Konstantin Tsiolkovsky
Monism of the Universe
PREFACE
They are dying in my years and I am afraid that you will leave this life with sorrow in your heart, without knowing from me (from the pure source of knowledge) that continuous joy awaits you.
That is why I am writing this summary without having completed numerous major works.
I want this life of yours to be a bright dream of a future, never ending happiness.
My sermon, in my eyes, is not even a dream, but a strictly mathematical conclusion from exact knowledge.
I want to delight you with the contemplation of the Universe, with the fate awaiting everyone, with the wonderful history of the past and future of each atom. This will increase your health, lengthen your life and give you the strength to endure adversity. You will die with joy and in the conviction that happiness, perfection, infinity and the subjective continuity of a rich organic life await you.
My conclusions are more comforting than the promises of the most cheerful religions.
No positivist can be more sober than me. Even Spinoza, compared to me, is a mystic. Even if my wine intoxicates, it is still natural.
To understand me, you must completely renounce everything obscure, such as occultism, spiritualism, dark philosophies, from all authorities except the authority of exact science, i.e. mathematics, geometry, mechanics, physics, chemistry, biology and their applications. lt;...gt;.
(Synopsis) PANPSYCHISM, OR EVERYTHING SENSES
I am a pure materialist. I recognize nothing but matter. In physics, chemistry and biology I see the same mechanics.
The whole cosmos is just an endless and complex mechanism. Its complexity is so great that it borders on arbitrariness, surprise and randomness; it gives the illusion of free will of conscious beings. Although, as we will see, everything is periodic, nothing is ever strictly repeated.
I call the ability of organisms to feel pleasant and unpleasant sensitivity. Let us note this, since this word often means responsiveness (in the living - reflexes). Responsiveness is something else entirely. All bodies of the cosmos are responsive. Thus, all bodies change in volume, shape, color, strength, transparency and all other properties depending on temperature, pressure, lighting and, in general, the influence of other bodies.
Dead bodies are sometimes even more responsive than living ones. Thus, a thermometer, barometer, hygroscope and other scientific instruments are much more responsive than a person.
Every particle of the universe is responsive. We think she is also sensitive. Let's explain.
Of all the animals known to us, man is the most sensitive. The remaining known animals are less sensitive the lower their organization. Plants are even less sensitive. This is a continuous staircase. It does not end at the border of living matter, because there is no such border. It is artificial, like all borders.
We can call the sensitivity of higher animals joy and grief, suffering and delight, pleasantness and unpleasantness. The sensations of lower animals are not so strong. We do not know their names and have no idea about them. Moreover, the feelings of plants and inorganic bodies are incomprehensible to us. The strength of their sensitivity is close to zero. I say this on the basis that with death, or the transition of the organic to the inorganic, sensitivity ceases. If it stops in fainting, due to cardiac arrest, then even more so it disappears with the complete destruction of the living.
The feeling disappears, but responsiveness remains in the dead body, only it becomes less intense and more accessible to the scientist than to the average person.
A person can describe his joys and pains. We believe him, that he feels, just like we do (although there is no exact evidence for this. An interesting example of faith in the unscientific). The higher animals, with their screams and movements, make us guess that their feelings are similar to ours. But lower beings cannot do even that. They only run away from what is harmful to them. (Tropism). Plants often cannot do even that. Does this mean that they feel nothing? The inorganic world is also unable to communicate anything about itself, but this does not mean that it does not possess a lower form of sensitivity.
Only the degree of sensitivity of different parts of the universe is different and continuously changes from zero to an indefinitely large value (in higher beings, that is, more perfect than people. They are obtained from people or are on other planets).
Everything is continuous and everything is one. Matter is one, as is its responsiveness and sensitivity. The degree of sensitivity depends on material combinations. Just as the living world, in its complexity and perfection, represents a continuous staircase descending to “dead” matter, so the power of feeling represents the same staircase, which does not disappear even at the border of the living. If responsiveness, a mechanical phenomenon, does not cease, then why will sensitivity cease, a phenomenon incorrectly called mental, i.e., having nothing in common with matter. (We give materiality to this word.) Both those and other phenomena go in parallel, in harmony and never leave either the living or the dead. Although, on the other hand, the amount of sensation in a dead person is so small that we can conditionally or approximately consider it absent. If a white speck of dust falls on black paper, this will not be a reason to call it white. The white speck of dust is this sensitivity of the dead.
In the mathematical sense, the entire Universe is alive, but the power of sensitivity is manifested in all its brilliance only in higher animals. Every atom of matter feels in accordance with its surroundings. Finding himself in highly organized beings, he lives their life and feels pleasant and unpleasant, finding himself in the inorganic world, he seems to be asleep, in a deep swoon, in non-existence.
Even in one animal, wandering around the body, he lives now the life of the brain, now the life of the bone, hair, nail, epithelium, etc. This means that he now thinks, now lives like an atom enclosed in stone, water or air. Either he sleeps, unaware of time, then he lives in the moment, like lower beings, then he is aware of the past and paints a picture of the future. The higher the organization of a being, the further this idea of the future and past extends.
I am not only a materialist, but also a panpsychist, recognizing the sensitivity of the entire universe. I consider this property inseparable from matter. Everything is alive, but we conventionally consider it alive. Only what he feels strongly enough. Since any matter can always, under favorable conditions, transform into an organic state, we can conditionally say that inorganic matter is (potentially) alive in its infancy.
THREE BASES OF JUDGMENT
Alexander Tkachenko
TSIOLKOVSKY
The path to the stars
Preface
In the very center of Kaluga there is an unusual monument in the form of a huge rocket sparkling in the sun. And next to her is a bearded man with glasses. He squints myopically and looks at the sky. This is a monument to Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky.
Who is he and why was he depicted next to the rocket? Perhaps he built the very first spaceship? No, the first rocket to go into outer space was made by the famous engineer Sergei Pavlovich Korolev.
Well, then, perhaps he was the first astronaut to fly on a rocket to unknown worlds? But, of course, everyone knows that the first cosmonaut on Earth was Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin.
And Konstantin Tsiolkovsky was an ordinary teacher in a small town. And not only in space on a rocket, but I’ve never even flown on an airplane in my life. But both Korolev and Gagarin considered it an honor to visit his small house on the river bank. And in Moscow, near the Museum of Cosmonautics, there is also a monument to him - a rocket taking off into the sky and Tsiolkovsky watching its flight.
What kind of amazing person is this and why do they erect monuments to him with rockets? But we’ll talk about this now.
The rocket flies and flies around the earth...
People have long dreamed of going on a space journey. But how to overcome gravity? Try to jump - immediately and feel this force on yourself, which will immediately return you back to the ground. How can scientists defeat it in order to send a spaceship into space? In order to go beyond the limits of gravity, it must accelerate to eight kilometers per second! Or almost twenty-nine thousand kilometers per hour!
And more than a hundred years ago, a simple Kaluga teacher Tsiolkovsky made a discovery that paved the way into space for all mankind. He came up with a rocket - an aircraft with a jet engine!
You can make the simplest jet engine yourself from an ordinary balloon. Try to inflate it, but do not tie the tail, but let it out of your hands. The ball will immediately begin to rush in different directions until all the air comes out of it, pushing it forward. This is jet motion - the same as in a rocket. Only the rocket is pushed forward not by air, but by a stream of hot gas. And it flies not haphazardly, but according to a strictly calculated course.
This is the kind of rocket Tsiolkovsky proposed to send into space. True, in his time the technical capabilities for this did not yet exist. Cars were just learning to drive, ships were learning to sail, and planes were just learning to fly. But Tsiolkovsky believed that someday people would create such engines with the help of which they would be able to escape beyond the Earth. As we now see, he was right. But his contemporaries thought completely differently when Tsiolkovsky dreamed of future space travel. Many considered him then a dreamer and an eccentric. Why? And now you yourself will understand.
With an umbrella on the ice
Imagine this picture: a drifting snow is blowing along a snow-covered Kaluga street. It's cold outside, February. Rare passersby wrap themselves in warm fur coats and sheepskin coats and raise their collars higher. Everyone is in a hurry to quickly get to the warmth and comfort of their home. Only at the corner does a policeman in a uniform overcoat shift from foot to foot, because he cannot leave his post even in such cold weather. Suddenly, loud dogs barking can be heard from the far end of the street. He is getting closer, and now you can see that about two dozen stray dogs are rushing after the strange figure with indignant barking.
This is an elderly man in a long coat and with an open black umbrella rushing on skates down the street towards the frozen river. Snow covered his glasses, his beard and long gray hair were also covered with snow, his hat miraculously stayed on the very top of his head. But the man’s face is happy, like that of a ten-year-old boy who has escaped to the skating rink from school lessons.
The wind howls, dogs bark, a man with an umbrella skates past the policeman, and this whole noisy company quickly disappears in clouds of snow dust.
What else is this? - a random passer-by in a heavy beaver coat asks the policeman in fear. - Has the madman really escaped from the hospital? He needs to be caught before he does anything bad!
“No, your honor,” the policeman replies gravely. - We don’t have any crazy people on the street. And this is our teacher having fun, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky. You must not be local? Everyone here knows him. A meek man, he wouldn’t hurt a fly. So don't worry.
This is some kind of disgrace... - the gentleman grumbles, sitting down in a covered sleigh next to an approaching cab driver. - I can imagine what such a teacher can teach children...
A moment later, the horses carry the sleigh with the angry gentleman along the snowy street. And the policeman looks after him and concludes with a grin:
Definitely not local. Who in Kaluga doesn’t know Tsiolkovsky?
And the policeman was right! For Kaluga residents, Konstantin Eduardovich’s eccentricities have long become commonplace. In his diary he writes: “How many times during a storm with an umbrella I rushed across the ice with the force of the wind! It was delicious". Of course it's amazing. And the dogs have fun! It’s just a pity that not all the townspeople understood that the eccentric skating with an umbrella is a genius who, in a few decades, will glorify their city throughout the world. After all, Tsiolkovsky almost did not publish his scientific works at that time; he did not go to conferences of scientists in Moscow and St. Petersburg. He didn’t even have a higher education diploma, because he didn’t study at the university.
But why did the brilliant Tsiolkovsky not participate in the scientific life of Russia? There was a very good and sad reason for this. The fact is that Konstantin Tsiolkovsky was... deaf.
Genius self-taught
One day the boy Kostya fell ill with scarlet fever. The disease is not that very dangerous: many children suffered from it in those days and usually made a full recovery. But Kostya’s scarlet fever caused a severe complication in his ears. As a result, he lost almost all of his ability to hear at the age of ten. The singing of birds, the voices of friends, music, the sound of the wind in the treetops - all this disappeared for him forever. Now he could not study with other children, because he did not hear anything the teacher said in class.
Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky (Polish: Konstanty Ciołkowski, September 5 (17), 1857, Izhevskoye, Ryazan province, Russian Empire - September 19, 1935, Kaluga, USSR) - Russian scientist and inventor in the field of aerodynamics, rocket dynamics, aeronautics theory, the founder of modern cosmonautics.
Born into the family of a forester. Having suffered scarlet fever at the age of 14, Tsiolkovsky practically lost his hearing and studied independently. In 1879 he passed the exams for the title of teacher as an external student. In 1880, Tsiolkovsky was appointed teacher of arithmetic and geometry at the Borovsk district school (Kaluga province). At this time, Tsiolkovsky’s first works were published - “The Theory of Gases” and “Mechanics of the Animal Organism” (1880-81). He was accepted into the Russian Physicochemical Society.
Since 1884, Tsiolkovsky worked on the problems of creating an airship and a “streamlined” airplane, and from 1886 - rockets for interplanetary flights. He systematically developed the theory of motion of jet vehicles and proposed several of their schemes. In 1892, Tsiolkovsky moved to Kaluga, where he taught physics and mathematics at the gymnasium and diocesan school. In the same year, his work “Controllable Metal Balloon” (about an airship) was published. In 1897, Tsiolkovsky designed the first wind tunnel in Russia with an open working part.
In Soviet times, Tsiolkovsky was mainly involved in the theory of rocket motion (rocket dynamics). In 1926-29, he developed the theory of multi-stage rocket science, solved important problems related to the movement of rockets in a non-uniform gravitational field, landing a spacecraft on the surface of planets without an atmosphere, considered the influence of the atmosphere on the flight of a rocket, put forward ideas about creating a rocket - an artificial satellite of the Earth and near-Earth orbital stations. In 1932, Tsiolkovsky substantiated the theory of jet flight in the stratosphere.
Tsiolkovsky's technical ideas found application in the design of rocket and space technology.
Books (12)
Collection of books
Biology of dwarfs and giants
Beyond Earth
Will of the Universe
A genius among people
Grief and genius
Dreams of Earth and Sky (collection)
Is there a God
Living things in space
Earthly catastrophes
What type of school is desired?
Space philosophy
Self-love, or True self-love
Mirages of the future social order (collection)
Monism of the Universe
My life
On the moon
Science and Faith
Scientific ethics
Unknown intelligent forces
About soul, about spirit and about reason
Social organization of humanity
Social institutions, their advantages and disadvantages
Root cause
Right to land
Tradition about the life of the Galilean teacher Jesus, according to Matthew
Adventures of the Atom
Cause of space
Industrial space exploration
Path to the Stars (collection)
Russian cosmism. Anthology of philosophical thought
Strange coincidences, or dates of my life of a moral nature
Strange case
Creatures higher than man
Features from my life
What to do on Earth
Shield of Scientific Faith (collection)
Ethereal Island
The future of the earth and humanity
In the proposed brochure, the famous Russian scientist K.E. Tsiolkovsky talks about the progress of mankind.
The proposed picture of the successive successes of mankind is based on numerous works of the scientist. It assumes that a person will quickly leave the atmosphere, where the launched “projectile” will remain at a certain distance from the Earth, like the Moon. The author also assumes the rapid settlement of space... K. Tsiolkovsky also believed that humanity should pay close attention to its cradle - the Earth. The work discusses ways of its further colonization.
Space philosophy
In his works, the outstanding scientist, inventor, founder of modern astronautics K.E. Tsiolkovsky, is trying to find an answer to the question: “Are there higher powers, is there a root cause of all things and phenomena?” And confidently, conclusively, without any mysticism, based only on the data of exact science, he answers: “Of course there is, it is the Universe itself.”
How does she relate to a person? How does he treat his chosen ones, marked with the stamp of genius? How to change the life of a person and society so as not to resist the will of the universe - you will find thoughts about this in this collection of all the main articles by K.E. Tsiolkovsky.
Mirages of the future social order. Collection
This collection includes articles by Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky devoted to improving public relations.
The goal of social development of K.E. Tsiolkovsky believed in the endless development of man and human society, the salvation of humanity after the depletion of the earth's resources and the cooling of our sun, and the exploration of space. All aspects of human life are considered by him from the point of view of conformity with this goal.
Social organization of humanity. Grief and genius
The publication contains two works by K.E. Tsiolkovsky: “The Social Organization of Humanity (Calculations and Tables)” and “Grief and Genius.”
Published from editions of 1928 (“Social Organization of Humanity”) and 1916 (“Grief and Genius”), Kaluga.
Adventures of the Atom
The history of one atom, its migration from body to body, its life in these bodies, its impressions of being in plants, animals and people.
This short story outlines the position of K.E. Tsiolkovsky on the structure of the Universe (his famous monism) from whose position the structure of human society is considered.
Cause of space
K.E. Tsiolkovsky claimed that he developed the theory of rocket science only as an application to his philosophical research. He wrote more than 400 works, which are little known to the general reader due to their many years of silence.
This book is an attempt to break through the “conspiracy of silence” around the philosophy of the Russian space seer, a student of the Russian philosopher N. N. Fedorov, the discoverer and solver of a complex of problems posed to human civilization by the beginning of the “space age.”
New thinking is impossible without exposing “ordinary consciousness”, without searching for the meaning of life beyond everyday life in the unity of the populated cosmos.
Why don't people fly like birds?
A. N. Ostrovsky. "Storm"
By the 10th century, the Chinese had learned to use rockets. They were used mainly for pyrotechnic needs, but if necessary, besieged fortresses and cities were burned with “fire arrows.” In Europe, rockets were used for military purposes by the British in 1791, during the Indian War. Artillery officer William Congreve suggested using them against Napoleon in 1806. The first missile strike was launched by the British in 1814, but not against the troops of the French emperor, but against their allies - the Americans. Fort McHenry near Baltimore was under fire for a day (by the way, it was after this attack that the words to the US anthem were written, including the line about the “scarlet flame of rockets”). Then the rapid development of artillery pushed the issue of rockets into the background, and until the middle of the 20th century they were used most often as festive pyrotechnics.
Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky was the first to think about the space use of rockets and scientifically substantiate their advantage over all other methods of interplanetary travel. True, even before him, many people dreamed about the optimal way to travel in outer space - from Cyrano de Bergerac to Jules Verne, but the list of dreamers was mainly limited to people of art.
However, the inventor’s calculations were based not only on the fantasies of Jules Verne (by the way, it was the technical errors of the science fiction writer that pushed Tsiolkovsky to justify the capabilities of rockets). In 1861, the fundamental work of General N. Konstantinov appeared, and twenty years later Hermann Hanswindt developed a plan for the ship of the Universe he designed, driven by the power of rockets. On March 23, 1881, the Narodnaya Volya bomber N. Kibalchich, on death row in the Shlisselburg fortress, sketched out his project for an “aeronautical device” - a rocket accelerated by multiple powder explosions and flying in a given direction (however, his ideas remained unknown for several decades: police officials, in order to avoid “ inappropriate talk” added the bomber’s calculations to the case and Kibalchich’s project was found in the archive only in August 1917, and published in 1918). In 1896, Tsiolkovsky became familiar with A. P. Fedorov’s book “A New Method of Aeronautics,” and in 1897, with I. Meshchersky’s article “Dynamics of a Point of Variable Mass” and used the formula he found in his calculations of rocket speed.
Indeed, Konstantin Eduardovich’s formula was, as they say, at the tip of his pen. But “only Tsiolkovsky came up with the idea that rockets could be used for space exploration, and mathematically substantiated this idea.” The author of the above phrase had sufficient authority to be listened to. This is the legendary designer Sergei Korolev.
At one time, not without the participation of Korolev himself, a legend was created about the young engineer’s pilgrimage to Kaluga to meet Tsiolkovsky. “Today,” noted Ya. Golovanov, “this story is considered dubious, but copies of the scientist’s books from the personal library of S.P. Korolev are completely covered with his pencil notes. And the academician himself emphasized that “time sometimes inexorably erases the images of the past, but the ideas and works of Konstantin Eduardovich will increasingly attract attention with the further development of rocket technology.”
In the fall of 1923, a long-term correspondence between K. E. Tsiolkovsky and V. Glushko, the future creator of Soviet rocket engines, began. Working at the Gas Dynamics Laboratory in Leningrad, V. P. Glushko achieved the practical implementation of the scientist’s concepts. Leading developers of the Jet Institute (head of the institute I. Kleimenov, his deputy M. Tikhonravov, Yu. Pobedonostsev, Yu. Kondratyuk and others) also collaborated with Tsiolkovsky. The further fate of space enthusiasts was not easy. In the first days of the war, Yuri Kondratyuk died at the front, Valentin Glushko began work on rocket boosters for military aviation, and Yuri Pobedonostsev switched to Katyushas, the first tests of which were carried out during combat operations.
Tsiolkovsky himself for a long time believed that humanity’s entry into space was a task that could not be accomplished before the 21st, or even the 22nd, century. However, when he saw the first successes in rocket science achieved by V. Glushko, S. Korolev and their colleagues, he completely revised his forecasts regarding the prospects for man to go into space.
Konstantin Eduardovich was the first to show that human activity should not be limited to the Earth, and theoretically substantiated the possibility of interplanetary flights. His ideas became the basis of the foundations, without which there could be no talk of any astronautics. That is why the role of the scientist here is difficult to overestimate. Without him, astronautics in its current form and at its current level of development most likely would not exist. Of course, sooner or later a person would appear who would come up with such ideas. But when? In what century? Such people are not born every century. Tsiolkovsky was far ahead of his time, and therefore many of his ideas were unclaimed. However, can this detract from his merits as an inspirer of many dozens of engineers who were able to ultimately realize the plans and dreams of the scientist? I think not. Moreover, in this case, the role of the missionary, the preacher of the cosmic future of the human race, seems no less important than the mathematical and technical details of interplanetary flights. “For me, a rocket is only a way, only a method of penetrating into the depths of space, but by no means an end in itself... If there is another way of moving in space, I will accept that too... The whole point is in moving from Earth and populating space,” wrote K. E. Tsiolkovsky , the first ideologist and theorist of space exploration. The ultimate goal seemed to him like this: man would not just populate space, but complete biochemical measurements of his body would take place, which would require new forms of social structure. The scientist put forward projects for organizing humanity on a new basis, in which ideas of social utopias of various eras (including eugenic ones) are intertwined.
