Academician Alexander Kuleshov latest articles of the year. Academician Kuleshov: “You need to learn fundamental things while you can learn. And what if you do not make an atomic bomb

Russian universities are in a difficult situation. In order to be visible on the world map of education and science, it is necessary to play by international rules. And they are not so easy to comply with in the current international situation. How can Russian universities successfully develop under sanctions? About this in the program "Hamburg Account" on the Public Television of Russiaasked the new rector of the Skolkovo Institute of Science and TechnologyAlexandra Kuleshova . We publish the edited transcript of the conversation.

Alexander Petrovich Kuleshov — a specialist in the field of information technology and mathematical modeling. From 2006 to 2015, he headed the Institute for Information Transmission Problems named after Kharkevich RAS and headed departments at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and the Higher School of Economics. In 2011 he was elected an academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences. In 2013, he became one of the initiators of the creation of the Commission for Public Control over the Reform of Science. In 2016, he headed the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology as a rector.

— Alexander Petrovich, this year Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree on your appointment as the Rector of Skoltech. There was a lot of joking about this appointment: they say, it happened as part of the general direction of import substitution. The American Edward Crowley, rector of Skoltech from MIT, was replaced with a proven person from the defense industry and director of an academic institute, that is, a trustworthy person in all respects. What does your appointment mean for a global university like Skoltech to focus on the international market?

- Generally speaking, this is a completely natural rotation. First, Crowley said a long time ago that there was a fixed term for which his appointment was calculated. Therefore, there are no surprises here, everything happened absolutely systematically, gradually. We have been transferring powers for several months. He is still a professor at the Space Center. That is, nothing dramatic happened for Skolkovo. Yes, there was one leader, there was another.

— That is, this does not mean any change in the vector of development of Skoltech?

— No, absolutely. And I can say that the idea itself was absolutely correct. I was sure of that before, and I still am. And there will be no revolutions. This is an evolutionary development.

- Good. Look, over the past two years, Skoltech has left a number of foreign employees, both researchers and administrators. These are several prominent figures at once. At the same time, it was understood that Skoltech was looking for employees and teachers in the international market. But for the last two years we have, firstly, serious inflation. This time. This affects wages. Secondly, the image of Russia in the international arena has changed. We have been sanctioned. And these factors - how do they affect the personnel policy of Skoltech?

— Yes, some employees left Skoltech. But nothing dramatic happened. Three people quit, but there were various reasons for that, ranging from the illness of the wife to, indeed, some fundamental issues. But generally speaking, my own calculation is based mainly on the return of the diaspora, that is, those people who have worked for 10-20 years in the best Western universities. In the early 1990s (perhaps you remember), there was such an anecdote, not ours, American: “What is an American university? This is the place where Russian professors teach Chinese and Indians.” And in a sense, it really was. Now this is no longer the case. Nevertheless, a very significant Russian diaspora exists abroad. And I see my task, first of all, in relying on this particular diaspora. From all points of view, this is much more efficient.

— How do you motivate people to go to teach at Skoltech? What are your arguments? How do you convince them - why do they need to work at Skoltech?

There is never any general motivation. All people are arranged differently, all have different circumstances. I know this very well, since I have been doing this for a very long time, I have been returning people to the Institute for Information Transmission Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences for 10 years. For example, there is such a trifle at first glance. If the children have gone to school and have already studied for three years, then it is useless to talk to a person. He can no longer bring the children here. They still speak Russian, but they write badly. This is a gigantic problem. Either you have to talk to someone who has no children or whose children have not yet gone to school, or already with someone whose children have scattered. These are just life circumstances.

- Is this your personnel experience?

- Of course. I just know for sure who you can talk to, what strings you need to pull. Yes, it's really a great personnel experience, it's true. For example, now we have a new Center for Advanced Study headed by Professor Igor Krichever, who was the dean of the Mathematics Department at Columbia University. This man is truly a star in the world of mathematical physics. He has his own ideas, which I just knew. Considerations may be strange s e, but really existing. He says: I need to wean my grandchildren in the 57th school, because there is no such school in America. Of course, the universities are wonderful, but there are no such schools that still remain in Moscow in America.<…>

- So you practice a point approach?

- I have a kind of network around the world: everyone knows about everyone.

- Good. And if we still talk about money, then the situation in scientific organizations is complicated now. Many scientific organizations had their budgets reduced, first once by 10% last year, and now this year again by 10%. This is very significant. What happens to money at Skoltech and, in this regard, what salaries do you offer on average in the market?

- You know, for many years the employees of Rolls-Royce wrote in the column "power": "Sufficient". I will answer exactly like this: enough. Our management did everything so that I could answer this question simply “enough”. Of course, our science is fantastically underfunded in comparison not only with Western science, but in comparison with almost any foreign science. This is the absolute truth. But with Skoltech, the main challenge for me is to show that investing in science is profitable. Obama once announced that for every dollar invested in the genome program, $140 came into the American economy. (How this is calculated, I don't know.) You see, Skolkovo's task is to prove that this is possible in Russia as well. And the problem is that if this doesn’t happen, if all this, God forbid, ends with another linden, then for the next 30 years it will be scorched earth, because everyone will remember: oh, yes, it already happened - everything, never again.

— Alexander Petrovich, how can this be shown if our Skoltech is a unique experiment? Still, in this situation, organizational, financial, and even psychological, perhaps only Skoltech is now. Previously, somewhere else 5-6 years ago, we had two universities - NES and HSE, which could afford to hire teachers and professors on the world market at world standards and at world salaries and prices. Then Skoltech appeared, and he, too, could afford it. But still, Skoltech has a very special structure, destiny and management.

— Understand, I worked at the Phystech and the Higher School of Economics. I understand well the general situation in the universities of both Moscow and Russia as a whole. And I can say that the opinion that our teaching staff has completely outlived its usefulness, that it has completely degenerated and is not capable of anything, is an absolute lie. Yes, a truly unique interdisciplinary small team has now been assembled at Skoltech - about 150 people in total. In terms of his qualifications, in terms of interdisciplinarity, he is truly unique for Russia. This is true. I know perfectly well that there are excellent professors at Moscow State University, Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, and so on.<…>It is very difficult to assemble such groups. And we have them from the very beginning.<…>

— You called multidisciplinarity one of Skoltech’s very serious competitive advantages: strong researchers can solve complex complex problems. What other strengths do you see at Skoltech? What are its unique competitive advantages in the educational market?

Oddly enough, it's English. English is the official language in Skolkovo. All internal correspondence is in English. Lectures are given in English. Seminars are conducted in English. This is extremely important. Do you know what's the problem? We have a task set by the presidential decree - to increase the level of publication activity. But we have a huge number of people simply do not know how to write articles in English. And you know: you can hire any of the best translators, but he will not translate a professional article for you. She will immediately go to the basket. It is necessary to increase the publication activity. But for what? For example, in old institutions, such as the Institute for Information Transmission Problems, which is closest to me, yes, the old ones teach the young there and everything goes naturally. There are no translators. Everyone writes in English themselves. There is oral teaching.<…>Scientists must travel, make their own connections, look for opportunities. No Internet can replace face-to-face communication. No amount of article reading is a substitute for immersion and collaboration with colleagues in other countries. It is an absolutely essential component of any scientific work today.

— Alexander Petrovich, a few years ago, very skeptical opinions were expressed in connection with Skoltech due to the fact that there were no full-fledged laboratories. After all, you cannot create them in an open field even in a year. What is the current situation with the laboratory facilities at Skoltech?

- First class. Simply first class. Today's laboratory base at Skoltech is simply first-class.

- In what directions?

- Photonics, materials, robotics - you can't list everything. Today, Skoltech has absolutely first-class scientific equipment. I know the leading universities of the world firsthand, and I have seen a lot. I know MIT very well, and Stanford, and USC, and French universities, and German universities. Believe me, we have a first-class laboratory facility today. We now have a different problem. We suffer from lack of space. We are currently renting premises on the territory of Renova. What does it mean to shoot? In a year there will be a campus. Already rented 1.5 thousand square meters. m to put petrochemical complex equipment there.

- Do both students and graduate students have access to it and can already work, participate in experiments?

- Of course. We have a student workshop. I have seen a million prototyping sites both in Russia and in the West. But when I walked through the Skoltech workshop for the first time, I even asked the guide: “Amazingly done. I have never seen it so comfortable. Who did it? It turned out to be a MIT project. We have to say thank you to them. There is really everything you need for prototyping. And it works 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. There sits an American Brenton, a young guy who is wildly fascinated by all this. Students, graduate students, a damn cloud of people with burning eyes are constantly crowding there. Very pleasant environment.

— What would you say to potential applicants or students who enter a master's or PhD program, how would you motivate them: why should they choose Skoltech?

- The problem is that the youth of Moscow and St. Petersburg have lost interest in science to a very significant extent for many reasons. And now the main stream of scientific technological leaders comes from the provinces. These are not the old days. But for those who are passionate about science, I would say: “COME TO US! WE HAVE EVERYTHING TO TEACH YOU AND WE HAVE EVERYTHING TO LEARN YOU."

- Good. But if you are talking about international students, why should they choose Skoltech? Why would they come here to you?

