Forgotten genius. On the 90 anniversary of the birth of the great Soviet cybernetics V.M. Glushkov
"A hundred times I said this oath:
One hundred years in the dungeon I better walk through,
One hundred mountains are more likely to be interpreted by me
Than the truth is stupid interpreted. "
Bahvalan Mahmoud
One hundred years in the dungeon I better walk through,
One hundred mountains are more likely to be interpreted by me
Than the truth is stupid interpreted. "
Bahvalan Mahmoud
24 August marks the 90 anniversary of the birth of the great Soviet mathematician, cybernetics and one of the founders of the principles embodied in Russian early warning systems for rocket attacks, as well as directly developing and implementing the automated control systems at the defense enterprises of the Soviet Union.
Viktor Mikhailovich Glushko was born into a miner's family in the city of Shakhty, Rostov Region 24 August 1923.
21 Jun 1941 graduated from high school No. XXUMX in the same city with a gold medal. The outbreak of the Great Patriotic War hit Viktor Mikhailovich painfully - in the fall of 1, his mother was killed by the Nazis.
After the liberation of the town of Shakhty by Soviet troops, Glushkov was mobilized and participated in the restoration of the coal mines of Donbass.
After the end of the war he brilliantly graduated from the mathematics department of Rostov University. In the thesis work was engaged in the development of methods for calculating tables of improper integrals, finding inaccuracies in existing tables, which had survived for the 10-12 editions before.
After 1948, a promising young mathematician was sent to the Urals for distribution to a secret institution involved in the atomic project.
He headed the department of theoretical mechanics of the Ural Forestry Institute. The topic of the doctoral dissertation, successfully defended in the dissertation council of Moscow State University 12 December 1955, is devoted to the proof of the fifth problem of Hilbert.
In the late fifties, the scientist became interested in the capabilities of the rapidly developing electronic computing technology.
Remained after moving from Kiev to Moscow, S.A. His laboratory, in which the first computer in the USSR and continental Europe was created — MESM — was transferred to the Institute of Mathematics of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR, whose director BV Gnedenko invited Glushkov to supervise her in 1956. Having moved, since August 1956, he lived and worked in Kiev. In 1956, he became the head of the computer science laboratory at the Institute of Mathematics of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR at the invitation of its director.
Laboratory employee Z.L. Rabinovich noted in his memoirs that with the arrival of Glushkov “not one of the works carried out in the laboratory was abandoned. On the contrary, everyone got a logical conclusion. "
Victor Mikhailovich's further activity was completely connected with computer technology - in December 1957 of the year, the Computing Center of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR was created on the basis of his laboratory, and he became its director. And in December 1962 of the year, the Institute of Cybernetics of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR was established on the basis of the CC of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR. Glushkov also became its director.
From 1958 to 1961, the year was developed by the Dnepr computer, which was actively used in various branches of the national economy of the USSR.
A complex of two Dnepr computers (standing behind the screen) in the center of space flight control. Information from the 150 sensors enters the complex, which displays the satellite trajectory on the screen.
Victor Mikhailovich was actively engaged in teaching. From 1956, he taught a course in higher algebra and a special course on the theory of digital automatons at KSU, and from 1966 until the end of his life he headed the department of theoretical cybernetics.
From 1962 to the end of his life, Vice-President of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences.
In 1963, Glushkov was approved by the chairman of the Interdepartmental Scientific Council for the Implementation of Computing Techniques and Economic and Mathematical Methods in the USSR National Economy under the State Committee of the USSR Council of Ministers on Science and Technology.
In the future, Glushkov was directly involved in the development and implementation of automatic production control systems (CAM) in the national economy, published scientific papers in the field of theoretical cybernetics, and he was also invited to write an article about cybernetics in the encyclopaedia “Britannica” in 1973.
In 1965, under the leadership of Glushkov, the first computer in the MIR-1 engineering series was created in the series.