In the last quarter of the 19th and early 20th centuries, Konstantin Eduardovich created a new science that determined the laws of rocket motion and developed the first designs for space exploration with rocket-propelled instruments. The works of K. E. Tsiolkovsky on rocket dynamics and the theory of interplanetary communications became the first serious research on this problem in the world scientific and technical literature. The scientist’s work on jet propulsion is not limited to theoretical calculations. They also give practical instructions to the design engineer on the design and manufacture of individual parts, the choice of fuel, the outline of the nozzle, the issues of creating flight stability in airless space, the influence of the atmosphere on the flight of a rocket are examined, and the necessary fuel reserves are also calculated to overcome the resistance forces of the Earth's air shell .
The works of this outstanding scientist have well-deserved authority not only here, but also in the West. This is what the Encyclopedia Britannica writes about him: “K. E. Tsiolkovsky is a Russian astronautics researcher who became a pioneer in the field of rocket and space research, and also pioneered the creation and use of a wind tunnel. He was also one of the first theorists of the problem of space flight." In other, less fundamental Western sources, they write about him as the founder of the theory of rocketry, calling him not just an inventor and aircraft engineer, but also a real visionary. Cliff Lethbridge states without mincing words that Tsiolkovsky plays a huge role in the fact that it was the USSR that was the first to enter outer space, and assesses the influence of the theories of the self-taught scientist on the first generation of Russian engineers, specialists in the field of rocket and space technology as undeniable.
The question arises: how did Konstantin Eduardovich find the strength to work “for the desk” for so many years? After all, his ideas were appreciated only after he turned sixty, in the 20s of the last century. Until 1917, the scientist vegetated, and his theories had no chance of being implemented. He himself explained his persistence as follows: “The main motive of my life is not to live my life in vain, to advance humanity at least a little forward. That is why I was interested in what did not give me either bread or strength, but I hope that my work - maybe soon, and maybe in the distant future - will give society mountains of bread and an abyss of power.” And he added: “...By nature or character, I am a revolutionary and a communist. Why didn’t I become an active revolutionary? The reasons are as follows.
1. Deafness since the age of ten, which made me weak and an outcast.
2. The absence, as a result, of comrades, friends and social connections.
3. For the same reason: ignorance of life and material helplessness.
The outcome of my reform aspirations was one: technology, science, invention and natural philosophy. At first, all this was in the realm of dreams, and then my innovation began to creep out and was the reason that repelled faithful, undoubting scientists from me. I was an upstart, a reformer and was not recognized as such. Who could agree with a man who dared to shake the very foundations of science?
In fact, Tsiolkovsky was driven by the energy of refusal for many years. He tried to prove that he was right, and this gave him strength. Moreover, his life is an example of the biography of a self-taught fanatic who placed scientific experiments and philosophical reflection above everything: health, love, family, relative wealth, and the well-being of children. Already in his declining years, the scientist wondered how justified the sacrifices he made were, but he never found a definite answer.
* * *
Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky was born on September 17, 1857 in the Ryazan province, in the village of Izhevskoye, Spassky district. The Polish noble family of the Tsiolkovskys came from Volyn; according to family legends, among their ancestors was the rebel Severin Nalivaiko. The official genealogy began in 1697: the first to be mentioned in the papers was the nobleman Yakov Tsiolkovsky. From him “came Valentiy, the owner of the patrimonial estate of the village. Velikoye Tsiolkovo. From him came Felician, and from this Thomas, the father of Ignatius and his sons,” among whom Makar-Eduard-Erasmus (Eduard Ignatievich) is the father of Konstantin Eduardovich.
Tsiolkovsky’s mother, Maria Ivanovna, came from the Ryazan nobles Yumashevs, a Russified Tatar family dating back to the 16th century. True, the Yumashevs gained the greatest fame already in the twentieth century. Hero of the Soviet Union Andrei Yumashev, as part of Mikhail Gromov’s crew, took part in the legendary flight to the USA via the North Pole (1937). Admiral Ivan Yumashev commanded the Pacific Fleet from 1939 to 1947, and in 1950–1951 he was the Minister of the Navy of the USSR. The most famous journalist in the eighties, Valentin Yumashev, was the Head of the Presidential Administration in 1997–1998, replacing Anatoly Chubais in this post.
By the time of Konstantin’s birth, his father Eduard Ignatievich Tsiolkovsky had been serving as a forester in the village of Izhevsk for eleven years (since 1846). Apparently, both the place of service and she herself were happy with it. Although Tsiolkovsky Sr. had a small rank according to the Table of Ranks - collegiate secretary, but at that time in any village of that time (as, indeed, in modern ones) the forester was considered an authoritative figure. However, in May 1860, Eduard Ignatievich submitted a request to his superiors to transfer him to Ryazan “for family reasons” and soon took a place in the local provincial chamber of the Forestry Branch of the Ministry of State Property. Eduard Tsiolkovsky was transferred to the Ryazan Chamber of the Forestry Department to the position of clerk, that is, in modern terms, an ordinary clerk.
What “family circumstances” could force Eduard Tsiolkovsky to move from the village where he lived for fourteen years and where he was, presumably, considered an important person?
The Tsiolkovskys had a large family - Maria Ivanovna gave birth to thirteen children (three of them lived to adulthood - Konstantin, his brother Joseph and sister Maria) - and the position of forester, apparently, could no longer support her.
In 1861, Eduard Tsiolkovsky received the rank of titular councilor and began teaching natural history in surveying and taxation classes at the gymnasium. The family lived in Ryazan until 1868, when, as a result of the closure of classes, Eduard Tsiolkovsky, “with a large family and lack of material resources, having an urgent need for further service,” had to look for a new place.
The Tsiolkovskys decided to move to Vyatka - Eduard’s brothers Nartsiz and Stanislav lived there. Nartsiz Tsiolkovsky held a high position as an official for special assignments under the Vyatka governor, and Stanislav rose to the rank of major general. Under the patronage of the brothers, Eduard Ignatievich was appointed head of the Vyatka Chamber of the Forestry Department.
Remembering his father, K. E. Tsiolkovsky wrote that he “was always cold and reserved. It looked gloomy. Rarely laughed. He was a terrible critic and arguer. He didn’t agree with anyone, but he didn’t seem to get excited. He was distinguished by a strong and difficult character for those around him. He didn’t touch or offend anyone, but everyone was shy around him. We were afraid of him, although he never allowed himself to be sarcastic, swear, or even fight.” The mother of the future scientist was of a completely different character: “a sanguine nature, hot-tempered, laughing, mocking and gifted.” Konstantin Eduardovich wrote about her in his autobiography: “Character and willpower prevailed in my father, while talent prevailed in my mother. The father's temperament moderated the mother's natural ardor and frivolity. I think I got a combination of my father’s strong will and my mother’s talent.” From his father, K. E. Tsiolkovsky inherited a passion for invention and construction: “The older brothers said that he built models of houses and palaces with them. He encouraged us to do all kinds of physical work and to do amateur work in general.”
Konstantin showed initiative and independence already in early childhood: he always broke all the toys to see what was inside them, learned to read fluently from Afanasyev’s fairy tales found somewhere and thus became addicted to reading (“... read everything that was and that was possible get it").
At the same time, the boy was not predisposed to any formalized acquisition of knowledge: “The study was slow and painful, although I was capable. They will ask you to write a page or two on a small slate board. I even felt sick from the tension. But when you finish this teaching, what pleasure you feel from freedom. My mother taught us. My father also made attempts at teaching, but he was impatient and thereby spoiled the matter...” At the same time, he loved to dream. This is what Tsiolkovsky wrote about himself: “I even paid my younger brother to listen to my nonsense. We were small, and I wanted the houses, people and animals - everything to be small too. Then I dreamed of physical strength. In my mind, I jumped high, climbed poles and ropes like a cat. I also dreamed of a complete absence of heaviness. He loved to climb fences, roofs and trees. Jumped off the fence to fly. Both the water and the ice put me in a dreamy mood.”
Tsiolkovsky loved water very much. All his life he settled closer to the river. He especially loved the Vyatka River. The reason for this was the complete freedom that Eduard Ignatievich and Maria Ivanovna provided to the children. Konstantin was not slow to use it and very soon learned to swim.
Even during high water, the most dangerous time on the river, the boys rushed to the water. The sport they were fond of was by no means harmless - skating on ice floes, jumping from one to another. One day, mistaking dirty water for an ice floe (probably due to myopia), Konstantin jumped with the determination that only an eleven-year-old boy who does not understand that he is jumping towards death is capable of.
The ancient city church also turned out to be the field of his bold campaigns: together with his friends, he more than once climbed the dilapidated bell tower. Getting to the belfry and ringing the bell was both a pleasure and a sign of extraordinary valor. But even the boys gasped when they once saw how Konstantin climbed even higher - onto a small balcony at the very top. All of Vyatka lay below, underfoot. It was very interesting to look at the city from above. And then Konstantin did something that clearly should not have been done - he shook the fence of the balcony. The dilapidated structure sank underfoot. It became scary. It seemed as if the old bell tower was about to burst out from under our feet. The feeling of uncontrollable fear was so strong that he remembered it for the rest of his life and later appeared more than once in his dreams...
In a word, Tsiolkovsky’s early childhood was no different from the life of ordinary children. “The conclusion is interesting,” he wrote, assessing his early years. “But, perhaps, not new: you cannot guess what will come of a person... We love to decorate the childhood of great people, but this is almost artificial, due to a preconceived opinion... I, however, personally think that the future of a child is never predicted.”
The turning point in the boy's life occurred when he was nine years old. He fell ill with scarlet fever, and the disease developed complications - severe hearing loss, and later almost complete deafness. “The consequences of the disease, the lack of clear sounds, sensations, separation from people, the humiliation of being disabled - have greatly dulled me. Whether this was a consequence of dullness or temporary unconsciousness characteristic of my age and temperament, I still do not know. I am more inclined to believe that the stupor was most likely due to deafness and illness.” All his life, Tsiolkovsky considered himself crippled and found this as an excuse for his misfortunes. He explained his isolation and reluctance to communicate, his inability to establish contact with the scientific world, etc. by deafness. But he also saw in it an explanation for his successes in the scientific field: “I was humiliated all the time by deafness, poor life and dissatisfaction. She pushed my will, forced me to work, to search... Only extreme tension made me what I am.”
Despite hearing problems, in 1869 his father sent Konstantin, along with his younger brother Ignatius, to the first grade of the Vyatka men's gymnasium. There are a lot of subjects, and it was not easy to study, especially for a half-deaf child. In general, the future scientist did not shine with success - he remained in the second grade for the second year, and after the third he said goodbye to the gymnasium altogether: in 1873, along with nine classmates, he was expelled “to enter technical education.” school."