— You need to look at the status of the university objectively, and this is very easy. Namely: a list of professors, their CV-list and lists of their publications are taken (it's all on the Skoltech website) - and it becomes clear that these are really first-class teaching staff. You don't need to be seven spans in the forehead for this. This is easy to see just by visiting the site. You are obviously getting a good education. Second. Laboratory equipment. Plus, they don't take any money from you.

Why do you teach foreigners for free?

- When in Soviet times there was the Peoples' Friendship University, when future leaders of national liberation movements were taught - everything is clear there. We formed a kind of intelligent layer that could support us. Why now? Seems like a completely pointless story. No, not meaningless. I explain. Because people have to get used to the international culture. We have students from Europe, Canada, America and other countries. Yes, there are few of them. But in general 20% of foreign students. I don't think this is an eternal story. Skoltech should become a brand. Then we ourselves will take money for it. But, you see, this story with money and universities, generally speaking, is presented very incorrectly in our country. How much does a year of study cost, for example, at MIT, say, in the engineering department?

- 40-50 thousand dollars approximately.

- About that. Yes. It is more expensive for lawyers and doctors, and an engineering school costs about that much.

- And you think a large percentage of people who pay for their studies at MIT?

- Insignificant. Everyone pays something, but usually very little. On average, scholarship funds, internal structures of MIT pay interest. Western universities live on endowments. These are fairy tales that they live on students' money. This is not true.<…>

— Do you hope that Skoltech will also develop according to the endowment model?

- I would like.

— How would you define the strategic directions for the development of Skoltech? Say<…>in 10-15 years?

— Firstly, I believe that Skoltech should remain a small university. Here he has a KPI: 1.2 thousand students and 200 professors. I think that this is the maximum that we, perhaps, will reach in a few years and that we should not go over in any case. But the university must be elite. Our main mission is to educate the scientific and engineering elite for our country. By definition, there cannot be many elites. Our task is to educate the elite. How was Phystech formed in its time? There were several smart people who explained to Stalin that it was necessary to educate the engineering, physical, and mathematical elite of this country. And Skoltech should be exactly the same now. This does not interfere with other universities at all, - you understand, we are by no means competitors to either Phystech or Moscow State University. Lord, the more the better.

— In this case, what is the relationship between Skoltech and the authorities? Does the current government understand that it is necessary to educate the elite?

“I think he understands. I am not power. I'm pretty far from that.

- You're on the other side.

- In my opinion, they understand everything there. But without an experiment like Skoltech, we will never be able to achieve a really tangible result. We must prove that the country needs science not as an attribute of a civilized society, but as an object for investing taxpayers' money, as one of the pillars of the state. We have been given this opportunity, and we must use it.

Alexander Petrovich Kuleshov - Rector of SkolTech (Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology), professor, specialist in information technology and mathematical modeling, director of the Institute for Information Transmission Problems. A. A. Kharkevich (IPPI) RAS, Chairman of the Scientific Council of the IPTP RAS, Chairman of the Doctoral Dissertation Council at the IPTP RAS, Head of the Basic Department of Information Transmission and Processing of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology at the IPTP RAS, author and co-author of 54 scientific papers, including 4 monographs, member of the International Publishing Council of the journal "Problems of Theory and Practice of Management", member of the Coordinating Council for Innovation and Intellectual Property Issues of the RANT

Either the journalist is crazy, or the rector has said so many masterpiece nonsense, but this article requires special attention - it is not every day that Russian engineering schools, which have achieved outstanding world-class results over the past twenty years, are so diligently and mediocrely smeared with tar.

Therefore, let's go point by point, slowly descending from the very subheading: “The head of Skoltech spoke frankly about the disaster in Russian engineering education.”

It turns out that now, in the summer of 2016, when Russian engineers are launching perfectly working GLONASS satellites, the most modern icebreakers, the latest fast neutron reactors, the latest processors, the latest medicines, when Phystech, Baumanka, MPEI, MEPhI, MAI, Leningrad and Novosibirsk technical institutes are choking from the influx of applicants, we have had a disaster with engineering education.

Apparently, the rector of Skoltech, "a world-famous engineer", knows better - but let's see where he saw the catastrophe.

JOKE FIRST, “The Americans taught us everything”

“12 years have passed since the revolution, and it suddenly became clear that there were no engineers in the young Soviet republic. All the cadres, grown up by the excellent Russian imperial school, emigrated abroad. New ones had to be ordered from abroad. By coincidence, there was a great depression in the United States at that time, and the task turned out to be feasible. American engineers came to the great socialist construction sites: Dneproges, AZLK, GAZ - hundreds of factories and plants. In addition, they trained a new generation of Soviet specialists. And soon a new engineering school, of the highest category, was formed in the country.

And who taught the brilliant V.I. Vernadsky and V. G. Khlopin to create the Radium Institute in 1922, which became the basis of the Russian nuclear program? Who taught N. E. Zhukovsky and A. N. Tupolev to create TsAGI in 1918? Who taught N. N. Polikarpov, A. S. Yakovlev, G. E. Lozino-Lozinsky, R. G. Bartini and many, many, many geniuses of the Russian aviation school? Who taught F.A. Zander, Yu.A. Pobedonostsev, M.K. Tikhonravov, S.P. Korolev - the founders of the Russian rocket school? Who taught E. O. Paton, director of the Institute of Electric Welding, an outstanding strength engineer? Who taught I. I. Sidorin to create aluminum chain mail in 1922? Who taught the brilliant shipbuilder V. A. Nikitin and his associates, who since 1925 have been restoring the fleet at the Northern Shipyard? Who taught V. G. Grabin, the genius of artillery? Who taught hundreds of thousands of excellent engineers who raised the Land of Soviets BEFORE the "arrival of the Americans"?
Is the "engineer of world renown" A.P. Kuleshov really so ignorant that he has not the slightest idea about the true history of Russian engineering schools after the end of the Civil War? Or is it deliberately misleading the humanitarian reader? The fact that American engineers really participated en masse in Stalin's industrialization is no secret to anyone. But what is the goal of the “engineer of world renown” when he publicly calls the Americans the teachers of the new generation of Soviet specialists?

JOKE SECOND, anecdotally-cosmic, that a “competitive engineering school” was, after all,

“In 1995, the Americans bought rocket engines from Russia, created in 1954 as part of the Soviet lunar program. When it was closed, the engines were filled with oil, wrapped in cellophane and mothballed - buried in a field. 40 years have passed. The Americans took one of the engines for testing (a birch forest had grown in that field over the decades, which had to be cut down) and tested it for 10 thousand hours instead of the prescribed 5 thousand. The tests were brilliant, the Americans bought every single one of these engines. They still fly on our engines, that is, their engineering thought could not get ahead of the Soviet one. At the same time, everything was done on drawing boards and slide rules, without the use of computers.

Firstly, the project of the Nauka-1 lunar rocket was developed by the Korolev Design Bureau on its own initiative in 1961-1962.

Secondly, as a result of the intrigues of S.P. Korolev, the design bureau of N. D. Kuznetsov received an order for the manufacture of an oxygen-kerosene engine back in 1961, but not in 1954.

Thirdly, “the engines were filled with oil” - this masterpiece shows that the “engineer of world renown” has no idea how rocket engines are stored. Let's leave the anecdote with "burying NK-33 engines underground" on the conscience of obscurantists who seized upon journalism. In fact, on April 7, 1992, N. D. Kuznetsov himself, at the Aviadvigatel-92 exhibition, met with D. Thompson. representative of the AeroJet company, after which “in the spring of 1992, a group of editors of the Aviation Week and Space Technology magazine were amazed at the view of the Trud NPP storage facility, literally crammed with the engines of the second and third stages of the H-1. In total, 62 NK-33s of the first, 12 NK-43s of the second, 10 NK-39s of the third and the same number of NK-31s of the fourth stages of the H-1 were stored for conservation, all in good condition, most of them passed the tests and were in full readiness for use ". Once again, for the "engineers of world renown": "most of them have been tested and were in full readiness for use."

Fourthly, the rector of SkolTech, a "world-renowned engineer", without a second's hesitation, gives out the following masterpiece (quote): his 10,000 hours instead of the prescribed 5,000.” Nothing bothers you? Do you know how many hours are in an astronomical year? 24 * 365 = 8760 hours. Ten thousand hours of testing is a year and a half, YEARS!!! continuous work. In fact, in 1995 there were.
Four hundred and ten seconds.

“They still fly on our engines” - again strange ignorance. Yes, an important part of the American space program is being solved at the expense of Russian rocket engines, but one must be completely ignorant in order not to know how many of the latest engines - oxygen-kerosene and oxygen-hydrogen (and at what frantic pace) are being developed (and have already been developed ) by Americans. Why does a "world-renowned engineer" introduce a gullible layman into blissful ignorance?

“At the same time, everything was done on drawing boards and slide rules, without the use of computers.” I draw your attention to the fact that in 1961, the same Americans themselves perfectly used slide rules and drew on drawing boards - without any "computers".

