They say that the time of universal geniuses is over. It is believed that for at least the last 100 years in science, philosophy and art, narrow specialists have ruled the ball - each in his own field of knowledge or cultural activity. But is it really so?
Exactly 120 years ago, in 1897, one person was born in Grodno province in Russia, who later became a famous scientist, philosopher, inventor, poet and artist. His name is Alexander Leonidovich Chizhevsky.
From chandelier to cosmobiology
And, the reader will say, Chizhevsky … Well, we know. The Chizhevsky chandelier is a very healthy device. Let it not be a panacea for all diseases, as it is sometimes advertised by unscrupulous distributors, but for those suffering from bronchial asthma, bronchitis and other diseases of the respiratory tract, the thing can be said to be irreplaceable.
But not everyone remembers that world fame (and together with it envy and persecution from colleagues and even some academicians) brought Chizhevsky not a chandelier, but the creation of new directions in the study of space and its influence on the life of terrestrial organisms, including humans., - cosmobiology and heliobiology.
V. I. was interested in his ideas about the influence of solar activity on biological and even sociological processes. Lenin. They were largely shared and supported by K. E. Tsiolkovsky, V. I. Vernadsky, V. M. Bekhterev and many others. In 1939 Chizhevsky was nominated for the Nobel Prize, but instead of world fame he was removed from all his posts, repressed and … However, first things first.
The lot of the Russian poet is dark
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In his youth, Alexander Chizhevsky could seem like anyone around him, but not a scientist-physicist. Foreign languages - English, French, German, Italian, which he mastered perfectly, painting, outstanding abilities for which manifested itself already at the age of seven, music, history, literature, architecture - this is not a complete list of Alexander's interests until 1916, when at the age of 19, the young man volunteered for the front.
For the battles in Galicia, Chizhevsky received a high award - the St. George (soldier's) cross, IV degree. At the beginning of 1917, he was demobilized due to his injury and immediately returned to studies at the Moscow Archaeological Institute. In the next two years, Aleksandr Leonidovich defended three dissertations on completely different topics: "Russian Lyrics of the 18th Century", "The Evolution of Physical and Mathematical Sciences in the Ancient World" and "Investigation of the Periodicity of the World Historical Process". The latter earned him a doctorate in history at Moscow University, which no one had ever received at the age of 21.
Academic Council in Durov's Corner. In the center A. L. Chizhevsky
It was in this work that the provisions of the theory of heliotaraxia (from "helios" - "the sun" and "taraxio" - "I disturb") were first expounded. The essence of this theory is that the Sun affects not only the biorhythms of human organisms, but also the social behavior of people. In other words, major social upheavals of mankind (wars, revolutions, etc.) are directly related to the energetic activity of the Sun.
The next few years, Chizhevsky, being an employee of the Institute of Biophysics of the USSR People's Commissariat of Health, devoted to research on the effects of negatively ionized air (aeroionization) on human and animal health. At the same time, he invented a chandelier - a device that allows you to saturate the air in rooms with useful negative oxygen ions, neutralize harmful positive ions and cleanse the air from dust and microorganisms.
Chizhevsky the inventor dreamed of those times when "air ionization in our country will become as widespread as electrification … which will lead to health preservation, protection from a number of infections and increase the longevity of huge masses of people." Alas, this has remained a dream.
Chizhevsky the artist painted pictures (mostly landscapes) and sold them in order to get money to continue experiments on air ionization.
Chizhevsky the poet wrote poetry (during his lifetime, only two collections were published, the rest - many years after his death). Meanwhile, his poetic gift was highly appreciated by the then People's Commissar of Education A. V. Lunacharsky, thanks to which Chizhevsky received the position of instructor of the literary department of the People's Commissariat for Education.
A. L. Chizhevsky for a scientific experiment
Chizhevsky is a scientist, thanks to close friendship with K. E. Tsiolkovsky, not only continued practical work on the introduction of aeroionization, but also developed further areas of space exploration. Largely thanks to his work "Exploration of World Spaces by Reactive Devices", the world priority of K. E. Tsiolkovsky in the field of designing space rockets.
Chizhevsky's experiments on aeroionization, which he finally got the opportunity to carry out in the laboratory of zoopsychology of the Main Science of the People's Commissariat for Education, brought him world renown as biophysics. Hundreds of letters with offers to join one or another scientific society, become an honorary academician of a scientific institute, or simply sell a patent for a chandelier and other inventions came to Tverskoy Boulevard in Moscow, where Alexander Leonidovich lived in the late 1930s.
He resolutely refused such proposals, saying that all his inventions and scientific works "are at the complete disposal of the USSR Government."
But could these refusals save him from the fate already prepared for him by envious people and enemies? The last straw for them was, apparently, the 1st International Congress on Biophysics and Biocosmology held in New York in September 1939. Its participants proposed to nominate A. L. Chizhevsky for the Nobel Prize in Physics and unanimously declared him "Leonardo da Vinci of the XX century."
Meanwhile, in his homeland, Chizhevsky was accused of scientific dishonesty and falsification of the results of experiments. The publication and distribution of his work was prohibited. In 1941, he was sentenced under Article 58 ("Counter-revolutionary crimes") to eight years in the camps, which he served first in the Northern Urals, then in the Moscow region and, finally, in Kazakhstan (Karlag).
Chizhevsky chandelier - various options
Are we all "children of the sun"?
Chizhevsky himself later wrote that it was precisely the diversity of scientific, historical and cultural interests that helped him survive in the inhumanly difficult conditions of the camps. He used all his free time to draw (whatever he had to do and what he had to do), to write poetry, to think about the problems of biophysics and cosmobiology.
But even then, in the camps, and after liberation, and during his life in Karaganda, and after partial rehabilitation (as in mockery - a year and a half before his death) and returning to Moscow, the most important, cherished idea and dream of the scientist remained heliotaraxia.
“People and all creatures on earth are truly children of the Sun,” wrote Chizhevsky. - They are the creation of a complex world process, which has its own history, in which our Sun occupies not an accidental, but a natural place along with other generators of cosmic forces …"
The most remarkable thing about Chizhevsky's theory is that he connected mathematics, physics and astronomy to the analysis of historical regularities. In fact, it was a bold and original attempt to create a completely new area of human knowledge, relying on modern mathematical apparatus, physical laws and economic and political factors in the development of society.
Periodic increase in solar activity, the scientist believed, "transforms the potential nervous energy of entire groups of people into kinetic energy, irrepressibly and violently requiring release in movement and action."
An increase in solar activity here meant an increase in the number of sunspots. Academician Bekhterev, an ardent supporter of Chizhevsky's theory, directly linked a significant increase in the number of spots with the dates of the largest social upheavals - 1830, 1848, 1870, 1905, 1917. He even considered the possibility of creating a "political horoscope" based on forecasts of solar activity.
If we recall the relatively recent events that took place in our country, then we will find another confirmation of Chizhevsky's theory. During the period 1986-1989, the political activity associated with perestroika steadily increased along with the increase in solar activity. And together with it, it reached its maximum in 1990-1991 - the economic and political crisis, the collapse of Gorbachev, the State Emergency Committee, the formation of the CIS …
One might get the impression that the Sun "controls" the social life of people. But this, of course, is not the case. The sun only awakens the dormant or wasted energy of large human masses. And where to direct it - to wars and destruction or peaceful creative labor, scientific and other creativity, the development of new spaces - people themselves decide.
Olga STROGOVA, "Secrets of the XX century" magazine, 2017