Engineering Calculation Machine MIR11966 year
He was a member of the USSR State Committee on Science and Technology and the Committee on Lenin and State Prizes under the USSR Council of Ministers. He was an adviser to the UN Secretary General on Cybernetics. Under his leadership, defended more than one hundred dissertations.
Glushkov was the initiator and chief ideologist of the development and creation of the Nationwide Automated Information Accounting and Processing System (OGAS), intended for the automated management of the entire economy of the USSR as a whole. To this end, he developed a system of algorithmic algebras and a theory for managing distributed databases.
At this stage of his life is worth staying in more detail. Further cited by the book B.N. MalinovskyHistory computing technology in individuals. "
The task of building a nationwide automated management system (OGAS) for the economy was set up by Glushkov, first deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers (then AN Kosygin) in November 1962.
V.M. Glushkov, V.S. Mikhalevich, A.I. Nikitin et al. Developed the first sketch-project of the Unified State Network of EGSVTS Computing Centers, which included about 100 centers in large industrial cities and centers of economic regions united by broadband communication channels. These centers, distributed over the territory of the country, in accordance with the configuration of the system are combined with the rest, engaged in the processing of economic information. Their number we then determined in 20 thousands. These are large enterprises, ministries, as well as cluster centers serving small enterprises. The presence of a distributed data bank and the possibility of addressless access from any point of this system to any information after automatic verification of the requesting person’s authority was characteristic. A number of issues related to information security were developed. In addition, in this two-tier system, the main computing centers exchange information with each other not by switching channels and switching messages, as is customary now, broken down into letters, I suggested connecting these 100 or 200 centers with broadband channels bypassing the channel-forming equipment so that It was possible to rewrite information from a magnetic tape in Vladivostok to a tape in Moscow without any reduction in speed. Then all protocols are greatly simplified and the network acquires new properties. The project was secret until 1977.
Unfortunately, after reviewing the draft by the commission, almost nothing was left of it, the entire economic part was withdrawn, only the network itself remained. The seized materials were destroyed, burned, as they were secret.
As a whole, V.N. Starovsky, Head of CSB. His objections were demagogic. Glushkov insisted on such a new accounting system so that from any point any information could be immediately obtained. And he referred to the fact that the CSB was organized on the initiative of Lenin, and it copes with the tasks set by him; he managed to get assurances from Kosygin that the information that the CSB gives the government is enough to manage, and therefore nothing needs to be done.
Beginning with the 1964 year (the time of the appearance of my project), economists Lieberman, Belkin, Birman, and others began to speak out against Glushkov, many of whom later left for the United States and Israel. Kosygin, being a very practical person, became interested in the possible cost of our project. According to preliminary calculations, its implementation would have cost 20 billion rubles. Most of the work can be done in three five-year periods, but only if this program is organized in the same way as the atomic and space programs. Glushkov did not hide from Kosygin that it is more complicated than the space and atomic programs combined and organizationally much more difficult, since it affects everything and everyone: industry, commerce, planning authorities, the sphere of management, etc. Although the cost of the project was tentatively estimated at 20 billion rubles, the working scheme of its implementation envisaged that the first 5 billion rubles invested in the first five-year period at the end of the five-year period would return more than 5 billion, since the program cost was self-sustaining. And in just three five-year periods, the implementation of the program would bring in at least 100 billion rubles to the budget. And this is a very low figure.
But our pseudo-economists have confused Kosygin with the fact that, say, economic reform will not be worth anything at all, that is, will cost exactly as much as the paper on which the resolution of the Council of Ministers will be printed, and will result in more. Therefore, the Glushkov team was set aside and, moreover, began to be treated with wariness. And Kosygin was unhappy. Glushkov was ordered to temporarily stop the propaganda of OGAS and engage in lower-level systems. As it turned out, this was the beginning of the end of a grand project.