ANECDOTE THIRD. "About decrepit old men"

“But time goes forward, the approach to solving problems is changing. The modern engineer knows less about the properties of metal than the blacksmith who forged armor in the Middle Ages. The “experience at your fingertips”, which was so valuable centuries ago and passed down from generation to generation, is losing its meaning. And at the Energomash plant, which created those very legendary “lunar” engines, time has frozen: until now, the same drawing boards, behind which are the decrepit old men. ”

If a modern engineer (apparently a SkolTech graduate) “knows less about the properties of metal than a blacksmith who forged armor in the Middle Ages,” then this is scary. This shows that the rector of SkolTech has no idea about the great history of Russian metallurgy and Russian materials science, he has no idea about what outstanding world achievements were achieved by Russian engineers Pavel Anosov, Pavel Obukhov and Dmitry Chernov, who laid the foundation for the science of heat treatment of metals, crystallography metals. It's so monstrous that... If "Experience at your fingertips" loses its value, then why do the best engineers in the USA, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, China spend so much time teaching their young engineers every secret of the profession? Is everything in the public domain? Or can an engineer be trained by inserting a flash drive into a skull?

“And at the Energomash plant, which created those very legendary “lunar” engines, time has frozen: until now, the same drawing boards behind which are the decrepit old men.”

Seriously?! Is the rector of SkolTech, "a world-famous engineer", such an ignorant snob that he confuses Energomash with them. Glushko in Khimki and SNTK im. Kuznetsov in Samara, and that he has no idea in what computer design environments new products of these great Russian engineering schools are created? Really, if you are the rector of the fucking SkolTech, then you can have the audacity to call the older generation of engineers “decrepit old men”? I have a question - do the competent authorities allow the “engineer of world renown” to have real information about the state of Russian industry and Russian engineering schools engaged in real creative work?

JOKE FOUR. “There will be only one television”

“Engineering of the 70s and current engineering have nothing in common at all.

“Academician Kuleshov before Skolkovo worked as director of the Institute for Information Transmission Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences, which has produced three Fields Prize winners”

“Surprisingly, students of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, the most successful mathematical brand in the country, had to finish their studies for years after the second year”

“For example, sopromat – this discipline has disappeared in Europe, there is no such concept at all. It has no practical value. And we still teach people this. “I asked one of the rectors: in your first year, why do you teach analog electronics? Kuleshov said. - And they answer me: "Well, we have Ivan Ivanovich in the state, and he is already 70 years old, let's leave this subject." Well, what to do here - let's leave it like that"

Hmm... And let's google French (I don't know French - this way the experiment will be cleaner) - École Polytechnique. Offhand we take the course "MEC430 - Mécanique des milieux continus 1 (2016-2017)" and with interest we find in the course description: "On étudiera ainsi les problèmes de statique de fils, de tiges, de poutres ou d'arcs élastiques ce qui permettra de traiter les problèmes classiques de la résistance des matériaux, de mettre en évidence des phénomènes d'instabilité comme le flambement ou d'aborder les questions de couches limits".

Even on-line machine translation gives an understanding that we are talking about “the study of static problems for rods, beams or arches, which will relate to the classical problems of the strength of materials, highlighting the phenomena of instability as buckling…” Is this not a strength of evidence?! Apparently, Europe, represented by its competent authorities, also did not consider it necessary to inform the rector of SkolTech about the presence of strength of materials in the training course of the famous Ecole Polytechnic.
But the famous MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology - immediately googles (link: http://dmse.mit.edu/faculty/directory/discipline) the course: "Fracture, Fatigue, and Failure of Materials" (yes, this is the same course The resistance of materials, which, according to the rector of Skoltech, disappeared in Europe, left behind by the backward Americans, did not listen to the "engineer of world renown."

“Drawing as a discipline in the world educational process has also long ceased to exist. For these purposes, software is used that makes it easy to make three-dimensional models. What used to be done on blueprints is now computer work. This revolution has spurred the development of production tools that realize the possibilities of computer technology. For example, machine tools with software, CNC. “There used to be a mechanic, Uncle Vasya, in thick glasses, who turned a part on a machine, focusing on sound. And now all this is not needed, there is a CNC. Your instrument is a flash drive, not golden hands,” says the academician.

After that, I doubt that the “engineer of world renown” has any idea that no “software that makes it easy to make 3D models” actually allows you to develop one of the most important skills of an engineer - 3D imagination. And that students draw with their hands so that they have the same three projections, axes, sections in their heads in order to learn to see the future part, assembly or the entire product as a whole - in their head, without the help of software - and only then will the software be in help. Apparently, the rector of SkolTech did not design anything himself, since he is able to tell the world such nonsense?

But let's continue.

ANECDOTE FIVE. "Paper Drama"

“Russian enterprises were not ready for progress. And the problem is not only that we do not have machines or software. Some businesses have both. But there are no specialists who could translate into an electronic form that is understandable for modern machines, existing in the form of paper drawings of the operating time. “They have old blueprints and they can’t digitize them, they can’t dramatically. We have no experts on this issue, - Kuleshov explains. “The documentation for the Sukhoi Superjet aircraft was done for this reason by Western firms, although this is routine work, there is no mathematics there.”

JOKE SIX. "There is science, there are no engineers"

“The creation of the Skolkovo Institute, Kuleshov believes, is the reaction of the government, which has realized this fact. It became clear: we have come to a situation where we still have science, but no engineering. We again need to import people from abroad who will teach those who will later teach the masses.” (A little more nonsense, and) “Will Russia be able to bridge the gap that separates it from Western engineering? On your own - definitely not

ANECDOTE SEVENTH. "Almighty Software"

“The modern engineer has a choice of intelligent tools from relatively simple to incredibly complex. Only 1% of specialists use all the developments of human thought to the maximum. This became clear 15 years ago. The Western community decided that it was necessary to increase this figure, but after 15 years it turned out that nothing had changed, it was a constant. It is difficult to say what this is connected with, there are different theories on this subject, but it is a fact. And companies have gone the other way. They started designing what they call vertically integrated solutions. For non-mathematicians and non-engineers, the lecturer explained this with an example. Let's say there is an engineer who has been designing gearboxes all his life. It is necessary to make for him such software that “shields” him from complex mathematical calculations, so that he works only in his usual environment, and everything that falls out of it, the program would calculate for him. Now the main software manufacturers on the planet are working on such solutions.

“Another challenge that advanced human thought is facing is related to the fact that a specialist devotes most of his time, relatively speaking, to rummaging through the catalog of accumulated knowledge. Even in the most high-tech companies in the world - Airbus and Boeing, where they have very strong employees, an ordinary engineer spends 60% of the time looking for an analogue of the solution that he needs. That is, he sits on the Internet and looks for some kind of finished model there, which then he will need to correct. For many years, a certain American company simply accumulated a database of 3D models created by engineers around the world. The engineers who created them added these models for free to this database - even without annotations or with minimal annotation. This base was recently sold for almost a billion dollars. And today, the colossal efforts of mathematicians are aimed at creating algorithms that would allow this database to be used to extract the necessary models.

Be careful guys. We read what the "engineer of world renown" says about the content of the engineer's work: "Prowling through the catalog of accumulated knowledge." Oh kay, as we say in Arkansas, but does the rector of SkolTech understand that an American Boeing engineer cannot NOT scour the catalog of already developed (tested and mastered in production, standard) components, parts and mechanisms for the simple reason that there are the most severe requirements for the unification of developments? What are the requirements of a corporation and an industry tied to production and quality standards? Does a “world-renowned engineer” understand that a design engineer or process engineer is tied to production, which is strictly limited by standards, technologies, machines, tools, qualifications of working personnel, that additional technological equipment is required for the production of each part or assembly (and extremely expensive) that the engineer is simply obliged, like from Lego blocks, to work with already available, proven, tested solutions in order to make a new design out of them? And that in rare, exceptional cases, a completely new unit or unit is being developed?

Looks like no.

JOKE EIGHT. A bit of the fiercest Scientology

“The world, says the professor, is flying apart at an alarming rate. The "eggheads" fly in one direction, and those whose only function is to be servants fly in the other. The area of ​​application for people with average mental skills shrinks like pebbled skin.

And fatter.

JOKE NINE. On the power of mathematics

“If you don't understand math, you are incapable of becoming an engineer. But in Russia, the understanding of this thesis has not become widespread, because there are no people who would teach it en masse”

I explain.

In every design office, in every engineering corporation, thousands of engineers work as a single organism. They know materials science, metalworking, strength of materials and hydraulics, engineers need to know physics, mathematics, philosophy, history of science and engineering schools, foreign languages ​​and patent science. All these wonderful guys are working tirelessly with their hands and heads to create the technological world that surrounds us. And one of the necessary elements of this “ecosystem” is a calculation bureau, calculators, mathematicians who, using mathematical models, complex, sometimes super-complex methods, check the engineering calculations of their colleagues, process ready-made objects already created by someone. These mathematicians always think they are the smartest because they know math. But never, in any design bureau, does it occur to any of my colleagues to consider the accountants the main, the smartest, simply because every normal engineer understands that the quality of materials depends on the supplier, the strength of welded structures depends on the welders, that the wing falls off depends on the strength engineers or whether the engine will explode, from technologists - the ideology of the product - and above all this magnificence of hundreds of engineering specialties, the Chief Designer hovers like an eagle, who keeps the entire product in his mind, charging the team with his energy.
But when a notorious mathematician breaks free from the deep bowels of a settlement bureau or settlement institute and starts talking nonsense that his algorithms and his software are the most important things in engineering, then even old cleaners laugh at this screamer from the toilet smoking room, not speaking of the decrepit old men at the drawing boards - those old men who invented and created the world around us.