Difficulties with studies were aggravated by the fact that at the thirteenth year of his life, Konstantin lost his mother. The father earned a living and practically did not take care of the children, so after the death of the mother, an aunt was invited to raise them. But she was illiterate and could not help the boy with his studies. Ekaterina Ivanovna Yumasheva was not particularly loved or respected by the children. But she was still very meek and never offended us: neither by shouting, nor by pushing. She had a tendency to exaggerate everything and even lie.”
Thus, the gymnasium years became for Konstantin Tsiolkovsky the “saddest, darkest time” of his life. And since the boy was quite proud and he was probably tired of catching sympathetic glances on himself, the desire awoke in him to prove to those around him his usefulness, “to seek great deeds in order to earn the approval of people and not be so despicable...” This feeling did not leave him throughout the rest of his life. life.
“From the age of fourteen to fifteen,” wrote Tsiolkovsky, “I became interested in physics, chemistry, mechanics, astronomy, mathematics, etc. There were, however, few books, and I became more immersed in my own thoughts. Without stopping, I thought based on what I had read. There was a lot I didn’t understand, there was no one to explain and it was impossible given my disability. This all the more excited the initiative of the mind...” Then Konstantin began to talk about flights to the stars, but Eduard Ignatievich, using the fullness of his father’s power, cut off these conversations, which seemed to him a manifestation of madness. “Even in my early youth, after my first acquaintance with physics, I dreamed of space travel,” the scientist later recalled. “I expressed these thoughts among those around me, but I was stopped as a person saying indecent things.”
At the same time, Konstantin made all kinds of crafts: houses, sleds, clocks with weights, models of self-propelled carriages and locomotives, and once even assembled a real lathe. The construction of the machine significantly changed Eduard Ignatievich’s opinion about his son, whom he had long given up on. And Konstantin’s father looked at Konstantin with completely different eyes when he won his argument with the creator of the “perpetual motion machine.” The scheme proposed by the inventor looked so plausible that even the capital's newspapers wrote about the outstanding achievement of Russian science. However, no reference to the authority of St. Petersburg could sway the young man, and sixteen-year-old Tsiolkovsky found a mistake made by the creator of the “perpetuum mobile.” Actually, this dispute revealed the nature of Konstantin Eduardovich’s further scientific activity - not to take anything for granted, but to check all the facts experimentally.
One way or another, his father decided to send Konstantin to Moscow to get acquainted with the industry and continue his education. He hoped that his son would be able to make useful contacts in Moscow and get involved in some business. However, as Tsiolkovsky’s biographer B.N. Vorobyov wrote, “... no one even thought of paying attention to the young provincial... Difficult financial situation, deafness and practical inability to live were the least conducive to identifying his talents and abilities.”
K. E. Tsiolkovsky lived in Moscow for three years. He devoted all this time to self-education, spending days in the library, and in the evenings conducting chemical and physical experiments in his room, which he rented from a washerwoman. In the first year, he carefully and systematically studied the course of elementary mathematics and physics: “Often, while reading a theorem, I myself found the proof. And I liked this more and it was easier than following the explanation in the book. In the second year I studied higher mathematics - I studied a course in higher algebra, differential and integral calculus, analytical geometry, spherical trigonometry, and almost independently took analytical mechanics.” In general, according to the scientist himself, in Moscow he was interested primarily in the exact sciences. “I avoided any uncertainty. On this basis, even now I do not recognize either Einstein, Lobachevsky, or Minkowski with their followers. The famous young publicist Pisarev made me tremble with joy and happiness. I saw in him then the second “I”. Already in adulthood I looked at him differently and saw his mistakes.” Nevertheless, most of the views of the young critic K. E. Tsiolkovsky shared throughout his life and called him one of his most respected teachers... Pisarev’s influence is felt both in the scientist’s artistic works and in his philosophical concept.
In particular, D.I. Pisarev denied the value of speculative knowledge and praised the natural sciences - and this was close to the self-taught Tsiolkovsky, who sought to try everything “by tooth.” True, the inventor was not as radical as the publicist, who reduced science to a description of directly observed facts and still recognized the value of theoretical knowledge. However, he agreed with Pisarev that only natural sciences can provide the knowledge necessary for the prosperity of mankind, and the carrier of progress is the intellectual elite - representatives of mental labor, an educated and thinking minority. Tsiolkovsky constantly developed this idea; it became the cornerstone of his essentially eugenic concept of the structure of human society, presented in the brochure “Grief and Genius” (1916).
Pisarev saw the ideal of social structure in the fact that the poor could earn their own food with their own hands. And again Tsiolkovsky agreed - he himself imagined an ideal society exactly like that.
Pisarev came to the idea that art is harmful (it distracts from the study of natural science, and therefore from social progress). The existence of art can only be justified by popularizing natural science knowledge with its help - and Tsiolkovsky became a science fiction writer, a promoter of space flights, and did not recognize the value of poetry until the end of his days.
In the book “A Simple Study of an Airship and Its Construction,” Tsiolkovsky wrote: “I studied little systematically... I read only what could help me solve the issues that interested me, which I considered important...”. And the questions seemed extremely interesting to him. Is it possible to practically use the energy of the Earth? Is it possible to build a train around the equator in which gravity would not be felt? Is it possible to construct metal balloons that float forever in the air? Is it possible to use crushed steam in high-pressure steam engines? Is it possible to use centrifugal force to rise beyond the atmosphere into the heavenly spaces? “And I came up with such a machine,” Konstantin Eduardovich reported in his autobiography. “I was so delighted with this invention that I could not sit still and went to the street to dispel the joy that was choking me. I wandered around Moscow for an hour or two at night, thinking and checking my discovery. But, alas, it was still expensive and I realized that I was mistaken. However, the short-lived delight was so strong that all my life I saw this device in a dream: I climbed on it with great charm.”
Where did the young man get such a genuine interest in the possibility of interplanetary travel? Apparently, the matter was as follows. Tsiolkovsky spent whole days in the Chertkovskaya (at that time Rumyantsevskaya) library. The collection of books here was first-class: it received “one copy of everything printed, engraved and lithographed in Russia, both by private individuals and government departments... one copy of manuscripts and books photographed in Russia... confiscated or withheld by censorship institutions or foreign publications by customs.” L. N. Tolstoy, F. M. Dostoevsky, D. I. Mendeleev and many others visited the reading room of the Rumyantsev Library.
But the main thing was not even this - the person on duty at the hall for the last quarter of the 19th century (since 1868) was the “ideal librarian” N. F. Fedorov, “a friend of Tolstoy and an amazing philosopher and modest person,” as K. E. Tsiolkovsky wrote about him . Thanks to Fedorov, Konstantin Eduardovich deeply accepted and actively preached the idea not even of possibility, but of the inevitable need for human exploration of outer space. And although the main work of the “ideal librarian,” “Philosophy of the Common Cause,” was published only after his death, in 1904, the manuscript was still in circulation during Fedorov’s lifetime. Apparently, Konstantin Eduardovich also read it: a comparison of Fedorianism (the philosophy of its author) and the scientist’s works shows that the creator of the rocket theory was in many ways like-minded and a successor of the “mysterious thinker,” as the outstanding Russian philosopher S. Bulgakov called Fedorov.
In his work, N. F. Fedorov expressed the idea that “The Earth is only the starting point. The field for a person is the whole universe.” He called for the unification of all humanity to fight for the lofty goals of existence and considered his concept to be true Christianity. Fedorianism influenced not only Tsiolkovsky, but also the great Russian philosophers N. Berdyaev and V. Vernadsky, and Leo Tolstoy was proud of the fact that he lived “at the same time as a similar person.”
However, Konstantin Eduardovich’s cosmic philosophy did not gravitate towards Christianity, but rather towards Buddhism. This is largely due to the fact that the scientist spent the main part of his creative life in Kaluga, the center of the Russian theosophical movement, where domestic and translated books on theosophy and Eastern mysticism were published. “The fact that Tsiolkovsky was close to Eastern ideas is evidenced by his essay “Nirvana,” published in 1914,” writes Father Alexander Men in his article “Tsiolkovsky and Atheism.” “He also expressed thoughts very close to Buddhism in the brochure “Mind and Passion” (1928), depicting an ideal being devoid of passions, and almost verbatim repeating some passages from Buddhist sacred literature.”
The fruit of the joint influence of Fedorianism and Eastern mysticism was the “cosmic religion”, which Tsiolkovsky called “monism”. In particular, the teaching presented the idea of the spiritual bliss of the atoms into which a person disintegrates after death. The scientist believed that spirituality is inherent in all nature, in every atom, and believed in the existence of intelligent, non-material inhabitants of outer space. The Universe, according to his teaching, goes back to the Supreme Cause: “What happens and develops,” he wrote, “the course of this development, depends on the initial Cause, which is located outside of nature. This means that everything depends on God. God is the cause of all phenomena, the cause of matter and all its laws.” However, Tsiolkovsky’s idea of the divine is quite unique. In 1925, in Kaluga, he published a special brochure “The Cause of the Cosmos” with the substantiation of his understanding of God. This book, for obvious reasons, is little known, and Father Alexander Men quotes its conclusion, omitted in the 1986 reprint: “The cause is incommensurate with its creation, since it creates matter and energy, which the cosmos is not able to do. For her, that which even for the highest human mind is beginningless and endless is limited. Space is a definite thing for her, one of the many products of Reason. Reason created the Universe in order to bring unclouded happiness to the atoms. That's why she's kind. This means that we cannot expect anything bad from her. Her kindness, happiness, wisdom and power are infinite in relation to the same properties of the cosmos.”
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky believed that sooner or later man would have to master “all the solar heat and light” and begin to settle in the vastness of the solar system. Rockets are the primary solution to the problem; over time, people will overcome their form and become radiant, thinking creatures of a spherical shape. The main thing is to transform into “radiant humanity” and begin the process of “colonization” of the entire circumsolar space, transforming first the asteroid belt, and then the substance of the natural satellites of the planets.
