Bibliography

I. B. Litinetskii. M. V. Lomonosov—the Founder of Russian Instrument Making, Moscow–Leningrad, Gostekhizdat, 1952, 160 pp. Print run 10,000. Price 6 rubles 75 kopecks.

“Great people,” wrote A. N. Tolstoy, “do not have two dates of their existence in history—birth and death—but only one date: their birth.” Such people include, first and foremost, the brilliant son of the Russian people, the founder of Russian science—Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov, whose 240th birthday was recently widely celebrated by our entire country. His life and work have been the subject of more than a thousand studies by Soviet scholars over the past thirty-five years. Dozens and hundreds of Lomonosov scholars continue carefully to study the creative legacy of the brilliant Russian scientist in order to reveal still more fully and show, from Marxist-Leninist positions, the greatness of the historic feat accomplished by M. V. Lomonosov for the Russian people and their culture, and for world science.

Thanks to the research carried out by Soviet scholars, with every year ever new, previously unknown areas of the creative work of the great people’s toiler are being discovered. Yet many aspects of Lomonosov’s activity as organizer of Russian science, as a fighter for the development of the country’s productive forces and for its transformation, have still remained unstudied and represent “blank spots.” Therefore the statement of Academician S. I. Vavilov is entirely just: “a comprehensive illumination and assessment of the historical significance of Lomonosov’s activity, his ideas, discoveries, and inventions for the development of Russian and world science will require no small further effort on the part of Soviet historians of science and technology”*).

In light of these tasks, the monograph by I. B. Litinetskii, M. V. Lomonosov—the Founder of Russian Instrument Making, recently published by the State Publishing House of Technical-Theoretical Literature, is of considerable interest.

Numerous documents testify that, over the course of twenty-five years of his creative activity, the great Russian scientist created an enormous number of remarkable mechanical, electrical, optical, and other instruments, without which the development of many branches of science and technology would have been impossible. Reading I. B. Litinetskii’s monograph, one cannot help once again being amazed by the seething energy and astonishing versatility of M. V. Lomonosov’s majestic genius. The instruments he created would have been quite enough to fill an entire human life, while at the same time “...what he achieved alone in the fields of physics, chemistry, astro-

*) S. I. Vavilov, “Lomonosov. Collection of Articles and Materials,” vol. III, Moscow–Leningrad, Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1951, p. 3.

...of astronomy, instrument making, geology, geography, linguistics, and history would have been worthy of an entire academy.” (S. I. Vavilov.)

Unfortunately, not all the ideas and inventions of the genius Russian scientist have come down to us. Many drawings and the instruments made from them have perished in the fires of the tsarist autocracy; some proved forgotten and, until recently, were unknown even to a narrow circle of specialists.

The extensive creative legacy of M. V. Lomonosov in various fields of instrument making has for the first time been gathered together in the monograph under review, and this is its undoubted great value.

The author of the book has not only collected and described the treasury of works of the great Russian scientist in the field of instrument making, but has also vividly and clearly shown the history of the creation of each instrument, its role in the development of various branches of modern science and technology, and has restored the historical truth about M. V. Lomonosov’s primacy in the invention of the viscosimeter, refractometer, self-recording anemometer, gas barometer, electrometer, static gravimeter, self-writing compass, bottom mechanical log of the propeller type, night-vision tube, reflecting telescope, and many other instruments whose invention bourgeois scholars of the capitalist West have undeservedly tried, down to the present time, to attribute to foreigners.

A great merit of the book is that the author has been able to show Lomonosov’s creativity in instrument making not in isolation, but in close connection with the development of various fields of science, industry, navigation, and the strengthening of the military power of Russia.

Regarding experience as the source of knowledge, placing the success of science in direct dependence on the development of the experimental art, Lomonosov, in his creative work, encompassed all areas of instrument making of that time and in each of them forever left “an example of extraordinary boldness of thought, gigantic breadth and persistence in the practical solution of scientific problems. According to the figurative expression of the scientist, he needed instruments in order to ‘...test everything that can only be measured, weighed, and determined by calculation.’”

