Архивы Editors — Т-инвариант / T-invariant

Andrei Yakovlev: “It will not be the late USSR, but a thawed outcast with a nuclear truncheon”

Today one can hear more and more often that Russia in the coming decades will live under "eternal Putin". The political regime is stable, the economy shows stability. Will the country turn into the USSR 2.0 or into an "orthodox Iran"? Are there prerequisites for regime change in Russia? T-invariant spoke to Andrei Yakovlev, a well-known economist and associate researcher at the Davis Centre at Harvard University.

“Kovalchuk proposes that our scientists become a dish on the table of an ogre.” Why Russia has failed to maintain relations with CERN

on 30 November 2024, the five-year agreement between the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) and the Russian Federation will end. T-invariant recalls how dramatically CERN and Russia have severed their relations over the past years and publishes an interview with a witness to these events - scientist Andrei Seriakov from St Petersburg.

The winners of the 2024 Georgiy Gamov Prize have been announced

The Russian-American Association of Scholars has announced the names of the winners of the prize, which is awarded to members of the Russian-speaking scientific diaspora. This year they were Professor Ekaterina Zhuravskaya of the Paris School of Economics and Professor Vladimir Vapnik of Columbia University.

“Sunny Peak” of Sparrow Hills.
How big computational science at Moscow State University became secret and what Putin’s daughter has to do with it

Moscow State University has announced the creation of the "world's second or third most powerful" supercomputer, having purchased components for it through a Chinese firm trading on AliExpress. T-invariant tells us how, under conditions of total sanctions on Sparrow Hills, they managed to assemble a classified computing complex and what Vladimir Putin's daughter Katerina Tikhonova and her Institute of Artificial Intelligence have to do with it.

Dmitry Dubrovsky: “Our classes are an opportunity to be a little free in an already unfree country”

How do universities in exile try to preserve academic freedoms for those who have lost them? Why and at what point does the idea of boycotts of universities begin to contradict academic freedoms? T-invariant spoke to Dmitry Dubrovsky, PhD in History, Professor at the Free University.

“Hypersonic Horror Continues.” What Physicist Alexander Shiplyuk’s Fifteen-Year Sentence Says

The harsh sentence for the scientist is not an exception to the rule, but the current norm. It was not by chance that the prosecution asked to give Shiplyuk the maximum possible 20 years: the cruelty of the repressions is directly related to the war in Ukraine. Moreover, in the summer of 2023, amendments were made according to which life imprisonment can be given for high treason.

Sanity Check: How and Why Security Forces Destroyed Russia’s Supercomputer Industry

T-invariant is starting a series of materials about the state of the supercomputer industry in Russia and the world. Today we will tell you about the brightest player in this small but strategically important market — the company T-Platforms and its founder — Vsevolod Opanasenko, who has been living under a criminal case for the last five years.

“Not all physicists are hackers.” FSB accuses young scientist of organizing DDoS attacks, then of treason

33-year-old physicist Artem Khoroshilov is accused of treason. The FSB declared him a hacker who, on orders from the Ukrainian Armed Forces, organized "attacks on critical information infrastructure facilities." The employee of the Prokhorov General Physics Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences could face life imprisonment.

“VK Video will simply postpone oblivion and media death. It’s a video hospice.” Popularizers of science and million-follower bloggers on the cessation of YouTube in Russia

The full-fledged work of the YouTube video service in Russia is gradually ceasing. What do scientists, leading million-viewer channels, and bloggers who popularize science think about this? Astrophysicists Sergey Popov, Vladimir Surdin, historian Mikhail Rodin, popularizers of science Vlad Goncharuk, Evgenia Timonova and Vitaly Egorov answer.

Igor Efimov: “If DEI principles prevail in the US and European universities, talent will start leaving.”

The DEI ideology is diversity, equity, inclusion. What will happen to science if DEI principles win? T-invariant talked about this with one of the authors of the article “Politicizing science funding undermines public trust in science, academic freedom, and the unbiased generation of knowledge”, professor of biomedicine at Northwestern University in Chicago Igor Efimov.

Academic exchange at the FSB rate. American Physical Society stands up for Russian scientists

The FSB has been persecuting members of the Russian Academy of Sciences Sergey Abramov and Oleg Kabov for several years now. Their criminal cases are so unprecedented that the American Physical Society, one of the largest in the scientific world, is worried about their fate. Its representatives are sending letters to the President of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Minister of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation.

Black mark in the “white list”. What threatens Russian scientists by forcing them to donate to Ukraine?