However, all these philosophical concepts and the mathematical calculations that logically follow from them, showing the reality of their implementation, appeared much later. In the meantime, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky lived in Moscow, literally living from bread to water, reading textbooks on the exact and natural sciences and testing their provisions in practice. He, of course, did not make any connections or acquaintances, and did not find any use for his technical talents. He received 10–15 rubles a month from home. “I ate only black bread, didn’t even have potatoes or tea,” recalled Tsiolkovsky. – Every three days I went to the bakery and bought 9 kopecks there. of bread. Thus, I lived on 90 kopecks. per month. But I bought books, pipes, mercury, sulfuric acid, etc. My aunt tied me up with a lot of stockings and sent them to Moscow. I decided that I could walk just fine without them, sold them for next to nothing and used the money I received to buy alcohol, zinc, sulfuric acid, mercury, etc. Thanks to the acids, I wore pants with stains and holes. Boys on the street remarked to me: “What is it, mice, or what, have eaten your trousers?” I walked around with long hair because I had no time to cut my hair. It must have been scary funny. I was still happy with my ideas, and the black bread did not upset me at all. It didn’t even occur to me that I was starving and exhausting myself.”
Still, even under such conditions, he did not escape the torments of love. This is how Tsiolkovsky himself recalled it: “My mistress did laundry for the rich house of the famous millionaire Ts. There she also talked about me. Daughter Ts became interested. The result was her long correspondence with me. Finally it stopped when the girl’s parents found the correspondence suspicious, and then I received the last letter. I never saw the correspondent, but this did not stop me from falling in love and suffering for a short time. It is interesting that in one of the letters to her I assured my subject that I was such a great person who has never existed and never will. Even my girlfriend laughed at this in her letter. And now I am ashamed to remember these words. But what self-confidence, what courage, bearing in mind the pitiful data that I combined within myself! True, even then I was already thinking about conquering the Universe.”
As a result, the father called his son home to Vyatka. In September 1876, Konstantin returned home and in October became a tutor for underperforming high school students. My father’s connections helped me get my first orders, and later “I was successful,” Tsiolkovsky wrote in his autobiography, “and I was soon bombarded with these lessons. The high school students spread fame about me, as if I explained algebra very clearly!” Having earned some money, the young tutor rented a room and set up a workshop in it, where he continuously carried out various experiments.
At the end of 1877, Eduard Tsiolkovsky retired and decided to return with his family to Ryazan. He wanted to buy a house there with a vegetable garden, where he planned to live out his life in peace. However, after moving, it turned out that the accumulated funds for the house were not enough, and the house still had to be rented.
Konstantin settled separately from his father and again equipped a laboratory in his house, although doing science in Ryazan turned out to be much more difficult than in Vyatka. Nevertheless, the young man did not give up his research. While still in Vyatka, he studied Newton’s “Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy” and became acquainted with celestial mechanics. In Ryazan, Tsiolkovsky drew diagrams of the solar system, carefully drawing out the orbits of the planets, compiled astronomical tables in which he entered the density of different planets in comparison with the Earth, in relation to water, the magnitude of mass attraction on the surface of the planet, the time of rotation around an axis, the speed of movement of equatorial points, surface area, volume and mass of a celestial body. “Astronomy fascinated me,” the scientist later explained his passion, “because I considered and still consider not only the Earth, but also the Universe the property of human posterity.” The subject of Tsiolkovsky's thoughts is extensive - phenomena on a pendulum and a swing, in a carriage starting or ending its movement, in a cannonball, where “increased gravity” appears. He is concerned about how living beings will endure “increased heaviness”; he is interested in weightlessness and overload, “a spindle-shaped tower hanging without support above the planet and not falling due to centrifugal force” and “rings surrounding the planet without an atmosphere, with the help of which one can ascend to the heavens and descend from them, as well as go on a space journey.” The young researcher built a centrifugal machine - the predecessor of the centrifuges on which astronauts train today - and began “... experiments with different animals, exposing them to increased gravity on special, centrifugal machines. I did not manage to kill a single living creature, and I did not have this goal, but only thought that this could happen. I remember that I increased the weight of a red cockroach taken from the kitchen by 300 times, and the weight of a chicken by 10 times; I didn’t notice then that the experience brought them any harm.”
He apparently hoped to continue tutoring, but due to the lack of necessary contacts, he was unable to find students. The remnants of the Vyatka savings quickly melted, and Tsiolkovsky again found himself in need. Science, especially abstract science, could not feed the young man, and Konstantin Eduardovich, who had undoubted pedagogical abilities, decided to become a teacher. He no longer wanted to depend on chance.
And in the fall of 1879, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky took external exams for the right to teach arithmetic and geometry in district schools. The externs were desperately worried. The Law of God seemed especially terrible, and he, as if it were sin, went first. Once you fail, it’s all over! Those who failed to overcome this barrier were not allowed to take further tests. Examiners of future teachers paid especially serious attention to the Law of God. “As a self-taught person,” wrote Tsiolkovsky, “I had to pass a “full exam.” This meant that I had to cram the catechism, liturgy... and other wisdom that I had never been interested in before. It was hard for me...” It is not surprising that at the very first question Konstantin “was confused and could not utter a word.” They took pity on him: they sat him down on the sofa and gave him a five-minute rest. The nervous tension subsided, and the young man answered without hesitation. The young man then taught a trial lesson in an empty classroom and passed the exam. Four months later, in the winter of 1880, he received an appointment to the Borovsk district school in the Kaluga province and went to his place of service.
Borovsk was famous for the fact that Archpriest Avvakum, one of the famous schismatics, was once imprisoned here, and the noblewoman Morozova was also exiled here, and the Old Believers followed them. From generation to generation, they honored the commandment: “Don’t pray with a shredder, a tobacconist, a squeegee and any scraped snout, don’t hang out, don’t swear, don’t be friends.” The Old Believers did not want to allow a person to live who did not profess their faith, so Tsiolkovsky found himself a home in the house of the priest of the Edinoverie Church, Evgraf Nikolaevich Sokolov. A few months later, on August 20, 1880, the priest’s daughter Varvara Evgrafovna Sokolova became his wife. Konstantin Eduardovich created a family without love, not wanting to be distracted from his academic studies.
However, the scientist’s biographer M. Arlazorov writes: “Life did not spoil Tsiolkovsky too much. For ten years after his mother's death, he felt lonely and abandoned. Naturally, he wanted affection, warm female attention. But, ready to give his wife a supply of unspent feelings, Tsiolkovsky is still shy and embarrassed towards strangers.” Konstantin Eduardovich himself wrote the exact opposite: “It was time to get married, and I married without love, hoping that such a wife would not twist me around, would work and would not stop me from doing the same. This hope was fully justified. Such a friend could not drain my strength either: firstly, she did not attract me, and secondly, she herself was indifferent and impassive. So she retained her strength and ability for mental activity until she was very old. I attached only practical importance to marriage. We went to get married four miles away, on foot, didn’t dress up, and didn’t let anyone into the church. We returned and no one knew anything about our marriage. On the wedding day, I bought a lathe from a neighbor and cut glass for electric cars.”
It was a strange marriage, although the spouses remained faithful to each other and from the outside seemed to be loving husband and wife. Towards the end of his life, the poverty of his own family ties began to reach Tsiolkovsky. In his autobiography, he wrote: “Was it good: married life without love? Is respect enough in a marriage? For those who have given themselves to higher goals, this is good. But he sacrifices his happiness and even the happiness of his family. I didn’t understand the latter at the time. But then it was discovered. Children from such marriages are not healthy, successful and joyful, and all my life I have lamented the tragic fate of the children.” And one more thing: “I put the good of my family and loved ones first. Everything for the high. I didn’t drink, didn’t smoke, didn’t spend a single extra penny on myself: for example, on clothes. I was always almost half-starved and poorly dressed. He moderated himself in everything to the last degree. My family also suffered with me... I often got irritated and, perhaps, made the lives of those around me difficult, nervous..." However, Tsiolkovsky’s personal experiences did not affect his philosophical views in any way - he was a consistent preacher of a eugenic utopia, where there was no place for love, but married life determined by biological and intellectual expediency.
Many years later, having buried her husband, Varvara Evgrafovna recalled the wedding like this: “We didn’t have any feast, he didn’t take a dowry for me. Konstantin Eduardovich said that since we will live modestly, his salary will be enough.”
They say that a new family grows better in a new place. Soon after the wedding, the Tsiolkovsky couple began to live separately. At first they settled not far from the school, but soon moved to Kaluzhskaya Street, to the house of the sheep farmer Baranov. Life flowed modestly and measuredly, although not at all like that of the Borovsk inhabitants. “I returned to my physical amusements and serious mathematical work,” the scientist says about this period. “In my house, electric lightning flashed, thunder rumbled, bells rang, paper dolls danced... Visitors admired and were also amazed at the electric octopus, which grabbed everyone’s nose or fingers with its feet, and then the hair that fell into its “paws” stood on end and sparks jumped out from any part of the body. A rubber bag was inflated with hydrogen and carefully balanced using a paper boat with sand. As if alive, he wandered from room to room, following the air currents, rising and falling.” Thanks to “Physical Fun,” the teacher of arithmetic and geometry gained fame among the residents of Borovsk.
Far from the main scientific centers of Russia, Tsiolkovsky began research in the field that interested him - aerodynamics. He began by developing the foundations of the kinetic theory of gases in 1881 and even sent his calculations to the Russian Physical-Chemical Society in St. Petersburg. Soon an answer came from Mendeleev: the kinetic theory of gases had already been discovered... 25 years ago. Professor Fan der Flitt, reporting on October 26, 1882 at a meeting of the physics department of the society, his opinion on Tsiolkovsky’s research, said: “Although the article itself does not represent anything new and the conclusions in it are not entirely accurate, nevertheless, it reveals great qualities in the author. ability and hard work, since the author owes his knowledge exclusively to himself. The only source for the presented essay was some elementary mechanics textbooks, a course in observational physics by Professor Petrushevsky and “Fundamentals of Chemistry” by Professor Mendeleev. In view of this, it is desirable to promote the author’s further self-education.” The society decided to petition the trustee of the St. Petersburg or Moscow district to transfer K. E. Tsiolkovsky, if he so desired, to any city where he could use scientific aids. In addition, the scientists unanimously accepted their provincial colleague as members of their community. “But I didn’t thank you and didn’t answer anything (naive savagery and inexperience),” the young scientist notes about this. But it’s not just a matter of “wildness and inexperience.” Lyubov Konstantinovna, Tsiolkovsky’s daughter, reports another sad detail: her father did not have money to pay membership fees.
Konstantin Eduardovich did not leave Borovsk, but he did not abandon his research. True, their character changed once again - now Tsiolkovsky was interested in biophysics, and he derived a formula for the dependence of the speed of movement of an animal in a liquid medium on its size. At first glance, it may seem that the researcher was engaged in unsystematic experiments in unrelated branches of knowledge (especially if we take into account the Ryazan period of passion for astronomy, constant physical experiments, the creation of various self-propelled carts and unusual boats). In fact, the new work of the young scientist lies at the basis of his further works on aerodynamics, in addition, it is fully consistent with Tsiolkovsky’s passion for Fedorianism. The Borovsky teacher not only confirmed his belief in the habitability of other worlds, but also tried to find a relationship between the appearance of alien creatures and the size of the planets they inhabit.
