Also, the venture was the installation with filmless spark chambers at the JINR synchrophasotron to carry out the first in the USSR and one of the first in the world experiments on line with a computer under the supervision of I.A.Golutvin and N.N.Govorun. In 1965, during a business trip to CERN, Govorun learnt about the computer centre, as well as about libraries and application packages in the Fortran language that were widely used to process experimental data. In the USSR during these years, the ALGOL programming language was widely developed, so Govorun's proposal to develop software in the Fortran language was not supported.
MLIT Scientific Leader Vladimir Korenkov
In 1966, the Laboratory of Computing Technology and Automation (LCTA) was established at JINR, with M.G.Meshcheryakov as Director and N.N.Govorun as Deputy Director. The BESM-6 computer, the most high-performance computer in Europe appeared, yet it was not equipped with advanced programming systems. Afterwards, N.N.Govorun gathered a team of specialists from different institutes to develop the first in the USSR Fortran language translator for BESM-6 computer, adaptation of libraries and application software packages for experimental data processing. The result of this work was the popular and widespread Dubna monitor system. The next step was the development of the Dubna operating system for BESM-6 that made JINR famous.
In 1968-1972, the Central Computing Complex - the JINR CCC was established in LCTA. In addition to BESM-6, an American computer CDC-6500 that was popular at CERN and the capabilities of which N.N.Govorun learnt about during his business trip to Geneva, was purchased. A three-level computer environment was developed with the CCC in LCTA, with measurement-computer complexes in JINR laboratories and small computers on line with physical facilities. This step brought the investigations of physicists to a qualitatively new level.
Nikolay Govorun focused on the development of software for experimental data processing, of programme packages and laid the foundation for cooperation with CERN in this field. He is an organizer of scientific research automation and headed a section in the Council for Automation of Scientific Research of the USSR Academy of Sciences. "On his initiative, development of the JINR terminal local network that was named JINET started. The software of this network was completely established at JINR," V.V.Korenkov recalled. "The issue of access of users from the terminal to different machines of the CCC was met. For this purpose, the network architecture was developed, the network equipment and multiplexers were connected to terminals and basic computers and most importantly, the software that addresses these difficult tasks was developed".
Nikolay Govorun became a winner of the Prize of the USSR Council of Ministers and was honored with awards of the JINR Member States. The number of his students is great, since in addition to formal scientific supervision of candidate and doctoral theses, he actually gave professional advice on the papers supervised by other supervisors. Among his famous students are V.P.Shirikov, I.N.Silin, I.M.Ivanchenko and the employers from the Armenian and Lithuanian SSRs, Czechoslovakia and Vietnam.
"Nikolay Govorun passed away very early in life at the very height of his creative vigor, interesting ideas and grandiose plans that he failed to realize and our task became the implementation of these testaments.
We do our best to implement everything that was ingrained by Nikolay Govorun. Today, our laboratory develops a scientific IT-ecosystem that unites many components, including networks and information security, distributed and parallel computing, data warehouses, current techniques of data processing and analysis, and more. The core of this scientific IT ecosystem is the Multifunctional Information and Computing Complex - MICC. And the Govorun supercomputer, launched in 2018, has become the heart of the MICC. Today, this supercomputer is in demand in all laboratories of the Institute and in the Member States, the number of its users increases all the time", - the speaker continued, talking about the unique scientific and technological capabilities of the Laboratory, provided to users around the world.
The memory of Nikolay Govorun is kept alive in the Institute and in the city: a memorial plaque is placed on the Laboratory building, an alley bears his name, MLIT has an auditorium named after Govorun and a street named after him in the right-bank part of the SEZ, the Govorun supercomputer operates and the Govorun scholarship is awarded annually to the best young specialists of the Laboratory.
Nikolay Govorun was the initiator and the main driving force behind many projects. He quickly made any decisions, charged everyone around with his energy and optimism. He had his own supercomputer in his head," Vladimir Korenkov summarized.
