G. M. Petrov

Ukraine

1924-2018


Obituary:

Petrov Grygorij Matviyovych (Nov 30,1924 - April 7, 2018) was born in a peasant family in the Kaniz village, Kirovograd region, Ukraine. He obtained a higher education at the Kirovograd Pedagogical Institute and the Odessa State University. Since 1952, after graduating from the Odessa State University in the field of Astronomy, he worked at the Mykolaiv Astronomical Observatory for more than 50 years.

Scientific degrees: Cand. Sci. in Phys. & Math. (PhD) in 1959, Dr. Sci. (Dr. Hab.) in Phys. & Math in 1988.

State awards: Laureate of the State Prize of the USSR (1982) in the author’s team for the long-term observations of the Sun and small Solar system bodies, which were conducted under his leadership and promoted to develop a new relativistic theory of planetary motion; the Knight of the State Order "For Merits" of the III degree (2001) for the outstanding scientific activity. Since 1967, Petrov G.M. was a member of the International Astronomical Union.

Petrov G.M. is the founder of a scientific research field at the Mykolaiv Astronomical Observatory on the determination of the positions of celestial bodies. An initiator and head of the scientific Arctic high-latitude expeditions of the Mykolaiv astronomers to Fr. Spitsbergen (1974-1977) and two astrometric expeditions to the North Caucasus (1970 and 1981) for the observation of the Sun, Mercury, and Venus. Author of more than 100 scientific works in the field of positional astronomy, including the catalogs of right ascensions of stars and the coordinates of small Solar System bodies. Astronomical observations performed by G.M. Petrov's absolute methods became an integral part of the collective international works of the astrometric profile.

On April 10, 2018, Dr. Petr Fedorov (Kharkiv National University) has written in memory of G.M. Petrov: “Grygorij Matviyovych Petrov passed away... He has lived a long and dignified life. Those, who knew Petrov, may confirm that he was an extraordinary personality. Both in everyday life and in science. Grief and hardship haunted him until his death. Being 16-year-old boy, he was as the ostarbeiter gathered from occupied territory to work in Germany, but he survived and come back. The death of sons, wife, and relatives as well as the slanders of "well-wishers" and many other things made his head completely white, but did not blackened and did not devastate his soul.

And in science, Grygorij Petrov was a bravery and original researcher. Already at the defense of his Ph.D. thesis, he was offered to defend it as a doctoral habilitation dissertation. He refused this proposal. And soon, G.M. Petrov has initiated and then realized the unique series of meridian observations in high latitudes. Continuous series of observations in the polar night sometimes reached months. Then the vacuum systems were developed and new expeditions to the Caucasus were organized to conduct day observations of the Sun and inner planets and to establish an astrometric observatory at the North Caucasus. Perhaps, all these works in the era of HIPPARCOS and GAIA seem less significant. But if you normalize them to the appropriate technology of 1970-1980ies, you can see the scale of ideas and the value of the individual. The modern building of astrometry science is composed of the stones that G.M. Petrov put there too.

Grygorij Petrov was a true Ukrainian patriot throughout his life, and not only when it became profitable. I do not know of any case of discussion (except for clinical idiocy) whenever his opponents celebrated the victory. Thanks to Grygorij Petrov, I remembered that I am the Ukrainian too. But the most striking thing is that his father was an ethnic Serb, and his mother was a Moldovan.

I believe that those, who knew Petrov, will not forget him. And I soothe myself with the hope that those, to whom we will tell about him, will also remember him”.

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