And it happens, guys.

P.S.
And such a person with such a qualification, outlook and understanding of engineering is put on the creation of a competitor to the Massachusetts Technolozhka?
Shit happens.
P.P.S.
These are our Voltairians - Progressors.
We have no other Scientologists for us.
By the way. I have a business card of a Zimbabwean millionaire on my desk. Good guy, we talked for a long time. He has excellent English, he studied at an excellent university. But it is unlikely that he would have understood "the rector of Skolkovo", "an engineer of world renown." And having understood - I think, I would have smiled - and forgot right there ...

Dmitry Konanykhin

Photo: Vitaly Shustikov (c) kot.sh

Is the world changing for the better? Rather, it forces us to become better. A couple of days ago, startups came to me with a very simple idea: hang a bluetooth module on each billboard - it will recognize you from 70 meters away, and the billboard will show an advertisement addressed to you personally. Well, the authorities will also know when you were here. They are interested primarily in terms of statistics: all city decisions should be made on the basis of statistical data. But the trend itself is important - the world is becoming more and more transparent. And when, for example, a search for people by video appears, then, in combination with ubiquitous cameras, this will lead to the end of privacy, which, however, is now rather imaginary.

One very famous person recently told me: “I don’t want to live in Dom-2.” I really liked the phrase, but, in fact, we already live in "House-2", behind glass walls. So far, however, information about us can be obtained by a relatively narrow circle of people, but soon these weapons of mass destruction will be in the hands of everyone! A life begins in which you will have to lie much less and monitor your private life much more, although I am afraid that there will simply be no private life. I will not be able to live in these conditions, but for the new generation, privacy means little. This is both good and bad ... In any case, it will become impossible to deceive: everything and everyone is in plain sight. It will also be almost impossible to commit a crime and avoid punishment. That's why I say: the world forces us to become better.

Now everyone is talking about blockchain implementation. I do not consider myself a liar, but I could not be a director or administrator in this case. When I was young, there was a saying: “When you sign a paper, consider that the prosecutor is behind you”, but in the brave new world of blockchain, I would immediately resign, because to the idea that it is impossible to change even a comma in an order from two years ago , you need to get used to from the cradle. As well as the fact that all your movements, all your past - everything is visible. We are brought up differently, we have a completely different mentality and habits. And the youth - not that they were more honest than us, they just got used to the fact that life is transparent and if you want to hide something, then it’s better not to do this at all, they will find out anyway.

Have you noticed that business cards are gradually becoming obsolete? For example, I and many of my friends stopped carrying them with me, because it is enough to type a person's last name to find his contacts. And if you are not on the Internet, then maybe you are not worth doing business with at all? The logic is like this. But even 15 years ago, everything was the other way around: if you don’t have this piece of cardboard, it’s as if you don’t exist. Then they tried to write everything that was possible on a business card in small print: a laureate, twice a hero, an academician ... Now it has become bad form. Interesting - look on the web for what I am. That is, people began to receive information in a different way, and this greatly affects the way they think.

Ask me: "In what year was the Battle of Agincourt?" - I'll tell you right away. Take an exam in world history - I remember all the dates. And why? In our time, erudite people were highly valued, and erudition was understood primarily as the ability to quickly extract the necessary information from memory. Now this is a completely useless quality. It makes no sense to remember that the Battle of Agincourt was in 1415, because if I need this information, I will immediately receive it - from the air, relatively speaking.

If the social environment requires people of a certain type, they appear, and if, on the contrary, it rejects, they disappear. In the West, people seem to be more law-abiding than in Russia. But 300-400 years ago everything was completely different. During the Thirty Years' War, the Germans were considered liars and idlers. New practices first force their way into everyday life, break traditions, but gradually become natural, and the next generations no longer understand how it can be done differently. I do not think that we are degrading because of gadgets - on the contrary, they will make us become better. And those who don't will simply not survive as a dead-ended evolutionary branch.

Generation Z

Throughout the history of mankind, the elderly believed that the younger generation is no longer what it used to be. And children - that they are very different from their parents for the better. But somewhere in their thirties, they understood that they weren't different at all. Exactly the same ... Now, however, in fact, a generation has appeared that is significantly different from the previous one, from its parents. Of this I am absolutely convinced. These are centennials, generation Z - guys who are defined in English as digital natives - digital-born. These are people who have already come out of their mother's womb with a gadget in their hands. They are really different, this is already a thousand percent clear!

I have my own feeling about this generation, very good. They have an extremely important skill that we do not have and which has become an integral part of them. This is the ability to quickly and accurately obtain the necessary information. But the possibilities of the brain are limited. If you invest them in the ability to work with gadgets, the resource that could be used for other things decreases. Now our abilities are changing, but such shifts have occurred throughout history.

Our problems and shortcomings are a continuation of our virtues. What is called clip thinking is not even the inability to concentrate, but rather the feeling that it is simply not advisable to think about one problem for a long time. Of course, in a sense, this is a limiter. For example, Fermat's theorem was proved by a psycho - from a philistine point of view - who thought only about this all his life. But we are still talking about mass phenomena, and such outstanding loners as Andrew Wiles, who proved Fermat's Last Theorem, have always been and will be. Behind the phenomenon of clip thinking is the need and the ability to receive information at any time when it is needed. This situation makes people completely different. If you take education, it is very difficult for them to concentrate on traditional lectures and sit through an hour and a half class. They are accustomed to receiving information that accurately answers the question, but fragmented. And this does not mean that they are dumber - they are just different.

I'll retell the conversation for you. Two professors I know are talking; one has been doing mathematics in the US for a long time, the other in Russia. The first one asks: “Listen, what is your impression of the current students?” - "Oh, degradation, of course, is complete ... But they decide better." You see, these are people who perceive information and act differently. I love talking about my grandson Max, who lives in Paris. When he runs out of toilet paper, what do you think he does? Looking for it on Amazon. Seeing this, I said: “Listen, Max, have you tried looking in the closet?” He thought for a moment and replied: “Good idea!” It doesn't occur to him to do otherwise. He is used to the fact that any need - for information, for things - is satisfied with the help of a gadget.

How to teach centennials

Now everyone understands that it is necessary to invest money first of all in education. This is the first task of any state. Science gives us very important things and is based on education. If there are no educated people, then science has nowhere to come from. Education is an absolutely fundamental thing for progress, it is an icebreaker for moving into the future. But with centennials, the learning process must be built in a new way. They find it difficult to listen to a lecturer, especially for long periods, but they respond very well to a personal approach. We at Skoltech have introduced what we ourselves call a "team-personalized learning system." It is already working, although not yet in full. We take a group and give it a specific task - say, to design a drone that will fly out of the tube and, after completing the mission, will land automatically. Students go through all stages of the project: modeling, digital design, certification, prototyping, testing...

Of course, this is not a new step in science, but educational work, but it ends with the creation of a real apparatus, on which the entire team worked. The guys are divided into threes: two juniors and one senior, who took this course last year. I joke that we have hazing, like in the Soviet army: there are greenhorns, there are grandfathers, well, a postdoc in the role of an ensign ... We were convinced that this form of training is a million times more effective. Firstly, learning by doing, learning by creating something with your own hands, is always better and more effective. And secondly, this is the form of work that is most organic for young people: eye to eye.

When we were students, we started with theory, and only then we solved practical problems. And they want to start with a task! And only if the task is not solved, then you can see how it is done. They are much more rational in choosing the amount of knowledge. Abstract knowledge practically disappears from their everyday life. Don't misunderstand: this does not exclude fundamental science at all, because fundamental science is also made up of problems. But if I can solve a problem without studying this or that theory, then I do not need this knowledge.

The education system will have to adapt to the characteristics of the new generation - not vice versa. We will be forced to do it. The educational system must change radically, but not in the way most people think. We personalize learning. Our "team-personalized method" is not new - Mekhmatov circles worked in my years like this: the elders taught the younger ones. And it is this method of education that should be called the classical one - this is how education was built, for example, in ancient Greece: the teacher personally transferred knowledge to the student. In a sense, we must return to the origins - to the way it was arranged in Plato's time.

The hype about remote learning and online courses is largely justified, I myself watch something for professional development almost every weekend. This is a good addition to education, but it is absurd to think that highly professional people can be trained in this way. Nothing can replace live communication between a teacher and a student; this is the only way to educate highly qualified specialists.

The world has come to mass education because there is a huge need for people with average qualifications. But I'm afraid that time has passed, and this is a terrible social problem. Even today, the economy needs less and less middle peasants, and in the future, the requirements for the qualifications of those who cannot be replaced by automation will only grow. True, there is another point of view: a hundred professions will die, and two hundred new ones will be born in their place. We have already gone through this - we were worried when steam engines and looms appeared, then electricity ... Fitters became electricians - each industrial revolution, destroying some professions, gave birth to others. But I do not understand where this mass of new professions for people with average qualifications will come from. I think this time it will be different.