"Nikolay Govorun is a phenomenon in our science," Scientific Leader of the M.V.Keldysh Institute of Applied Mathematics, the friend and associate of N.N.Govorun B.N.Chetverushkin said. "I had been in contact with him since the 1970s and he often came to our Institute. Listening to his speeches, I was amazed not by his knowledge in specific fields but by how broadly educated he was, by his understanding of physical tasks. It made him very different from other programmers. Everyone always listened to him with great interest and Academicians A.N.Tikhonov and A.A.Samarsky treated him with great sympathy. The more time passes, the clearer his role in science becomes. Back in the 1960s, the processing of data from bubble chambers started. It was essentially Big Data work and the beginnings of artificial intelligence. I often come to Dubna and see how he is treated by his former employers because of his human qualities. I was struck by how at his funeral people mourned deeply, as if for a loved one.
His life was very short, he would have had a lot more time, yet most importantly, he laid the impetus for development in LCTA and the country and we will develop what he started 50 years ago.
Each speaker, telling the participants of the seminar about his acquaintance with N.N.Govorun or his role in his destiny, recalled his character traits.
"I met him in 1948," G.A.Ososkov said. "It happened in the MSU reading room, not yet on Lenin Hills. We both entered the university without the right to a dormitory and after the reading room closed, we wandered around Moscow, telling each other about the war years, evacuation. I studied at Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics, he - at Faculty of Physics. I became interested in science only in graduate school, after which I was assigned to a military unit for five years. It turned out that Nikolay Nikolaevich remembered about me, told E.P.Zhidkov that took me to Dubna. Nikolay Nikolaevich was a fantastic person. Before my eyes, in one day he wrote a programme in machine codes that restored the trajectories of particles. It amazed me so much that I have been engaged in it for 63 years. He had an amazing gift for attracting people to him, for explaining to them easily and simply what needed to be done. He was able to sow so many scientific seeds during his lifetime that the laboratory has been alive and growing for many years."
"He was a kind, bright, responsive person," A.A.Karlov (Geneva) that like Nikolay Govorun, worked as LCTA Deputy Director to M.G.Meshcheryakov recalled. "There was some kind of magnet in him that attracted talented people. Nikolay Nikolaevich was a statesman, all the issues he met for the Institute were nationwide. He played a huge role in the fates of those people who he worked with. I always remember him with great warmth."
"He convinced me to start teaching programming to children, he said: let's start an experiment," N.Y.Shirikova shared her memories. "He had a motto: everything is simple! Everyone can do it! I had six students, afterwards, my colleagues helped me and wonderful teachers grew up. And Nikolay Nikolaevich's idea that every child in Dubna should be able to programme began to materialize."
"I did not catch Nikolay Nikolaevich, but the whole LRB was involved in the Govoruns' circle," Govorun's pupil I.V.Koshlan (LRB) said. "The love of Nikolay Nikolaevich's wife Raisa Dmitrievna for him was always felt, his name sounded constantly. We adopted their attitude to family as a great value."
Р.L.Smelyansky (Head of the Department of Computer Systems Automation, Faculty of DMC of MSU) recalled the patriarch of Soviet programming L.N.Korolev that headed the department for many years and his deep impressions of Korolev's visits to V.P.Shirikov, a colleague of N.N.Govorun at LCTA. N.N.Govorun and L.N.Korolev gave a lot of effort to make programming a science.
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| T.N.Vabishchevich |
Nikolay Govorun's daughter Tatiana Nikolaevna and her husband Pavel Vabishchevich, cousin Olga (Alchevsk, LNR) warmly remembered about him, vivid episodes of family life and thanked everyone for the memory.
The book-album "Nikolay Govorun. Portrait on the background of the era", published for the anniversary, was presented by the project leader M.A.Lukichev. He emphasized that the book appeared thanks to the initiative and great help from the Laboratory and especially, T.A.Strizh and V.V.Korenkov. "I have made a dozen and a half books about JINR physicists but Nikolay Govorun is a man of a different nature," M.A.Lukichov stated. "It was interesting for me to learn about his fate. My main feelings are that N.N.Govorun laid the foundation for all future achievements of the USSR and the world in the field of research automation.
Olga TARANTINA,
photo by Igor LAPENKO