In memory of the physicist Stephen Hawking, who died on March 14, the Iofe Fund published his letter to the Soviet mathematician and dissident Revolt Pimenov, who worked at the Komi branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
British physicist Stephen Hawking wrote a letter to Syktyvkar in January 1987. He enclosed a copy of his scientific paper "A new topology for curved space-time...". The letter was signed by the author himself.
The fund recalled that the two scientists were not able to meet, Revolt Pimenov was not allowed to leave the country by the Soviet authorities, despite the invitations of the leading universities in Europe. He was sent to Komi in the early 1970s for dissident activities — Pimenov published samizdat. In 1989, Pimenov headed the Syktyvkar "Memorial". Mathematician died before the USSR breakup. At the time of sending the letter Stephen Hawking was already wheelchair-bound and lost the ability to speak.
The Iofe Fund is a historical and educational organization, founded in 2000 in St. Petersburg by the founder and first head of the "Memorial" scientific information center, Veniamin Iofe.
Daniil Kuznetsov, «7x7»