As the author of the monograph rightly points out, the work of the great Russian scientist in instrument making (as in other fields of his activity) bore a profoundly distinctive character. In it were vividly imprinted Russian ingenuity, selfless devotion to his homeland, boundless love for his people, unsurpassed Russian mastery in precision mechanics, and daring of conception. Throughout his life Lomonosov fought against servility before authorities, against groveling before foreigners. “We ourselves shall create our own authorities,” he called upon Russian people. “Do not deem me an Aristotle, a Descartes, or a Newton. If you give me their names, then know that you are serfs, and my glory will fall with yours”*).

The book under review vividly and convincingly presents to us the image of an indefatigable toiler, a bold experimenter, a brilliant inventor, who was never satisfied with the results achieved in his creative work.

Lomonosov preceded the creation of each instrument with a great deal of research work—dozens of experiments; and, having made one or another instrument, he continued for decades to work on improving its design. Thus, for example, having begun work in 1758 on the creation of a marine barometer, Lomonosov continued to labor on its improvement until the last days of his life. Sending “meteorological road instruments” to M. I. Vorontsov on February 5, 1763, Lomonosov wrote: “Scholars have long been seeking and striving, so as to devise—

) M. V. Lomonosov. Selected Philosophical Works*, p. 269, Gospolitizdat, 1950.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

to devise a marine barometer for predicting storms, since the one ordinarily used, because of the great movement of the mercury, is quite incapable of doing so. This invention has not yet been brought to a complete solution*). After a month Lomonosov wrote to M. I. Vorontsov: “As soon as possible, I shall endeavor to make it [the marine barometer.—N. Sh.] in such a way that it will be worthy of curiosity...”**).

Lomonosov devoted much time and labor to laying the foundations of the technology of instrument-making. His creative work in this field was just as multifaceted and fruitful as in the construction of various instruments. The materials presented in the monograph give us the right to regard M. V. Lomonosov as the first design engineer and technologist of Russian instrument-making.

Characterizing one of the spheres of the brilliant scientist’s creative work—the sphere of optical instrument-making—S. I. Vavilov wrote: “Before us, in a completely vivid and real way, stands the figure of a remarkable optician, thinker, and theoretician in this field, and at the same time of a tireless original designer who had mastered the chemical and mechanical aspects of practical optics”***).

In developing the designs of new instruments, Lomonosov sought to make their production easier, to reduce labor intensity as much as possible, and to bring expenditures of money and materials down to a minimum. Expressed in the language of our time, the great Russian scientist was the first to introduce into the science and practice of instrument-making the basic elements of the modern concept of technological suitability of a design. Creating, in place of an enormous lens and mirror, his original “catoptric-dioptric incendiary instrument” for carrying out chemical operations “requiring a great fire,” Lomonosov wrote: “Here there is no need to sweat over the casting of huge glasses and to engage in the most tedious labor of polishing them, for several smaller glasses will produce the same effect. They will require comparatively small expenses, and no great labor or effort will be needed to make them. Whoever undertakes to make the entire instrument proposed in this article will spend no more than 40 florins... Those large glasses and lenses, made only with the generous support of emperors and kings, can be seen in cabinets of curiosities”****).

Relying on numerous documentary data and on the investigations he carried out, the author of the monograph has convincingly shown that every instrument created by the great Russian scientist, in its purpose and in the perfection of its design, considerably outstripped the science and practice of the Western European countries of the eighteenth century, while many of Lomonosov’s inventions, like the nocturnal telescope, have not lost their significance even in our time.

The book gives a good account of Lomonosov’s concern for the development of the science and practice of national instrument-making, and of the heroic struggle of the scientist-patriot against tsarist bureaucrats, against the German officials who had entrenched themselves in the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences—“oppressors of the Russian sciences,” and against church obscurantists, who were indifferent to his projects and inventions.