In our country education is confused with socialization, it is dangerous. Our mass higher education is not institutions where one obtains qualifications, but institutions of socialization. They produce, say, engineers who do not understand modern engineering at all and cannot work as engineers. They are still taught sopromat - it's like teaching a slide rule. As a result, they can perform only primitive operations that no one needs for a long time, or rather, machines do them. Why then all this? Well, you have to do something with boys and girls aged 17-22 - at least they are supervised at the university, there is order, there are no classes, they will learn something in five years, they will get to know good, smart people. It is similar to the draft army, another important institution of socialization. It so happened that I know France well and have heard from the French more than once what a big mistake they made when they liquidated the draft army. It was there that many people from the outskirts and representatives of national minorities became actually French and acquired basic social skills. I think that today in Russia there are 90% of such universities. I don’t know what to do with them, I just want to note that they have a different function: not education, but socialization. Do not confuse these two processes.

In order to understand the Russian peculiarities of education and adapt world practices to them, we need a testing ground that will show how and what we should teach. For the first month and a half as rector, I did nothing but talk to Skoltech graduates - I spent almost all the time on these conversations, until I had the clearest idea of ​​what was happening here, what was good in the education system, and what was needed change.

Skoltech is the testing ground for the best educational practices of the future. Not those that have shown themselves best in other countries, but those that are optimal for us. We have a different system of teaching and, for example, elite school education is still preserved, which is almost nowhere in the world. But, let's say, the average American student is psychologically much more mature than ours. He knows that $44,000 was paid for his years at MIT, and there won't be a second opportunity like this. And he perfectly understands that he must come out of there absolutely prepared for life. For some reason, our students are, for the most part, psychologically much less mature, they have no motivation. Therefore, the mechanical transfer of Western practices will not work - it will not be possible to simply take and copy the experience of MIT.

Inhuman intelligence

All the most interesting things are happening in the field of artificial intelligence - and the further, the more. A very funny thing from a philosophical point of view was made by Elon Musk, who is also seriously engaged in AI as part of the OpenAI program. Imagine a computer simulation of a sumo wrestling match. They begin with chaotic movements of arms and legs. Each of the wrestlers is controlled by its own neural network, which rewards for winning - pushing the opponent out of the circle, and fines for losing. And after some time, the sumo wrestlers begin to move as if completely meaningful: they rush at each other, one suddenly misses - the other flies out of the circle ... They become masters! It's like the spontaneous generation of life out of mud - the emergence of intelligence from nothing, you know? Right before our eyes. What an interesting story from a philosophical point of view!

The president of -KAIST, the Korea Advanced Institute of Technology, the most advanced university in South Korea, recently visited us. He said that the Europeans do not understand what a shock the victory of the AlfaGo program over their Go champion was for the Koreans, because every Korean knows that this game is not based on calculation - on intuition. For them, Go is an important element of education, since the first grade there is an elective in Go, almost mandatory. They believe that this game greatly affects the development of intelligence. The victory of the machine in Go shocked them so much that artificial intelligence was almost immediately declared the number one priority in South Korea - and now it really is.

Recently, Oxford and Stanford conducted a survey among the participants of NIPS, the world's leading forum for research in the field of artificial intelligence. Respondents were asked: When will AI be able to...? Then came a list of about 40 activities, from laundry to proving theorems. And none of the survey participants said "never"! The terms ranged from 3 years to 15-20, but, I repeat, no one said "never".

The development of artificial intelligence is not limited to deep learning - this method has its limitations. Machine learning relies on big data: a problem can only be solved if there is enough data. But the child learns differently. If you show him a photo of a giraffe, the child will understand once and for all what a giraffe is. This is called few-shot learning - learning from a small number of examples. I think that the development of artificial intelligence will sooner or later follow this path. So far, no significant progress has been made, but work is underway.

There are no good engineers left in Russia, and engineering education requires a radical reform, says the rector of the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Alexander Kuleshov. With this interview, Stimulus continues the discussion on how to properly train modern engineers.

FROM Kolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (Skoltech) was founded on October 25, 2011. The very next day after its founding, on October 26, Skoltech signed a trilateral agreement with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Skolkovo Foundation on a three-year cooperation to develop and implement programs in the field of education, research and entrepreneurship.

Alexander Kuleshov- Specialist in the field of information technology and mathematical modeling.

Graduated from the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics of Moscow State University. M. V. Lomonosov.

From 1970 to 1989 he worked at NPO Cybernetics (Moscow).

In 1987 he defended his dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Technical Sciences.

From 1989 to 1992, he worked at the International Center for Informatics and Electronics (Moscow) as First Deputy General Director.

From 1992 to 2001 - Member of the Board of Directors of Business Svyaz (Moscow) and Ukrsat (Kyiv).

From 2001 to 2006 - Director of the Center for Software Technologies of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Since 2003 - General Director, later Advisor at the International Research Institute for Management Problems.

From 2006 to 2016 - Director of the Institute for Information Transmission Problems. A. A. Kharkevich RAS. Head of basic departments at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, teaches at the Higher School of Economics.

Until 2016, the institute was led by a team of MIT representatives, and the first rector was an MIT professor, a well-known specialist in the field of aeronautics, astronautics and engineering systems Edward Crowley.

In 2016, there was a change in the management team. RAS Academician Becomes Rector of Skoltech Alexander Kuleshov, closely associated with Russian academic and applied science, who managed to work in the leading Soviet defense institute, and in academic institutions, and in business.

February marks two years since Alexander Petrovich joined Skoltech. We decided to find out how the institute is developing and what the views of the academician on its prospects are. But we started with the question why the director of the Institute for Information Transmission Problems (IITP), one of the best and most successful institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences, decided to change the nature of his activities so dramatically.

Skoltech came into my life as accidentally as it can be. I was on his board of trustees for a long time, and his leaders asked me: “Edward Crowley is running out of term as rector, can you recommend anyone?” I replied, “Oh, easy. There is a great guy." I don't want to give his last name. "Can you meet him?" I say: “He is in Geneva. I'm flying to Paris tomorrow, I'll fly through Geneva. We went to have lunch with this man. I see he is sad. It turned out that he was sick. He suggested postponing the conversation for six months. Thank God, then it turned out that he was all right.

I came back, came to the bosses and said: “Let's put it off for six months.” And they: "Then you." And I say, "Why not?" So, in a strange way, my whole life is a chain of accidents. It was absolutely not in my head that I could get into Skoltech, but when I was offered, I did not think for a second.

This work, in principle, is ninety-nine percent familiar to me, because the IPTP RAS is also a large educational center, we had six departments there, I have been teaching all my life and I understand these problems. Therefore, I quite calmly agreed and do not regret anything.

I had my own plan - another one came to fruition. And, as I say, I began the fourth life. Maybe even the fifth one will appear.

- Everything is ahead.

What is my age? Seventy-two years - is that really an age?

- Don't you feel sorry for leaving the institute? The Institute is truly outstanding.

The institute was, of course, always outstanding. But without false modesty, I can say that I did a lot for him: generally speaking, I raised him from the ruins. Maybe this should not be recorded in the protocol, as they say. But it’s not a pity at all, because after eight years I got bored and began to look for a successor, but to no avail.

I remember exactly that exactly eight years later I said: “I did everything here. I won’t improve anything anymore and I won’t worsen anything.” And this coincided with the fact that at that moment I just got under a ten-year restriction on being a director. Although this norm was introduced at the academy, then canceled. My directorship approached ten years. And I had absolutely no intention, like most former directors, of becoming a supervisor. Leaving go. Especially since I had my own life plan. Now it is pointless to discuss it, because it did not work out.

But you managed to work abroad and did business there. People who were engaged in business, and even abroad, rarely return to their previous work, especially in science.

Again, some randomness. At some point, after ten years in business, I got a little bored. I have good friends, you all know their names, who are euphoric from the number of zeros in the assessment of their condition. It's already a sport. But I solved my personal problems, but as a sport it was not very interesting for me. And I was internally ready for the transition to some new state. And at that moment Fortov, and then Velikhov, I knew both of them for many years, offered me to head the academic institute. And I said, "Why not?"

I started getting paid four years later, when they told me: “What are you doing? You disgrace us all. There is a wrong feeling about the academy.” Well, I started getting some small salary as director of the institute.

It was almost like a hobby for me at the time. I started getting paid four years later, when they told me: “What are you doing? You disgrace us all. There is a wrong feeling about the academy.” Well, I started getting some small salary as director of the institute.

- What did each stage of such a rather serious life path give you? And why did he turn out like this?

I entered the graduate school of the Mekhmat. Everything was supposed to happen in June, and in May my leader, a very young guy Boris Weinberg, defended himself, and, unfortunately, he was flunked. In this situation, he considered it unacceptable to change the leader. And I went into industry. That is more or less random. I just knew the guys who worked there. And everything turned out to be really very good, because a high-class mathematician would not have come out of me anyway, I understood this very well. I would be an ordinary professor, nothing more. Therefore, I was even somewhere glad of such a turn.

In those years, there was a very special situation at the Mekhmat, it is unlikely to ever happen again. Everyone came as future stars, everyone considered themselves geniuses. Who said that we will not become Kolmogorovs? But, getting to Mekhmat, in the first two years you understood that the intellectual pyramid of mathematics is arranged in a hyperbolic way, that is, it rushes up very quickly. I have always known that I am a very capable person, and now I am not ashamed to say it. But this hyperbole goes to infinity. That is, there are fewer and fewer people who can move up it with each step. There was a well-known anecdote about Academician Gelfand that he feels himself in seventeen-dimensional space, just like you feel in three-dimensional space. You can study for a thousand years, but you will never feel it.