The researcher again sent his work to the Russian Physical and Chemical Society. The conclusion was given by the physiologist I.M. Sechenov, who became interested in Tsiolkovsky’s conclusions: “The author adheres to the French school, and the conclusions drawn by him are partially known; but his work shows undoubted talent. It’s not ready for printing because it’s not finished.” In the same 1883, Tsiolkovsky sent a study entitled “Duration of Solar Radiation” to the same Russian Physicochemical Society, and it received a positive review from the famous physicist A.G. Stoletov. Tsiolkovsky himself speaks of his research as follows: “I puzzled over the sources of solar energy and independently came to Helmholtz’s conclusions. At that time there was neither a rumor nor a breath about the radioactivity of elements. Then these works were published in various magazines.”
Another work performed by the scientist in Borovsk is “Free Space.” At its core, it is a fantastic story and resembles a scientific diary of a discoverer on a space journey. This diary, begun on Sunday 20 February 1883, was kept until 12 April. The researcher’s story about free space is full of many precise details: the world is devoid of horizontal and vertical, there is no force capable of pulling the plumb weight, a person hangs “like a soaring bird, but without wings.” “It’s scary in this abyss,” wrote Tsiolkovsky, “unlimited by anything and without native objects around: there is no Earth under your feet, there is no earthly sky!” However, this is where reflections on space in 1883 are interrupted: “With this far from complete essay,” the scientist clarified, “I am finishing the description of the phenomena of free space for now. When I show that free space is not as infinitely distant and accessible to humanity as it seems, then free phenomena will deserve more serious attention and interest from the reader.”
After 1884, Tsiolkovsky's main work was related to four problems: the scientific basis for the all-metal balloon (airship), the streamlined airplane, the hovercraft, and the rocket for interplanetary travel. It should be noted that even then the principle of jet propulsion occupied a large place in his thinking.
Konstantin Eduardovich became very interested in the idea of an airship, and in 1887 he made a report in Moscow, at the Polytechnic Museum, on a controlled balloon with a variable volume and a shell made of rigid corrugated metal, presenting economic calculations of the feasibility of building such a structure. The manuscript “Theory of the Balloon” remained in Moscow, with N. E. Zhukovsky, which saved it from a fire in Tsiolkovsky’s Borovsky house. Then there was a flood, which destroyed most of the scientist’s work, followed by another move. However, the talented inventor did not abandon his research and continued his in-depth thoughts about the metal balloon.
Finally, the calculations were completed, the drawings were made, but the teacher at the district school, of course, does not have the money to build a working model of the balloon, and cannot have it. Tsiolkovsky follows the beaten path: he sends the results of his research and a paper model of the balloon to D.I. Mendeleev and in a letter asks to “help him as much as possible financially and morally.” He asked for three hundred rubles to make a metal model and probably would have received it if not for fundamental objections.
Mendeleev sent the received materials to the Russian Technical Society, and four days later, military engineer E. S. Fedorov (namesake of the “Moscow Socrates”) wrote his conclusion. Tsiolkovsky’s project ended up with a specialist who was very familiar with the issue: in 1887, Fedorov himself designed a small balloon, but quickly realized the inconsistency of his idea. But in 1890, a champion of heavier-than-air aircraft and a staunch opponent of balloons became acquainted with Tsiolkovsky’s project. So Fedorov did not believe in the practical significance of the ideas of the Borovsky inventor, although he believed that “the energy and labor spent on drawing up the project fully deserve moral support from the Technical Society.” On October 23, 1890, the VII department of this society refused Tsiolkovsky funding.
A few days later, reports appeared in the newspapers. “The teacher of the Borovsky district school (in the Kaluga province), Mr. Tsankovsky (newspaper error), wrote “News of the Day,” drew up a project for building a balloon. This project was considered at the Technical Society in St. Petersburg. The society found that the calculations were made correctly and that Mr. Tsankovsky’s ideas were correct; but the society refused him a financial subsidy on the grounds that the projector did not take into account all the difficulties that might arise during the implementation of the project...” And here is what the newspaper “Son of the Fatherland” reported: “The design of the balloon due to its large size is poor, the projector did not take into account difficulties in adhesion and soldering of thin copper sheets of the balloon shell. Flying in such a balloon is dangerous: the shell can easily crack..."
The funniest thing was that in 1892, the Austrian inventor David Schwartz was invited by the Russian Ministry of War to build a balloon control device. The epic of creating the all-metal Schwartz balloon in St. Petersburg began, and the special commission to control the work of the Austrian inventor included... employees of the VII department, who so vehemently criticized the value of Tsiolkovsky’s work. Schwartz's idea failed: his balloon crashed, the shell was deformed when filled with gas, and it had to be released into the atmosphere. After the failure, the engineer returned to Germany, where his research was appreciated by retired general Count Ferdinand Zeppelin. He acquired a patent, and soon zeppelins appeared one after another - the famous German airships that existed no less until 1940. It is difficult to imagine that Schwartz knew nothing about K. E. Tsiolkovsky’s balloon. He often communicated with people who were aware of the project of Borov’s teacher; one could even read about it in the newspapers. Another book by Konstantin Eduardovich, “A simple doctrine of an airship and the method of constructing it,” was also not a secret document. The idea that his ideas fueled someone else's project caused Tsiolkovsky a lot of grief.
Oddly enough, the inventor found support in Borovsk: treasury employee I. A. Kazansky, teacher S. E. Chertkov, merchant N. P. Glukharev each contributed thirty rubles, and Konstantin Eduardovich ordered Volchaninov’s Moscow printing house his first book, “Metal Controlled Balloon " It came out of print after the Tsiolkovsky family moved to Kaluga. The publication did not enjoy commercial success: on April 28, 1893, the bookselling company M. O. Wolf informed: “... since the last payment, that is, since November 6, 1892, we have sold 7 copies of your edition. "Metal balloon"
It must be said that the scientist firmly believed in the great future of the balloon and laid down his life to prove it to everyone and everything. Moreover, opponents of his conviction very quickly became his personal enemies. Nevertheless, the scientist showed considerable interest in the capabilities of heavier-than-air aircraft. Evidence of this is the work “On the Question of Flying with Wings.” Written in 1890–1891, it immediately received recognition. The first part appeared in 1891 with the assistance of N. E. Zhukovsky in volume IV of the “Proceedings of the Department of Physical Sciences of the Society of Natural Science Lovers.” And the role of “plate elongation” (today called “wing elongation”), discovered by Tsiolkovsky, in determining the magnitude of the aerodynamic force formed the basis for many further developments in Russian aviation, in particular when creating the theory of wing calculation. In general, E. S. Fedorov’s prediction that “Mr. Tsiolkovsky may, over time, render great services to aeronautics,” this came true quite quickly.
In 1892, the Tsiolkovskys unexpectedly had to move to Kaluga - Konstantin Eduardovich was transferred to the service. The reason is unclear. V. E. Tsiolkovskaya claims that the superintendent of the Kaluga school, having heard a lot about the teacher-inventor, decided to get him to work for him. Perhaps another reason was the desire of Borov’s colleagues to get rid of their colleague: like many representatives of the local intelligentsia, they considered Konstantin Eduardovich an incorrigible dreamer and utopian, some called him an amateur and a handicraftsman, accused him of revolutionary sentiments and wrote denunciations against him. Actually, the inventor himself also did not have the best opinion of his colleagues: “The teaching staff was far from ideal. The salary was small, the city was tight-fisted, and lessons were obtained by (not entirely pure) cunning: they were given a D for a quarter or they told rich parents about the student’s lack of understanding. They took bribes and sold teaching diplomas to rural teachers. I did not know anything due to my deafness and did not take any part in these bacchanalia. But still, whenever possible, he prevented dishonest actions. Therefore, my comrades dreamed of getting rid of me. This happened over time."
After moving to Kaluga, K. E. Tsiolkovsky continued his aerodynamic experiments. He came up with the idea of building an airplane with a metal frame. The article “Airplane, or Bird-like (aviation) flying machine” (1894) provides a description and drawings of a monoplane, which in its appearance and aerodynamic configuration anticipated the designs of aircraft that appeared 15–18 years later. The development of an all-metal cantilever monoplane with a thick curved wing is considered the scientist’s greatest contribution to aviation. He was the first to study this airplane design, which is the most common these days (by the way, he proposed “wheels retractable at the bottom of the body,” ahead of the creation of the first landing gear in the Wright brothers’ airplane). To be fair, it should be noted that Tsiolkovsky himself did not seem to be aware of the prospects of the conclusions and conclusions he made. He wrote: “In 1894, I paid my last tribute to my passion for the airplane by publishing a theoretical study “Airplane” in the journal Science and Life, but in this work I also pointed out the advantages of gas, metal, and airships.”
Soon after moving to Kaluga, the second part of the work “Controllable Metal Balloon” was published. In this book, Tsiolkovsky first proposed the idea of an automatically operating steering wheel. He came up with a “stable axis direction regulator” - a prototype of the future autopilot. The automatic stabilizer proposed by Konstantin Eduardovich would hardly meet the requirements of today's aviation, but it had everything that the progenitor of a large family of such devices should have.
In 1895, with the money of his fellow countryman A. N. Goncharov, Tsiolkovsky published the fantastic story “Dreams of Earth and Sky and the Effects of Gravity,” full of technical details of space flights (quite in the spirit of D. I. Pisarev - literature as a means of disseminating natural science knowledge ). This book received a derogatory review in the journal Scientific Review: “We would willingly call Mr. Tsiolkovsky a talented popularizer and, if you like, a Russian Flammarion, if, unfortunately, this author knew a sense of proportion and was not carried away by the laurels of Jules Verne. The book being examined makes a rather strange impression. It is difficult to guess where the author is arguing seriously, and where he is fantasizing or even joking... If the scientific explanations of K. Tsiolkovsky are not always sufficiently substantiated, then the flight of his imagination is positively uncontrollable and sometimes even surpasses the ravings of Jules Verne, in which, in any case, there is more scientific grounds..."