In the spring of 2022, major publishers of scientific periodicals stopped collaborating with Russian organizations. In response, the Russian authorities initiated a “white list” of publications in which publication would be the basis for grant reporting. About 500 journals recently disappeared from the list - and returned with a recommendation to refrain from paying for open access in journals of the publishing house Elsevier, which announced that payments would be sent to support Ukraine. Scientists who do not follow this advice risk facing criminal charges article about treason.

“Window to the West”: how will the fate of the last channel of interaction between Russian physicists and CERN be decided?

The Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna and the European Organization for Nuclear Research may sever official relations as early as this week.

Not everyone is for the king. For the first time in the history of the Russian Academy of Sciences, FSO employees did not allow academicians to attend the General Meeting

Academicians turned to Vladimir Putin with a proposal to head a new body of the Russian Academy of Sciences - the Board of Trustees. But not everyone was able to vote for this decision. FSO employees blacklisted more than twenty scientists and did not allow them to attend the General Meeting of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Journalism departments hit by “storm Z”: military officers and former prisoners joined in teaching students

In the third year after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, journalism faculties and media departments at all universities in the country changed their policies. the transfer of experience to novice journalists from military officers, Z-bloggers and even former prisoners has become regular and widespread.

If there was a person, there would be expertise.
Why the Oleg Kabov case could change the fate of Russian science

In Novosibirsk, they are considering the criminal case of corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences Oleg Kabov, which was initiated by the FSB. This is the first case in Russia when a scientist is being tried for his allegedly unsatisfactory work, and scientific and technical expertise forms the basic part of the charge. The very fact that you can go to prison for poorly conducted research is a new page both in the history of Russian science and in the history of domestic jurisprudence. Kabov's case is a challenge to the entire scientific community. It will show whether science in Russia can defend its right to exist.

Council of Elders.
Putin’s pensioners with Cold War experience gathered at the “dormant institute” under the Security Council

Vladimir Putin updated and expanded scientific council at the Security Council of the Russian Federation. T-invariant analyzed the biographies of all its 174 members. The median age of the council is pre-retirement, 63.5 years. The oldest member is 94 years old.

Meta-detection of FSB.
How 900 pages of Sergei Abramov’s criminal case were born from $75 in a year

The FSB completed investigative actions in the case of corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences Sergei Abramov a year later: the materials were transferred to the court, which must set a date for the hearing. According to T-invariant, Abramov’s case involves seven donations of 1,000 rubles each. The scientist himself has repeatedly denied his guilt, including denying that he made these translations.

The Ministry of Justice included T-invariant in the register of foreign agents

According to the Ministry of Justice, “the T-invariant project opposed the special military operation in Ukraine and carried out public actions aimed at creating a negative image of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.”

Nothing is Ambiguous.
From the Editors and Coordination Council of T-invariant

On February 16, 2024, came the terrible news — Alexei Navalny was killed. His death has become a personal tragedy for millions of people. Putin's regime has shown that it will stop at no crime in pursuit of its goals.

Global Warming and Political Cold

The past year brought a series of weather anomalies: extreme heat and drought, high precipitation and flooding. This spring began with a heat wave in Spain. We asked climate experts Alexander Chernokulsky and Olga Dobrovidova about weather anomalies and asked them to assess the development of global warming as well as how Russia's position on international cooperation on a variety of climate-related issues affects the global environmental agenda.

AI
Progress

Letter from Billionaires: Stop Artificial Intelligence!

The head of Tesla and SpaceX Ilon Musk, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and more than a thousand experts signed an open letter calling for a halt in the development of a «giant artificial intelligence.» The text of the letter was published by Future of Life Institute. T-Invariant asked experts and AI to comment on this open letter.

Survey
War

Two brave and a chatbot

An international boycott of scientists for their government's war? Even anti-war-minded people are divided over such measures. Many do not risk speaking out about it. So in addition to the scientists' answers, we asked questions to the artificial intelligence. At least it doesn't have emotions to suppress.

Berlin Wall 2

Ukrainian scientists have appealed to the international community to boycott their Russian colleagues. However, such a boycott conflicts with a number of important legal and ethical principles, and in practical terms may do more harm than good in countering Russian aggression.

War
Survey

«Science has not noticed the loss of Russia»

T-invariant survey: how the war affected Russian science and scientists themselves. Historical rhymes with the scientific emigration of the 1920s, relations with Ukrainian colleagues, isolation of Russian universities, faint hopes and gloomy predictions.

Progress
War

Why do we run the T-invariant

The T-invariant is a media with the mission to constantly remind us of timeless civilizational invariants, and to unite the community of people who hold them as living values.