- Skoltech was conceived, at least it felt like a branch of MIT.

The branch is not a branch, but according to its patterns, as they say, tailored. And MIT really gave a lot at the first stage, there is no doubt about it. Now, of course, our ties have become weaker, although they certainly exist. We have a large number of joint research projects, quite a lot of joint articles. And then, you can always go there for advice, this is also important.

There was a well-known anecdote about Academician Gelfand that he feels himself in seventeen-dimensional space, just like you feel in three-dimensional space. You can study for a thousand years, but you'll never feel it

MIT has really done a lot, especially at the initial stage. You see, it is difficult to start such an event out of nothing, especially in our country with an off-scale level of bureaucracy. Everywhere is difficult, but especially here. And I came at a time when the most difficult stage was already behind.

When we started, there was nothing - no building, no people, nothing. Only the boss and a certain budget. I came when there was already something. There was already a building, there was already a certain contingent of people, so it was easier for me, of course.

- Does this line, moving along the MIT patterns, continue? Or do you see for yourself some other way?

You can't compare the gigantic MIT, which has existed for a hundred and fifty years, with our institute, which is, in fact, two years old. Formally six, but in fact we got our first own premises two years ago. MIT is the eleventh economy in the world.

The main task of Skoltech was and is to close the gap between fundamental science and applied science. We have always had this gap. And in Soviet times, it was always formidable, and in Russian times, these ice floes simply parted completely.

I must say that I am really pleased with what we have achieved. We have a small, but very high-class part of fundamental science, really high-class... Our Center for Advanced Study is headed by the outstanding mathematician Igor Krichever, who came here from the position of dean of the Department of Mathematics at Columbia University. The reasons why he agreed to join us are interesting. He says: “The grandchildren will choose the universities themselves. And at school I want my grandchildren to study here. There are no schools like in Moscow in the States.”

But apart from this little fundamental science, ninety percent of the scientific research going on at Skoltech is absolutely practice-oriented. But just research. That's why I like to show all our things. We have a lot to see: photon laboratory, 3D printing, composite materials laboratory. Rockets are made from such materials. Only we do them much better.

Laboratory for Research in Photonics and Quantum Materials

Photo: Dmitry Lykov

Our biology is very good, and the agricultural program is very strong. We work with the most famous agricultural holdings in Russia. Because, strange as it may sound in Russia, agricultural science in recent years has become a very dense concentration of all sciences, from mathematics to, of course, genetics. We just bring these sciences there.

Now, for example, we are teaching a special group at the suggestion of the Ministry of Agriculture. We in Timiryazevka have selected a small group of students who are being trained specifically for the Ministry of Agriculture. Because the Ministry of Agriculture today dramatically needs a complete personnel renewal.

I was and still am a member of the commission for evaluating the performance of academic institutions. At first we were engaged in physics and mathematics, and then we came to farmers. It was a hard impression. There is such a thing as scientometrics. In our agroscience, it simply does not exist. But that doesn't mean it doesn't exist in the rest of the world. On the contrary, there the publication activity of agricultural scientists is very high. And we don’t have it, not because, as they say, we don’t know English.

- Probably because our agricultural science has retained its traditional look.

In general, she remained at the level of Michurin, let's say so. Once I was on an excursion with the Grimaud Group. This is a French company from the top three companies in the world that produce genetic materials for agriculture. What do you say? There are pigs in clean rooms, like in electronics. You must wash twice before you reach the pigs. This pig is scanned once a week: madam, don't move. They have five research centers around the world, from Tokyo to New York. That is, there is a colossal concentration of various specialists of a very high class. This is something that we now practically do not exist. And this is what we are now very actively began to do.

It is very good that the Ministry of Agriculture understands this. A special group created under the Ministry of Agriculture is our trump card, because we train people for specific enterprises. And this is very important for us, because we train those people with whom we will later speak the same language.

- How is your educational process organized?

In fact, we are now completely redesigning it for those who are called the new generation Z. And this has nothing to do with MIT, it is completely ours. For this generation, a forty-five-minute lecture is about nothing, he is right there in the gadget. And they are not dumber at all, they are just different. They are set to accurately receive the requested information. They are used to receiving it, they know how to receive it.

For this generation, a forty-five-minute lecture is about nothing, he is right there in the gadget. And they are not dumber at all, they are just different. They are set to accurately receive the requested information. They are used to receiving it, they know how to receive it.

They have no interest in standard learning, when they first teach theories, and then you solve some problems based on this. Therefore, we build the educational process in reverse: we give a problem and, if the student fails to solve it, he looks for what theory is needed in order to solve it. And we got used to it. We already have half a dozen courses that have nothing to do with standard education at all. We have a digital design and simulation class for sixteen jobs. Everything there is really good. And there is a lecturer, very qualified, we took him from the States, who tells them a little, and after that they do a joint project: a drone that flies out of the tube, returns, spreads its wings, returns, and so on and so on. And they really do, they really design. Full digital design, digital modeling, prototyping, certification, testing, that is, a complete complex necessary for development. I also work with them and say with a laugh that we have introduced hazing for them: older students who have already gone through this work with them, and such guardianship is also very useful for them. And at the top are postdocs. And it turns out to be very effective. That is, we, in fact, returned to the origins of education, when Plato and Pythagoras taught their students in the course of a joint discussion of problems.

- And this does not narrow the horizons of a specialist, since they start from a practical task, not knowing the theory?

No. This is not about abandoning the theory, but about the fact that people must first understand that they need this knowledge for something, and then they will actively learn.

They are much more pragmatic: why do I need this knowledge if I do not understand when and where I will apply it? I will not waste time, energy and so on on this. When they understand that they need such information in order to get a result, they will take it. Such a team-personalized method has nothing to do with standard training. And now we are more and more switching to such courses, that is, we are minimizing the lecture part, and the lecture itself is rather a conversation with a professor who explains to you what is unclear. Thank God we have a student to faculty ratio of six to one, which is a very good ratio, plus a lot of postdocs. That is, in reality, it is literally three to one.

The initiators of the creation of Skoltech promised that it would be a world-class university. You reiterated this commitment in one of your speeches. What do you understand by this? And how do you implement it?

There are different rankings. It is clear that comparing us with Harvard is meaningless. But there is a ranking of young universities. And in it, Hong Kong, Nanyang Universities and KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Korea Institute of Advanced Technology) are leading in terms of the number of publications per person. - "Stimulus"). And ours. We have exactly the same. We have four and a half publications per person, and there are 4.3, 4.6.

Although, of course, we are still significantly short of Caltech (California Institute of Technology. - "Stimulus"). But today, in many respects, we are at the level of leaders.

Do you know what competition we had this year?

- No.

One hundred people per place among foreigners and thirty-five among Russian applicants.

- Why are there more foreigners?

I'll try to give my explanation. First, to understand correctly, these are, of course, mainly Chinese and Indians. Although there are Europeans and North Americans. But, however, the same as in the States.

In the information technology laboratory, students are taught how to carry out the process of designing a product and simulating its tests from concept to product in a single cycle and without a single piece of paper.

Photo: Dmitry Lykov

Moreover, this is not just a competition of documents. The applicant had to come or take an exam in mathematics via Skype, which is quite difficult, pass English, and pass an interview. For example, our best result was shown by a boy from a mountain village in Nepal. We talked on Skype - you can hear the chickens yelling. Finally, it was necessary to submit two recommendations from people whom we can identify, which, by the way, is completely non-trivial. I remember myself at the age of twenty, my supervisor, of course, would give a recommendation, but then only if he asked someone for me. In general, for a young boy, this is not an easy task.

We, unfortunately, did not expect such a flow and were not ready for it. Because our competition has jumped ten times in a year. We had absolutely no idea that we would encounter so many people. Hope this year will be better. So I think that everything is moving towards the development of Skoltech as a world-class university, quite quickly, I would say.

- How many students do you currently have?

Today is seven hundred and twenty.

- This is not so small anymore, but nevertheless the university is relatively small. Are you planning to expand it?

We have plans for a thousand two hundred and no more. Still, this is an elite education, it cannot be very broad.

- Is it supposed to open a bachelor's degree?

Yes. Together with the Phystech, we want to do a pilot bachelor's degree in physics, apparently from next year. Of course, I really don’t want to mess with it, because physical education ...

- General subjects.

- ... Philosophy - I really don't want to mess with it.

I think that we will start with dual programs, with HSE and Phystech. But in the end, of course, there will be a bachelor's degree, because due to the lack of a bachelor's degree, we cannot even participate in the ranking. But this is not a matter of tomorrow. Now let's try a small portion, and then we'll see.

- What about dissertation advice? I understand that you do not have dissertation councils yet.

In fact, this year we have a record result for Russian universities - we have defended ninety percent of the postgraduate graduation. Why do we not have our own dissertation councils in the sense of VAK? Because we have people who came from abroad, and there PhD, and this does not fit into the university standards. There are, of course, individual doctors of sciences, of those who defended themselves long ago. But that's not the point. In fact, the requirements for PhD theses under today's international PhD requirements are very weak.

