"In 2000, the Russian scientist Zhores Alferov shared the Nobel Prize for Physics for his discovery of the heterojunction, a semiconductor device the practical applications of which include light-emitting diodes, rapid transistors, and the microchip. Alferov's Nobel Prize was the culmination of a career that spanned the eras of Stalin, Khrushchev, and Gorbachev--and continues today in the post-communist Russia of Putin and Medvedev. In Lenin's Laureate, the historian Paul Josephson tells the story of Alferov's life and work and examines the bureaucratic, economic, and ideological obstacles to doing statesponsored scientific research in the Soviet Union." "Lenin and the Bolsheviks built strong institutions for scientific research, rectifying years of neglect under the Tsars. Later generations of scientists, including Alferov and his colleagues, reaped the benefits, achieving important breakthroughs: the first nuclear reactor for civilian energy, an early fusion device, and, of course, Sputnik. Josephson's account of Alferov's career reveals the strengths and weaknesses of Soviet science, a schizophrenic environment of cutting-edge research and political interference. |