As the spokesman for the interests of the most progressive forces of Russian society, Lomonosov devoted his entire life to serving the fatherland, strengthening—

*) M. V. Lomonosov, Works, vol. VIII, p. 259. Published by the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Moscow—Leningrad, 1948.

**) Ibid.

***) S. I. Vavilov. “The Optical Works and Views of M. V. Lomonosov.” Journal Priroda, 1936, No. 12.

****) M. V. Lomonosov. Complete Collected Works, vol. I, p. 101, Published by the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Moscow—Leningrad, 1950.

Bibliography

to the strengthening of its economic and military power, the progress of Russian science, the raising of the cultural level and well-being of the common people, and the struggle against serfdom.

By his monograph the author has refuted the erroneous conception, which has existed in our literature up to the present time, that Lomonosov supposedly had no school and no pupils. “The honor of the Russian people,” the scientist wrote in 1764, “requires that we show its capacity and acuity in the sciences, and that our fatherland can make use of its own sons, not only in military bravery and in other important affairs, but also in the reasoning of lofty knowledge.” This deep faith in the talents and creativity of his people, the passionate desire “to restore the golden age to the sciences that know,” inspired Lomonosov in his noble and selfless labor in educating talented masters of Russian instrument-making—Belyaev, Tiryutin, Chichkov, Kolotoshin, and many others who came from the thick of the people and over the years multiplied the treasury of the remarkable works of their teacher.

On the whole, the author of the monograph has succeeded, in a vivid and accessible form, in reproducing the picture of the formation of the science and practice of instrument-making in Russia, and in showing the genius of the Russian scientist Mikhail Vasilievich Lomonosov as the founder of national instrument-making. This is an unquestionable and well-deserved success of the book.

The book under review is not without a number of shortcomings. Thus, for example, in all the chapters of the reviewed monograph it would have been necessary to show more broadly how Lomonosov’s remarkable ideas and inventions received their development over the course of the subsequent two centuries in the works of Russian and Soviet scientists.

In restoring the priority of the great Russian scientist in the creation of numerous physico-chemical, meteorological, electrical, gravimetric, optical, and navigational instruments, in individual cases it would have been advisable, for greater clarity, to reproduce alongside the image of a given Lomonosov instrument a drawing or blueprint of its belated “foreign counterpart.”

For unclear reasons, the book gives no description of a number of improved instruments first introduced by Lomonosov into the field of physico-chemical research, which contributed to the fundamental improvement of the experimental technique of eighteenth-century natural science. (Among such instruments are the “antlia”—an air pump, an autoclave of Lomonosov’s design, and others.) Some original devices and installations, invented and introduced by the great experimentalist into laboratory practice (“a tin bomb for experiments on the freezing of water,” “a glass hollow sphere with a narrow tube,” an apparatus for filtration under vacuum, and others), are not shown.

The scientist’s work on the creation of high-precision assay balances is set forth insufficiently deeply. The improvement and invention of new designs of thermometers is shown in isolation from Lomonosov’s investigations of phenomena in the solidification of mercury.

However, all the remarks made above do not diminish the general merits of the book and are rather wishes relating to a new, expanded and supplemented edition, which it undoubtedly deserves.

The appearance of new books on the work of M. V. Lomonosov cannot but gladden every person for whom the priority of national discoveries, investigations, and inventions is dear. Lomonosov’s works for our people have not only historical, but also direct scientific and social interest. In particular, Lomonosov’s work in the field of instrument-making, set forth in detail in the book under review, will for a long time yet serve Soviet designers as an inexhaustible source of remar-

remarkable ideas, bold ventures in creating new, highly perfected designs of instruments necessary for building the communist tomorrow.

Splendidly published—which is unquestionably to the credit of Gostekhizdat—and written in a lively, good style, I. B. Litinetsky’s book M. V. Lomonosov—the Founder of Russian Instrument Making is a valuable contribution to the literature on the history of Russian science and technology; it will be read with great interest by very broad circles of Soviet readers.

N. N. Shumilovsky