120th anniversary of the birth of Sergei Ivanovich Vavilov (Scientific session of the Physical Sciences Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 30 March 2011)

A scientific session of the Physical Sciences Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) dedicated to the 120th anniversary of the birth of Sergei Ivanovich Vavilov was held in the Conference Hall of the P N Lebedev Physical Institute, RAS, on 30 March 2011.

The following reports were put on the session's agenda posted on the web site www.gpad.ac.ru of the Physical Sciences Division, RAS:

(1) Masalov A V (P N Lebedev Physical Institute, RAS, Moscow) "S I Vavilov and nonlinear optics";

(2) Basiev T T (Laser Materials and Technology Research Center, A M Prokhorov General Physics Institute, RAS, Moscow) "Luminescent nanophotonics and high-power lasers";

(3) Vitukhnovsky A G (P N Lebedev Physical Institute, RAS, Moscow) "Advances in luminescent light sources and displays";

(4) Aleksandrov E В (Ioffe Physical Technical Institute, RAS, St. Petersburg) "Sergei Ivanovich Vavilov and the special theory of relativity";

(5) Bolotovsky В M (P N Lebedev Physical Institute, RAS, Moscow) "Vavilov–Cherenkov effect";
(6) Vizgin V P (S I Vavilov Institute of the History of Natural Scienses and Technology, RAS, Moscow) "Sergei Ivanovich Vavilov as a historian of science";

(7) Ginzburg A S (Knowledge Society) "Academician S I Vavilov — a devotee of the enlightenment and the first president of the Knowledge Society of the USSR".

The papers written on the basis of reports 1–4 and 6 are given below. The main contents of report 5 is reflected in the paper "Vavilov–Cherenkov radiation: its discovery and application" [Usp. Fiz. Nauk 179 1161 (2009); Phys. Usp. 52 1099 (2009)] published earlier by В М Bolotovsky.