Petrovsky Guriy Timofeyevich

    General Director of State Optics Institute named after S.I. Vavilov.
   Born on August 5, 1931 in Leningrad.
   His father Timofei Timofeyevich was a lecturer. His mother Marina Petrovna Timofeyeva, a secretary. His wife Marina Lazarevna Petrovskaya is a Senior Lecturer at the Technological Institute. His daughter Olga, 28, is a graduate student. His son Igor, 35, an artist.
   P.G. Petrovsky graduated from the Lensoviet Technological Institute in 1955. In 1957 he has been admitted to a graduate school in Prague and received a Czech diploma. Since 1959 he has been working in the State Optics Institute named after Vavilov.
   The institute is one of the few institutions of such kind having a federal research center status. Its work is directed towards raising Russia's science and technology potential. The center is divided into 6 institutes, each involved in the design and creation of civil and scientific optical devices: microscopes and astronomical instruments. The Institute of Space Optics develops devices for spaceships. The Institute of Laser Physics creates lasers for medical and technological applications. The Institute of Physical Optics studies the processes of interaction between light and substance and the effect of light emission from optical substance. The Institute of Optical Materials develops and produces all types of materials used in optics: a total of 100 brands of glass, 30 brands of transparent crystals, and optic fibers. The center is one of the largest organizations in the city. After two downsizings, 7,000 people are still employed here. The State Optics Institute (SOI) incorporates two factories, the Institute of Complex Testings in Sosnovy Bor, where space conditions have been imitated. The institute studies the entire specter of issues related to optical science and technology. Our century is a century of optics; in the future all information will be stored and transmitted with the use of optical devices, and this will increase the speed of information output.
   Mr. Petrovsky has been occupying the position of Director of the Institute of Optical Materials since 1969. In 1993 he became General Director of SOI. His main concern is with finding finances for the institute. But he firmly believes that Russian science will survive, because it has enormous potential. SOI was created in 1918, at a time not less difficult than ours. But the significance of optics was realized even then. "Science should lie in the palm of the state and feel its warmth" - Petrovsky cites the words of the famous Russian scientist S.I. Vavilov. Mr. Petrovsky is laureate of the U.S.S.R. State Awards for the development of new types of optical glass for space photo lenses and of special sorts of quartz glass.
   G.T. Petrovsky is a principal opponent of dragging work on until late night, he believes that the second half of the day is a time when a scientist should be raising his level of knowledge. He reads science literature (Russian and foreign) daily and is a lover of books, by Agatha Christie among other authors. He is a fan of St. Petersburg's Major Drama Theater and considers Tovstonogov to be a genius director. Guriy Timofeyevich believes in love, enjoys family gatherings (especially on New Year's Eve), detests disorder and messiness. He is quite indifferent to comfort at the workplace: the furniture in his cabinet had been made at the time of the institute's foundation and has been passed over from one director to the next one for decades. Mr. Petrovsky plans to restore the institute to the level it had achieved at the peak of its development, to strengthen its position in world science and industry, and to pass it over into secure hands.
   G.T. Petrovsky has been President of the D.S. Rozhdestvensky Optics Society since September 1996 until the present. He is a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, of the Russian Engineering Academy, of the Russian Technological Academy, of the New York Academy, a Doctor of Chemistry, a professor. His area of principal professional interest includes the theory of glass-like states, the technology and physical chemistry of optical glass, optical crystals and optic fiber elements.
   Author and co-author of over 600 science publications, his monograph titled "Optics Technology in Space" is among these.

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