This event was devoted to the memory of two brothers, Sergey Petrovich Kapitsa and Andrey Petrovich Kapitsa, members of the famous Kapitsa family, closely linked to Cambridge and to the local Russian-speaking community.
WHEN: Friday 24th May 2013, 7:00pm
WHERE: Scott Polar Research Institute, Lecture Theatre, Lensfield Rd, Cambridge CB2 1ER
With contributions from: Maria Kapitsa, Pyotr Kapitsa, Peter Gysin, Isabella Warren, Gareth Rees, Alla Mostinskaya, Galina Scott, and Natalia Budanova.
Featuring: memories, stories, clips from films, and reflections by friends, colleagues and family members.
– SERGEY KAPITSA was a physicist and demographer, and the host of the popular and long-running Russian scientific TV show, “Evident, but Incredible” (“Очевидное – невероятное”).
– ANDREY KAPITSA was a geographer, credited with the discovery and naming of the Lake Vostok, the largest subglacial lake in Antarctica, that lies 4,000 metres below the continent’s icecap.
Both brothers were born and spent their early childhood in Cambridge, and returned to the city many times in their later lives.
Their father was a Nobel-prize winning physicist PYOTR KAPITSA, who worked in Cambridge with Ernest Rutherford in the 1920s and early 1930s.
As an AFTERWORD, here is a letter from the KAPITSA FAMILY to the organisers in response to the evening:
“On behalf of all the members of the Kapitsa family, we would like to thank you personally and, if possible, pass our thanks to all the organisers and the participants of the wonderful memorial evening that, we thought, was a great success. An interest towards the life and work of Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa and his sons Sergey and Andrey, shown by all those present at the evening, is a meanignful sign of respect and recognition of their achievements in modern-day science. We wish to say a huge “thank you” to all the speakers for their wonderful talks, and to all those who came for their vivid interst and questions.
At the end of the evening, a few people were enquiring if it were possible somehow to see the whole film “BETWEEN THE EVIDENT AND THE IMPROBABLE” (“Между очевидным и невероятным”), an extract from which had been demonstrated by Maria Kapitsa during her talk. Below is a link to this film on the Internet (in Russian). Happy watching!
http://video.mail.ru/mail/romastrannuk/148/3207.html
With much respect,
Pyotr, Elena, and Maria Kapitsa”
Click here to view SOME PHOTOS FROM THE KAPITSA MEMORIAL EVENING.