The further fate of the story is interesting. Goncharov was so upset by the unfavorable reviews of the book and ridicule of the author that he quarreled with Tsiolkovsky and withdrew almost the entire circulation from sale (especially since “Dreams” sold out very poorly). Today the book exists in a single copy in the personal library of K. E. Tsiolkovsky. Moreover, in the form of a publication prepared for publication by the author himself, it was published only once. Numerous subsequent editions appeared already in Soviet times and contained such a number of bills that the book “lost” twice as much weight. The fact is that the popular science story on astronomy contained many discussions about the Creator, on whom the fate of the Universe depends, as well as a story about the adventures of a soul that incarnates either on Earth or in the asteroid belt - a hypothetical habitat of highly developed intelligent inhabitants of space. All these places were removed, and in return the book was replenished with modern knowledge on astronomy, completed already in Soviet times.
However, Tsiolkovsky was not only involved in science fiction. In 1897, he built a wind tunnel with an open working part and developed an experimental technique in it. The results of this work are summarized in the article “Air pressure on the surface, an introduction to artificial air flow.” In 1898, it was published by the Odessa journal “Bulletin of Experimental Physics and Elementary Mathematics.” At first, the scientist had to attract family funds to conduct research, but in 1900 he nevertheless received a subsidy of 470 rubles from the Physics and Mathematics Department of the Academy of Sciences, using which he determined the drag coefficient of a ball, flat plate, cylinder, cone and other bodies.
But the work on aerodynamics did not receive recognition. Tsiolkovsky had neither the funds nor even moral support for further research. The scientist wrote with bitterness about this period of his life: “During my experiments, I made many, many new conclusions, but new conclusions are met with distrust by scientists. These conclusions can be confirmed by repeating my work by some experiment, but when will this be? It’s hard to work alone for many years under unfavorable conditions and not see any light or support from anywhere.”
In the course of aerodynamic experiments, K. E. Tsiolkovsky began to pay more and more attention to space problems. A year after “Dreams of Earth and Sky,” an article was published about other worlds, intelligent beings from other planets and about the communication of earthlings with them, in 1897 - the story “Outside the Earth,” which in 1918 was published in the magazine “Nature and people”, and in 1920 it was published as a separate book. Back in 1896, Tsiolkovsky began writing his main work, “Exploration of Outer Space Using a Jet Engine,” in which he addressed the problem of using rocket engines in space. “Having completed the mathematical notes, Tsiolkovsky mechanically set the date: May 10, 1897,” writes the biographer of the outstanding researcher S. Monakhov. - Of course, he did not suspect for a second how much joy the discovery of yellowed and crumpled sheets of paper would later bring to historians. After all, by writing the date of the calculations, Tsiolkovsky, without knowing it, secured his primacy in matters of scientific space exploration.”
The publication of the first part of the article “Exploring world spaces with jet instruments” took place in 1903 in the fifth issue of the journal Scientific Review. Soon this magazine was closed by the gendarmerie department, and all editorial materials were confiscated, so the work went unnoticed. In this article, Konstantin Eduardovich proved for the first time: the only device capable of making space flight is a rocket. And he proposed using it to study the high layers of the atmosphere, create an artificial Earth satellite and interplanetary travel.
Later, in 1910, K. E. Tsiolkovsky published an article in the journal “Aeronautics”, “A jet device as a means of flight in emptiness and in the atmosphere,” in which he laid the foundations for the theory of rockets and liquid rocket engines. In 1911–1914, three more works by Konstantin Eduardovich about space flights appeared, as well as a reprint of the article “Exploring world spaces with jet instruments” in the journal “Bulletin of Aeronautics”. Only then was the doctrine of a jet starship noticed by the public. “The resonance turned out to be great,” recalled the editor of the publication, B. N. Vorobiev, many years later. – Scientific and technical and popular magazines, the general press, and inventors responded. Numerous authors put forward designs for jet aircraft, popularized Tsiolkovsky’s idea of the possibility of conquering spaces beyond the Earth’s air layer, and fantasized about a complete transformation in this regard of the structure of human society.”
It should be noted that at that time a number of foreign scientists and engineers declared their priority. In 1902, while still a schoolboy, the American R. Goddard published an article in the magazine “Popular Science News” (“The Navigation Of Space”), dedicated to the prospects of rocket science and interplanetary travel. In the second article, he presented his ideas regarding a multi-stage spacecraft, which coincided with the views of Tsiolkovsky. Regardless of Konstantin Eduardovich, Goddard suggested that going into space would become possible if the reactive principle was used. In 1926, Goddard launched the first rocket powered by a liquid propellant rocket engine.
The first ideas in the field of rocket science and astronautics, belonging to the German scientist G. Oberth, date back to the 1910s. Like Goddard and Tsiolkovsky, Oberth was obsessed with the idea of space travel, but after the outbreak of the First World War he began researching the problem of jet propulsion. In 1917, Oberth proposed to the German defense department the idea of creating long-range liquid-fuel rockets, far ahead of R. Goddard, but the researcher’s proposal was rejected as untimely. In 1922, Oberth suggested that Goddard share the priority of discovering liquid rocket fuel; a year later he published the book “Die Rakete zu den Planetenraumen” (“The Rocket in Interplanetary Space”) with the special caveat that any coincidences with Goddard’s theory are accidental. Oberth's book indeed largely repeated the work of the American, but contained a discussion of the problem of the influence of space flight on the human body and the creation of artificial satellites - topics that were considered by K. E. Tsiolkovsky. Oberth, however, wrote to Konstantin Eduardovich in 1929: “I am, of course, the very last person who would challenge your primacy and your merits in the matter of rockets, and I only regret that I did not hear about you until 1925. I would probably be much further in my own works today and would do without those many wasted efforts, knowing your excellent works,” but at the same time he maintained that he never borrowed ideas from either Goddard or Tsiolkovsky and insisted on the authenticity of the received conclusions. Whether this is true or not, Hermann Oberth significantly advanced Germany along the path of experimentation with jet engines and liquid rocket fuel, which was used in the development of V-2 rockets during the Second World War.
In the USSR, it was declared that Goddard, Oberth, and Wernher von Braun resorted to scientific plagiarism, that is, they simply used Tsiolkovsky’s ideas without bothering to reference him. There is no direct evidence or refutation of this, but all three could have known about the works of the Russian scientist, although they always denied this fact and did not mention K. E. Tsiolkovsky in their works.
After the collapse of the USSR, in the wake of the “crushing of idols,” Konstantin Eduardovich, whose name was inviolable for decades, was declared a banal “inventor of the bicycle” who had not done anything significant for the emergence and development of space technology. They say that the Soviet cosmonautics did not know what they were doing and created a number of “fake authorities.” The fact that the USSR was the first to “break into space” was “simply a historical accident,” and the Soviet Union’s choice of “manned astronautics” as a priority direction, they say, was generally “an error of common sense.” Passages in quotation marks are quotes from G. Salakhutdinov’s article “The Sad Error of Common Sense,” published in NG-Science (2000, No. 9). “The technical implementation of the idea of a rocket, including a space rocket, began completely independently of Tsiolkovsky. Astronautics as such would have developed beautifully through Goddard, Oberth, von Braun, who, in fact, became the founders of modern rocket science,” other “iconoclasts” say on Internet forums.
Undoubtedly, R. Goddard, G. Oberth, and W. von Braun have indeed made great progress. However, theoretical priority in many issues belongs to K. E. Tsiolkovsky - he published the most remarkable conclusions at the very beginning of the 20th century, long before American and German scientists.
Konstantin Eduardovich has a confirmed priority for a number of ideas: a monoplane (1894), an artificial Earth satellite (1895), a wind tunnel (1897), a rocket equation (1903), a multi-stage rocket (1929). Tsiolkovsky was the first in the world to describe the basic elements of a rocket engine, created the foundations of the theory of a liquid jet engine, expressed the idea of creating interplanetary stations as artificial settlements using solar energy, described medical and biological problems that can arise during long-term space flights, and calculated the optimal trajectories for the descent of a spacecraft upon returning to Earth. However, these were precisely ideas that were not and could not be realized in his time - jet engines and rocket technology were considered unpromising and insignificant, suitable only for entertaining fireworks and illuminations.
Subsequently, the researcher’s interests completely switched to the exploration of outer space - and it was not only about the search for the technical possibilities of interplanetary flights, but also about the philosophical justification for their necessity. This is how the brochures “The Second Law of Thermodynamics” (1914) and “The Kinetic Theory of Light” (1919) appeared, in which the scientist tried to refute the validity of the conclusions of Clasius and Kelvin in relation to the Universe.
Surrendering to the dream of interplanetary travel, Tsiolkovsky wrote: “First you can fly on a rocket around the Earth, then you can describe one or another path relative to the Sun, reach the desired planet, approach or move away from the Sun, fall on it or leave completely, becoming a comet wandering for many thousands of years in darkness, among the stars, until approaching one of them, which will become the new Sun for travelers or their descendants... The best part of humanity, in all likelihood, will never perish, but will move from sun to sun, as they go out... There is no end to life, no end to reason and the improvement of humanity. His progress is eternal." The secrets of existence and progress of mankind haunted the outstanding researcher, and he proposed a program of active transformative activities in relation to all natural processes in accordance with the realized needs and interests of man, in accordance with the goals he had set.
Tsiolkovsky paid tribute to philosophy, although his views cause confusion: the author’s ethical principles are too ambiguous and his passion for transformation is too great. This is how the brochure “Grief and Genius” (1916) was born - the first in a series of eugenic utopias about the reorganization of human society, which will become possible when the path for geniuses is cleared: “Man is by nature an ungrateful, cruel and limited creature, which is clear from his relationship with pets. Man is like a disease that kills both good and evil without distinction. The only exceptions are the wise few,” K. E. Tsiolkovsky would later write in his work “Cosmic Philosophy,” explaining the main points of his philosophical program.
The scientist proceeded from the fact that the main carrier of life and feelings is the immortal atom, which suffers greatly from the need to reside in the body of plants, animals and “imperfect” people (cripples, criminals, mentally ill, etc.) - a sort of materialistic interpretation of the idea of reincarnation . Tsiolkovsky did not care about a specific living being, since his life is finite and this cannot be changed, but about the fate of atoms, which in his understanding eternally travel from inorganic matter to organic matter, from body to body, live forever, but acquire a different quality of life depending on depending on where the cycle of matter takes them.
It seemed unfair to the scientist that the atoms of a person, a creature that has reached a high level of development, as part of the natural cycle, would inevitably end up in imperfect, unconscious bodies, in the bodies of plants and animals, and would suffer even more than a person suffers. In his philosophical system, he set a goal to break this circle: if it is impossible to avoid the presence of human atoms after death in inorganic nature, then it is quite possible to reduce the time they remain in the composition of lower living beings.