This year we have a record result for Russian universities - we have defended ninety percent of postgraduate graduation

Photo: Dmitry Lykov

If in physical and mathematical sciences the level is still preserved, then I just don’t even want to talk about engineering disciplines.

What have we done? We choose good advice. For example, at HSE or at the IPPI - this is my former institute, where there are some good tips.

And we anticipate the official defense by our jury, that is, we combine our own procedure and the Wakov procedure.

We have developed very strict requirements for dissertations, which are tougher than both Western and ours. For example, in different disciplines it is different, but the dissertation candidate must have three publications in the Web of Science before the defense. Then the dissertation is considered by the jury, eight people who are recruited for protection. Naturally, we are forced to pay for their arrival, because of them there must be at least three or four foreigners, each of whom writes his own review. And each of them is a recognized specialist in this narrow specialization, which is very important, because very often in our councils five specialties are recruited, quite different, and the members of the council simply do not understand much in the submitted dissertation. Protection is mechanical.

We have developed very strict requirements for dissertations, which are tougher than both Western and ours. For example, in different disciplines it is different, but the dissertation candidate must have three publications in Web of Science before the defense.

And further. For the first time in Russia, we have entered into an agreement with an organization called HCERES. This is an organization that accredits PhD programs in accordance with the requirements of the European Union. And this year we put forward the first biotechnology program, and next year we will do all the rest. That is, our Skoltech certificate will be equivalent to any EU diploma. This is the first time in Russia such a story, and I think it's really very useful.

It seems that in some universities, diplomas of our sample and some European university are already being issued in parallel.

Of course, but this is not for graduate students, this is not a PhD, these are master's diplomas. Yes, this exists in many universities, and in our country too.

Is it planned to expand the range of disciplines and turn Skoltech into a traditional, classical university, where from everything to everything?

Absolutely, absolutely not. We have six directions, and we are not going to expand. And I'll tell you why. We have neither the resources nor the people for this, and, most importantly, we do not even have the desire to do this, because these six areas are really the top of today's world scientific and technological revolution.

If you compare your university and traditional Russian universities, what is their fundamental difference? It seems that they also produce good specialists there.

Who told you? If we are talking about engineering disciplines, then I have spoken about this many times, and this is my point of view, well known to everyone, that we are now in 1929, when science still somehow remained in the country for some reason, but there were no engineers already completely, when the Americans were called in for the construction of the DneproGES, Magnitogorsk and so on. Thank God they had the Great Depression, unemployment, and it was pretty easy.

There were simply no engineers in Russia. Now the story is exactly the same. All modern advanced engineering disciplines do not exist in the country, because there is no one to teach them. Why do we invite people from abroad? No one to teach. And this is the main problem. For many years I have been sitting in the workshops in production and I perfectly understand the difference between our today's engineer and the French or German one. This is heaven and earth.

Just the other day I interviewed Valentin Gapontsev, our outstanding laser engineer from IRE-Polus, he has a different opinion that it is impossible to find a good engineer in America, and therefore he keeps all the development here.

You are confusing two things. Until now, our country produces a lot of smart people, a lot of smart boys, it's true. Inexplicably. According to my calculations, this should have stopped long ago. But so far it is. And in this sense, he is absolutely right. For example, whoever leaves and forms a Western company, all roots are left here. It's a completely different story. But people are learning on their own.

Sopromat is an opportunity, relatively speaking, to estimate some strength characteristics of a product on a slide rule. What for? There are softwares for this, which, without any guesswork, do everything exactly

I always give a trivial example. In our engineering universities, they like to repeat the old proverb: if you pass the sopromat, you can get married. It has always been so. But if you say the word "sopromat" to a Western student or teacher, he will not understand what you are talking about. It's like teaching a slide rule with computers. There is nothing wrong with the slide rule, but it's just that no one uses it anymore. What is a sopromat? Sopromat is an opportunity, relatively speaking, to estimate some strength characteristics of a product on a slide rule. What for? There are softwares for this, which, without any guesswork, do everything exactly.

- But in order to write software, you need to have a specialist who understands the strength of materials.

No need to be confused. The software is written by a specialist, a specialist in the theory of strength, and is used by an engineer who needs this software in order to design some kind of gearbox. He does not need this knowledge of classical mechanics at all, they are superfluous for him. He works in a certain area. And in order for him to take knowledge from a parallel or adjoint field, he takes this knowledge not through a slide rule, but through a ready-made software product that he installs and uses. Another thing is that in this case, somewhat different skills arise. I must understand the limits of applicability of this product, I must understand where it can be trusted, where it cannot be trusted.

But for this you still need to have an engineering idea, and it is generated to a large extent by strength of materials.

Absolutely not. You must understand that if you take, say, an optimization program for something, no matter what, then, suppose, up to twenty parameters, it may give you something reasonable, but at a hundred parameters, even if it works, it nothing to do with what you want, will not have. This is no longer classical engineering.

In Russia, there was an amazing - back in Russian times, then in Soviet times - an engineering school, really high-class. But why did the engineers disappear in the twenties? Because they left. And Zworykin, and Sikorsky, and everyone else just left. Scientists were not so much in demand at that time abroad, and engineers were in great demand, and they simply left.

In general, our education is stuck in the fifties. Even in the best universities, at the Mekhmat, at the Phystech, for six months people are taught to take indefinite integrals. This is really funny. Of course, you should know the basics, but it's pointless to coach on what a computer can do.

- How would you formulate what a modern type of engineering education should be like?

In the last twenty years, the computer has abruptly burst into the engineering world, which, in essence, completely changed the whole situation. Today an engineer is a person who works with a computer. This is his main companion. Of course, it is easy for me to criticize someone now, because we are in conditions that are very different from those of an ordinary university, we can attract people from abroad and pay them adequate money. And this is exactly the difference, if you like.

In this sense, Skolkovo is a very good story. At least we are getting at least some set of people, so far a small one, but at least some set of people who know what we are talking about, know how it works, how it should be.

One of the problems of modern Russian science is the lack of demand for its results. Everyone complains that we are doing something, but no one needs it.

I completely disagree with this. I will now explain to you what it is. In our academic environment, there is a total misunderstanding of the difference between what they do and what the industry needs. Those people who talk about the lack of demand for their developments do not understand that there is a huge distance from solving a problem to a product that can be used in industry. As a rule, this ratio is ten to ninety. Ten percent is a fundamental solution to the problem, and ninety percent of the time and money you will spend on bringing it to an industrial product. And ninety-nine percent of my colleagues, believe me, do not understand this, they do not understand at all.

Those people who talk about the lack of demand for their developments do not understand that there is a huge distance from solving a problem to a product that can be used in industry. As a rule, this ratio is ten to ninety.

For example, a person has made some wonderful software based on good mathematics. In this case, I'm talking about specific people, about a specific company, but I just don't name them. Where is it needed? In the oil industry. He comes to Rosneft or Lukoil and says: “Look, what a wonderful program I have. Let me show you how great it works. It works better than Schlumberger's." There they look and say: “Yes, it’s really better.” “Will you buy it from me?” - "Of course not. I have a huge complex, and I work with this complex with the mouse. I took one program, connected it to another, sent the data here. When you bring the same set of programs as Eclipse Schlumberger, then we will talk to you. Now where do I put it? You sell me buttons from a suit.

But the fact is that in order to make the same “Eclipse”, large battalions of developers are needed. You can't do it with five nerds. Yes, five smart people can do something very good on some small fragment, but now the era of integrated solutions has come. I am completely uninterested in every single detail. First of all, I need the convenience of my work. I want to work only with the mouse and get the result as an output.

We have created the Hydrocarbon Production Center. There is nothing like it in our country. There is no such thing in Europe. Available only in Texas, available in Canada. We have a member of the grant committee, a very famous oilman, crawling around this laboratory, then he came out and said: “For the first time I saw a laboratory in which there was an initial idea to loop everything, that is, to do a full range of research.”

There we study everything from thermal effects to complete pyrolysis. This is a truly comprehensive solution. And we are trying to do everything here on the basis of integrated solutions.

https://www.site/2016-06-28/glava_skolteha_otkrovenno_rasskazal_o_katastrofe_v_rossiyskom_inzhenernom_obrazovanii

“We are back in 1929 again…”

The head of Skoltech spoke frankly about the disaster in Russian engineering education

Alexander Kuleshov is a world-famous Russian engineerKommersant

Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Rector of the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (Skoltech) Alexander Kuleshov gave a lecture today at the regular gubernatorial readings in Tyumen. The scientist said that Russia, in terms of training engineering personnel, was on the outskirts of civilization. But despite the colossal backlog, Kuleshov is sure, we can still jump over this abyss. How the country ended up in such a deplorable situation and what is needed to get out of it is in our abstract of the academician's lecture.

Alexander Kuleshov started from afar, since 1929. After the revolution, 12 years passed, and it suddenly became clear that there were no engineers in the young Soviet republic. All the cadres, grown up by the excellent Russian imperial school, emigrated abroad. New ones had to be ordered from abroad. By coincidence, there was a great depression in the United States at that time, and the task turned out to be feasible. American engineers came to the great socialist construction sites: Dneproges, AZLK, GAZ - hundreds of factories and plants. In addition, they trained a new generation of Soviet specialists. And soon a new engineering school of the highest category was formed in the country.