There are several reasons for this, but the main role was played by the inertia of thinking of some responsible party functionaries. This can best be illustrated with a fragment of Viktor Mikhailovich’s memories of a Politburo meeting, held after the Soviet leadership began to hear that Americans had already done a preliminary design of an information network (more precisely, several networks) before the Soviet leadership, that is, . two years later us. Unlike us, they did not argue, but did, and for 1966 the year they had a planned launch of the ARPANET network, and then SEIBARPANET and others, uniting computers that were installed in various US cities.
The same fragment contains the gloomy prophecy of Glushkov on the beginning of the economic recession of the USSR at the end of the 70s. Notes in brackets are mine.
“... Garbuzov (Minister of Finance of the USSR) spoke in such a way that what he said was suitable for a joke. He came to the podium and turned to Mazurov (he was then Kosygin's first deputy). Here, they say, Kirill Trofimovich, on your instructions I went to Minsk, and we examined the poultry farms. And there, at such a poultry farm (called it), the avians themselves developed a computer.
Then I laughed out loud. He shook a finger at me and said: "You, Glushkov, do not laugh, they are talking about serious things here." But Suslov interrupted him: "Comrade Garbuzov, you are not yet the chairman here, and it is not your business to bring order to the Politburo meeting." And he, as if nothing had happened, such a self-confident and narcissist, continues: “He performs three programs: turns on the music, when the hen laid an egg, turns off the light and lights, and so on. On the farm, the egg capacity has increased.” Here, he says what we need to do: first, automate all poultry farms in the Soviet Union, and then think about all sorts of nonsense, like a state-wide system. (And I really laughed here, not then.) Well, that's not the point.
A counter proposal was made, which reduced everything by an order of magnitude: instead of the Goskomupra, the Main Directorate for Computing Engineering at the State Science and Technology Committee, instead of the scientific center, VNIIPOU, etc. But the task remained the same, but it was technicalized, i.e. changed towards the State Network of Computing Centers, and as for the economy, the development of mathematical models for OGAS, etc. - all smeared.
In the end, Suslov comes forward and says: “Comrades, maybe we are making a mistake now, not accepting the project fully, but this is such a revolutionary transformation that it’s difficult for us to implement it now. Let's try this way and then we will see to be "and asks not Kirillina, but me:" What do you think? ". And I say: "Mikhail Andreevich, I can only tell you one thing: if we don’t do this now, then in the second half of the 70s, the Soviet economy will face such difficulties that it will be necessary to return to this issue anyway." But they did not consider my opinion, they accepted a counter-offer. ”
Ironically, the unrealized ideas embodied in OGAS were developed in the organization of an early warning system for a missile attack, which was actively built in the USSR in the seventies.
In addition, on his initiative and under his active leadership, automated control systems were introduced at the defense enterprises of the Soviet Union.
Victor Mikhailovich Glushkov and Admiral fleet Sergei Georgievich Gorshkov (left). The automation system for the design of submarines created at the Institute of Cybernetics and its Special Design Bureau has been put into operation. 70s of the XX century
Alas, but the long-term struggle of the scientist with inertia and bureaucracy was not in vain for him - in the fall of 1981, Viktor Mikhailovich’s health deteriorated.
A year later, on January 30, 1982, after a long illness, he died in Moscow at the Central Clinical Hospital and was buried in Kiev at the Baikovo Cemetery.
Victor Mikhailovich was awarded a large number of high government awards, including three Orders of Lenin and the Order of the October Revolution. Winner of the Lenin Prize and twice winner of the USSR State Prize. Hero of Socialist Labor.
The article was written using the materials of the popular science journal Propaganda (http://propaganda-journal.net/636.html), the book OGAS Like Pogus, and Academician V. Glushkov. Pages of life and creativity. Malinovsky B.N.— Kiev: Naukova Dumka, 1993.— 140с. and the museum "History of the development of information technology in Ukraine" (http://www.icfcst.kiev.ua/MUSEUM/about_r.html).
- Andrey aka Iraclius
- Museum "History of the development of information technologies in Ukraine"
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