The mission of man is to reduce the presence of atoms in the composition of imperfect bodies. To do this, “both the Earth and the other planets will have to be brought to order so that they are not a source of torment for the atoms living in imperfect beings.” The ideal of future life is unthinkable for Tsiolkovsky without the humane destruction of all animals in general and the preservation of the minimum plants necessary for humans: “There are no more animals. There is only one person left. The diet is exclusively plant-based. The killing of not only people, but also animals has stopped. Plants began to provide more luxury in nutrition than the most exquisite meat dishes. Aquatic animals, not receiving the sun, should disappear or be reduced to a minimum: great moral satisfaction, because the suffering of creatures from predatory fish, birds and animals that make aquatic habitats hell will stop.” Finally, the main link is the gradual destruction of imperfect people. The most radical means for this are proposed: 1. Birth control for inferior members of society - the disabled, the mentally retarded, criminals, and the seriously ill. 2. Artificial selection of parents, carried out by entitled leaders of society from among the intellectual elite. 3. Creation of a caste society based on the election of the best people and the prohibition of marriages between representatives of societies of different classes.
The result is a kind of reservation, if not literally in the physical sense, then certainly in the moral and intellectual sense. What is striking is the excessive planning, the desire to map out all areas of a person’s life, especially personal and intimate, according to the rules of reason, to benefit from everything. There is no place for free choice, desires, feelings, even just surprises. Such cerebral constructions could not but arouse objections from Tsiolkovsky’s contemporaries, and his philosophical works were not reprinted until recent years - his ideology was very reminiscent of the theory of the “purity of the Aryan race.”
Brochures “Monism of the Universe”, “The Cause of the Cosmos”, “The Formation of Solar Systems and Disputes about the Cause of the Cosmos”, “The Future of the Earth and Humanity”, “The Past of the Earth”, “The Current State of the Earth”, “The Will of the Universe. “Unknown intelligent forces” are full of conjectures and assumptions, as well as ideas about the transformation of the Universe by the best of people, who will turn into higher beings, deprived of the usual bodily shell and becoming clots of radiant energy. “The basis of my natural philosophy was complete renunciation of routine and knowledge of the Universe, which modern science provides,” wrote Tsiolkovsky. – Science, observation, experience and mathematics were the basis of my philosophy. All preconceived ideas and teachings were thrown out of my mind, and I started all over again - with science and mathematics. The unified universal science of substance or matter was the basis of my philosophical thoughts. Astronomy, of course, played a leading role, as it gave a broad outlook. Not only terrestrial phenomena were the material for conclusions, but also cosmic ones: all these countless suns and planets.”
After 1917, the technical developments of K. E. Tsiolkovsky became interesting to the new government, which provided him with significant material support (it must be said that Konstantin Eduardovich tirelessly continued to popularize the idea of an all-metal balloon and again did not achieve success). In 1919, the scientist was elected to the Socialist Academy (the future Academy of Sciences of the USSR), he was invited to live and work in Moscow, but he remained in Kaluga. In 1920, the Kaluga Society for the Study of Nature and the Local Region published his work “Beyond the Earth” as a separate book with a circulation of 300 copies. “It seems to us that what has been said is enough to pay attention to the proposed fantastic story by Tsiolkovsky, in which, in essence, there is very little imagination and all the numbers and explanations of which are based on strictly scientific data and represent the fruit of very strict and difficult mathematical research,” - written in the preface. In the same year, the brochure “Riches of the Universe: Thoughts on a Better Social Order” was published. On November 9, 1921, the scientist was awarded a lifelong pension for his services to domestic and world science.
Shortly before the revolution, Tsiolkovsky tried unsuccessfully to find like-minded people. But now the scientist was more than rewarded for his prolonged inattention. “Dear Konstantin Eduardovich,” they wrote to him. – Your book “Outside the Earth” is of deep interest. What is striking in it is the abundance of theoretical data, calculations and conclusions of a strictly scientific nature.” “...A very, very good book, it very realistically presents the whole picture of interplanetary travel. Every line, every phrase breathes, one might say, complete correctness. You resolve all difficulties encountered along the way through physics and mechanics, and do not bypass them, as is usually done in almost all books. You have provided for all cases of interplanetary communication, as if you yourself had accomplished it more than once...” wrote the sixteen-year-old Odessa youth V.P. Glushko, later a full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
One of the most famous developers of jet rocket engines, F.A. Tsander, the founder of heliobiology, Soviet biophysicist A.L. Chizhevsky and other specialists in the field of rocketry and jet propulsion became interested in Tsiolkovsky’s works.
Under Soviet rule, Konstantin Eduardovich worked a lot and fruitfully on creating the theory of flight of jet aircraft, invented his own gas turbine engine design; and in 1927 he published the theory and diagram of a hovercraft train. At the same time, he published a work on a space rocket, then the work “Rocket Space Trains,” where he gave a detailed study of the movement of composite rockets. In 1932, the scientist developed a theory for the flight of jet aircraft in the stratosphere and plans for designing aircraft for flight at hypersonic speeds.
For “special services in the field of inventions of great importance for the economic power and defense of the USSR,” K. E. Tsiolkovsky was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor in 1932.
After the death of the outstanding scientist A. R. Belyaev wrote the novel “The Star of the KETS”. KEC is Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky. In the archive, where the typescript with the author's correction of the work was preserved, Alexander Romanovich created a monument to the scientist: “In the large oval hole of the transparency a platinum statue of Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky was visible. He was depicted sitting in his favorite working position - with a tablet of paper on his knees. In his right hand was a pencil. The great inventor, who showed people the way to the stars, seemed to interrupt his work, listening to what the speakers would say. The artist-sculptor conveyed with extraordinary expressiveness the tension on the face of a deaf old man and the joyful smile of a man who “did not live his long life in vain.” This silver-matte statue, spectacularly lit, left an unforgettable impression.” The editor crossed out this paragraph, and it does not appear in the final version of the novel.
On the eve of the 100th anniversary of the birth of the founder of modern cosmonautics in 1954, the USSR Academy of Sciences established the gold medal named after K. E. Tsiolkovsky “For outstanding work in the field of interplanetary communications.”
Rockets. Orbital stations. Space elevator. Hovercraft trains. All these amazing ideas originated in the head of a simple school teacher - K.E. Tsiolkovsky. He believed that one day humanity would be able to overcome the forces of gravity and rise...
- 16 April 2017, 14:57
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+Orbital stations. Space elevator. Hovercraft trains. All these incredible ideas originated in the head of an ordinary school teacher who lived at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. A self-taught scientist without higher education, who became the founder of the Russian cosmonautics. “The Kaluga Sage”, who believed that the development of life on Earth would one day reach such a scale that it would make it possible to overcome the forces of gravity and colonize the Universe. Science-fiction writer and supporter of the ideas of space exploration. A man whose name is undeservedly forgotten today. His works are the whole world. His name is Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky. Welcome to a journey through space...
- 24 March 2016, 19:42
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+“Biology of Dwarfs and Giants” is a work by the great Russian scientist Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935). *** In this essay, the author explores the unpredictable consequences of changing the proportions of the human body. The author's other works include Beyond the Earth, The Will of the Universe, Living Creatures in Space, On the Moon, Unknown Intelligent Forces and The Life of the Universe. Tsiolkovsky was one of the first scientists who foresaw flights into outer space and believed in the exploration of the Galaxy by earthlings in the near future. He devoted many of his works to the topic of cosmic discoveries and collisions with other worlds...
- 24 March 2016, 19:42
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+“The Adventures of the Atom” is a story by the great Russian scientist Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935). *** The history of the migration of an atom from the human body to the surrounding world represents the development of one of the theoretical ideas of the author himself - monism, or the structure of the Universe. The author's other works include Beyond the Earth, The Will of the Universe, Living Creatures in Space, On the Moon, Unknown Intelligent Forces, The Biology of Dwarfs and Giants, and The Life of the Universe. Tsiolkovsky was one of the first scientists who foresaw flights into outer space and believed in the exploration of the Galaxy by earthlings in the near future. He devoted many of his works to the topic of cosmic discoveries and collisions with other worlds...
- 24 March 2016, 19:42
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+“Living beings in space” is an article by the great Russian and Soviet scientist Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935). *** With the evolution of warm-blooded creatures came the development of life on Earth, but what would the existence of animals on other planets be like? The author's other works include "Outside the Earth", "The Will of the Universe", "On the Moon", "Unknown Intelligent Forces", "The Biology of Dwarfs and Giants" and "The Life of the Universe". Tsiolkovsky was one of the first scientists who foresaw flights into outer space and believed in the exploration of the Galaxy by earthlings in the near future. He devoted many of his works to the topic of cosmic discoveries and collisions with other worlds...
- 24 March 2016, 19:42
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+“The Life of the Universe” is a book by the great Russian and Soviet scientist Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935). *** The infinity of the Universe presupposes the diversity of its life forms, with the help of which a person can comprehend the essence of outer space. The author's other works include Beyond the Earth, The Will of the Universe, Living Creatures in Space, On the Moon, Unknown Intelligent Forces, and The Biology of Dwarfs and Giants. Tsiolkovsky was one of the first scientists who foresaw flights into outer space and believed in the exploration of the Galaxy by earthlings in the near future. He devoted many of his works to the topic of cosmic discoveries and collisions with other worlds...
- 24 February 2016, 18:21
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+“Genius Among People” is a work by the great Russian and Soviet scientist Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935). *** Man has mastered many different professions, but has never found an answer to the question about the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations in the Universe... Other works of the author are “Outside the Earth”, “The Will of the Universe”, “Living Creatures in Space”, “On the Moon”, “Unknown intelligent forces”, “Biology of dwarfs and giants” and “Life of the Universe”. Tsiolkovsky was one of the first scientists who foresaw flights into outer space and believed in the exploration of the Galaxy by earthlings in the near future. He devoted many of his works to the topic of cosmic discoveries and collisions with other worlds...
- 24 February 2016, 18:21
Genre: ,
“Dreams of Earth and Heaven” is a book written by the great Russian scientist and writer Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935). *** The wealth of the Universe is immeasurable... Anyone who has ever raised their eyes to the starry sky will be convinced of this. The collection of science fiction stories by the author refers us to the distant future that is in store for the inhabitants of the Earth who have mastered space and intergalactic spaces... Other works of the author are “Outside the Earth”, “The Will of the Universe”, “Living Creatures in Space”, “On the Moon”, “Unknown intelligent forces”, “Biology of dwarfs and giants” and “Life of the Universe”. Tsiolkovsky was one of the first scientists who foresaw flights into outer space and believed in the exploration of the Galaxy by earthlings in the near future. He devoted many of his works to the topic of cosmic discoveries and collisions with other worlds...
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