And the same drawing boards, and the same old men

The fact that it was a really competitive school is evidenced by at least this fact. In 1995, the Americans bought rocket engines from Russia, created in 1954 as part of the Soviet lunar program. When it was closed, the engines were filled with oil, wrapped in cellophane and mothballed - buried in a field. 40 years have passed. The Americans took one of the engines for testing (a birch forest had grown in that field over the decades, which had to be cut down) and tested it for 10 thousand hours instead of the prescribed 5 thousand. The tests were brilliant, the Americans bought every single one of these engines. They still fly on our engines, that is, their engineering thought could not get ahead of the Soviet one. At the same time, everything was done on drawing boards and slide rules, without the use of computers.

But as time goes on, the approach to solving problems is changing. The modern engineer knows less about the properties of metal than the blacksmith who forged armor in the Middle Ages. The “experience at your fingertips”, which was so valuable centuries ago and passed down from generation to generation, is losing its meaning. And at the Energomash plant, which created those same legendary “lunar” engines, time has frozen: there are still the same drawing boards behind which decrepit old men stand.

The pride of Stalin's industrialization - DneproGES - was built under the guidance of American engineers

The bow as a weapon has disappeared not because it is less effective. When the first guns appeared, they lost to bowstring and arrows. The procedure for loading the gunpowder was very slow, and the range of the shot was much less than that of a good archer. So why did the firearm triumph? A good archer had to be trained for 20 years, and a gunner needed months, or even days. The same thing happened in the 90s with engineering. In the late 80s, powerful computers began to appear, personal computers that completely transformed science. The engineering of the 70s and the engineering of today have nothing in common at all.

Academician Kuleshov before Skolkovo worked as director of the Institute for Information Transmission Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences, which has produced three Fields Prize winners. At the institute, the lecturer says, a closed ecosystem was created, which prepared graduates for itself - some for work in the research field, some for practical work, in startups. The institute needed students who were supplied by mathematical universities. Surprisingly, students of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, the most successful mathematical brand in the country, had to finish their studies for years after the second year.

Life has become different. It is necessary to train specialists with a different intensity and teach other things. Mathematical preparation for engineering activities is extremely poor. For example, sopromat - this discipline has disappeared in Europe, there is no such thing at all. It has no practical value. And we still teach people this. “I asked one of the rectors: in your first year, why do you teach analog electronics? Kuleshov said. - And they answer me: "Well, we have Ivan Ivanovich in the state, and he is already 70 years old, let's leave this subject." Well, what to do here - let's leave it like that.

There used to be a locksmith Uncle Vasya, now our weapons are flash drives

Drafting as a discipline in the world educational process has also not existed for a long time. For these purposes, software is used that makes it easy to make three-dimensional models. What used to be done on blueprints is now computer work. This revolution has spurred the development of production tools that realize the possibilities of computer technology. For example, machine tools with software, CNC. “There used to be a mechanic, Uncle Vasya, in thick glasses, who turned a part on a machine, focusing on sound. And now all this is not needed, there is a CNC. Your instrument is a flash drive, not golden hands,” says the academician.

Russian enterprises were not ready for progress. And the problem is not only that we do not have machines or software. Some businesses have both. But there are no specialists who could translate into an electronic form that is understandable for modern machines, existing in the form of paper drawings of the operating time. “They have old blueprints and they can’t digitize them, they can’t dramatically. We have no experts on this issue, - explains Kuleshov. “The documentation for the Sukhoi Superjet aircraft was done for this reason by Western firms, although this is routine work, there is no mathematics there.”

The creation of the Skolkovo Institute, Kuleshov believes, is the reaction of the government, which has realized this fact. It became clear: we have come to a situation where we still have science, but no engineering. We again need to import people from abroad who will teach those who will later teach the masses.

“We managed to attract very qualified specialists from the West, they are now graduating 100 people a year,” says the head of Skoltech. - But Russia has its own specifics. We were a small copy of MIT, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The best world practices were going to be implemented without changes on our soil. But practice has shown that it is not so simple. A funny problem came up."

3D-printed quadcopter developed by Skoltech students

In the USA, including at MIT, the student himself chooses what to study for his own reasons. The same system was transferred to Russian soil, but it did not work here. Why? There is a theory about this. An annual course in Massachusetts, one of the best universities in the world, costs $50,000. Sometimes it's the student's parents, sometimes the football team, sometimes MIT itself pays the tuition. But this is always real money, and this fact is hardwired into the student's brain. He is paid for, and this is his only chance in life. Therefore, he tears knowledge with his jaws. And our students study for free, and even receive a scholarship. And they choose the subjects which are simpler. So the American education system in Russia had to be changed.

Can Russia bridge the gap that separates it from Western engineering? On your own, definitely not.

Even if Russia trains 5,000 such specialists tomorrow (which is impossible), they will need 150 years of continuous work to create an autonomous ecosystem. What to do? “We cannot depend on sanctions,” the scientist says. - You can't be hooked. There is a solution - we need to calculate the most critical points in the education system and focus on them.”

You sell buttons and the client needs a suit

Since the meeting took place in Tyumen, the guest spoke separately about the problems of the oil and gas industry. All Russian oil companies live on the technologies of world service giants - Schlumberger and Halliburton. Can't we, the Russians, do the same ourselves? “People often come to me, especially within the framework of the Skolkovo project,” the scientist answers himself. - Comes to me, for example, a professor of mathematics from the Mekhmat. He says: “I wrote with students cool fluid mechanics (software for use in production) for oilmen. I show everyone, everyone praises, but no one takes it. How can you comment on this?” And it's very simple. We mainly deal with field engineers. He needs a ready-made solution, he wants to work with a mouse, comfortably. You bring him a button from his jacket, but he needs a suit.

That is, Russian companies need to learn how to create integrated solutions. But it is impossible to do this by the forces of a dozen smart people.

The modern engineer has a choice of intelligent tools from relatively simple to incredibly complex. Only 1% of specialists use all the developments of human thought to the maximum. This became clear 15 years ago. The Western community decided that it was necessary to increase this figure, but after 15 years it turned out that nothing had changed, it was a constant. It is difficult to say what this is connected with, there are different theories on this subject, but it is a fact. And companies have gone the other way. They started designing what they call vertically integrated solutions. For non-mathematicians and non-engineers, the lecturer explained this with an example. Let's say there is an engineer who has been designing gearboxes all his life. It is necessary to make for him such software that “shields” him from complex mathematical calculations, so that he works only in his usual environment, and everything that falls out of it, the program would calculate for him. Now the main software manufacturers on the planet are working on such solutions.

The area of ​​​​application for limited people is catastrophically reduced

Another challenge that advanced human thought struggles with is related to the fact that a specialist devotes most of his time, relatively speaking, to scouring the catalog of accumulated knowledge. Even in the most high-tech companies in the world - Airbus and Boeing, where they have very strong employees, an ordinary engineer spends 60% of his time looking for an analogue of the solution he needs. That is, he sits on the Internet and looks for some kind of finished model there, which then he will need to correct. For many years, a certain American company simply accumulated a database of 3D models created by engineers around the world. The engineers who created them added these models for free to this database - even without annotations or with minimal annotation. This base was recently sold for almost a billion dollars. And today, the colossal efforts of mathematicians are aimed at creating algorithms that would allow this database to be used to extract the necessary models.

“Let's say I need to design a country house,” Kuleshov gives an accessible example. - Probably, all or almost all houses in the world have already been designed. All you need to do is change one of the ready-made projects. It is necessary that the software gets from the database the closest object to what is in your head. And if it starts to work, there will be a crazy impulse for the development of engineering technologies.”

The world, says the professor, is flying apart at an alarming rate. "Eggheads" fly in one direction, and those whose only function is to be servants fly in the other. The area of ​​application for people with average mental skills shrinks like pebbled leather.

Russia has chances, we have good genetics

It is clear that now a Russian engineer is a person sitting somewhere on the side of a country road. How to return it to the main highway? First you need to understand: there are no simple tasks left in all advanced areas. Everything that was easy has already been decided. And complex tasks require complex methods, and this is the element that we do not teach and which needs to be completely changed in the system of training engineers in the Russian Federation. Another example: in France, 51% of school graduates pass a certain test that is needed for further education. If you don’t pass, you can’t even apply for study at a veterinary technical school, not to mention top engineering or mathematical universities. The results of this test show that the French school diploma fully covers all Russian higher education. The 18-year-old Frenchman knows mathematics much better and deeper than any graduate of a Russian university, except, perhaps, for the physics and technology department and the "tower". And then this Frenchman is taught only physics and mathematics for another two years. And only after that he goes to study engineering.

If you don't understand mathematics, you are incapable of becoming an engineer. But in Russia, the understanding of this thesis has not become widespread, because there are no people who would teach it en masse. As it was in the USSR from 1929 to 1935. But this problem can still be solved. “We have intellectually good genetics, we have every opportunity to jump over this abyss and not in two jumps, but in one,” Kuleshov said optimistically. - But while we are in 1929. And we need to import personnel from abroad, otherwise we will get closer to Nigeria and Zimbabwe, where people know how to use gadgets, but do not understand how they work.”