The programme’s guest is Artem Oganov, Doctor of Physics and Mathematics.

- Dear friends, following our tradition, please meet yet another fellow countryman, Artem Oganov. Hello!

- Hello.

- Thank you very much for coming over. I am happy to receive you in this studio. As our tradition goes, I would like to ask you to introduce yourself. Let’s do it like this: what would you consider the most important thing to say about yourself today? To our viewers here and now.

- Well, I am a scientist, theoretician in crystallography. I am an absolutely happy person, a father of four. This is the most important thing I can say about myself. 

- Thank you very much! We have five topics for discussion: faith, hope, patience, forgiveness, and love. Let’s start with Faith.

FAITH

- It has become widely known that you were hit by a bus while riding a bicycle in London. This really looks like a miraculous escape. My question is - did this accident become a deep religious experience for you, or you took it for granted because you once said that you’d been born under a lucky star anyway? 

- It was deep indeed for a split second. When I was lying under this bus and its wheel was moving on towards me. I couldn’t even move, because I was knocked down along with my bicycle. A broken and heavy bicycle pressed me down, so I couldn’t move at all. So I was lying there, and the wheel of the bus was moving towards me rather quickly. I understood that in a split second I would be dead. And during this split second I somehow managed to escape. You know, the abilities of the brain are absolutely unbelievable: during this split second I remembered my whole life in all the details and replayed all the prayers that I knew in my head. I usually say my own prayers. I am a believer, as you know. But I don’t memorize other people's prayers, I try to speak with God from my heart. All the prayers that I knew fit into this split second. The bus wheel stopped about here (shows), an inch away.

- And if we talk about what is called religious experience, what comes to your mind first?

- My conversion, because I was brought up in an atheistic family. Throughout my childhood and youth I considered believers retarded people, and I laughed at them. I didn’t understand how a person of reason could believe in all this nonsense. After all, astronauts have been to outer space, and they haven’t seen God there….

- No, they haven’t.

- That is what we hear.

- Right.

- Well, think what you will about believers, but once you experience a moment after which you can’t stay a non-believer any more. People ask me: why have you begun to believe? After all, a believer is someone with no brain, right? After all, astronauts have been to outer space and haven’t seen God there.

- That’s right.

- And my answer is very simple. You see, when you experience something in your life and if you are a person of integrity, you ought to make an inference. I lived my deepest experience when I was eighteen. I saw God, just like that. You see, first and foremost a scientist must be a person of integrity.

- Right.

- Telling the truth. I had depression only once, but it was very deep. It lasted for a year, and I almost died. Many things overlapped: a broken heart at the end of high school, tough time at the university, when I slogged over books way too much trying to be the coolest bloke on campus, and poverty. It was 1992-1993.

- OK.

- Our family was very poor, and we barely had enough money to buy food. At the university I ate only brown bread. This was everything I could afford for the small change that my mother gave me. I also saved money from time to time to buy books to study. By the end of the first year I was completely exhausted. I barely passed exams. I was so emaciated, that just after 15 minutes of reading I lost consciousness.

- Oh my God…

- Something warm was pulsating in my head. I saw nothing. The same thing happened when, for example, I got up from a chair. On top of that, I was constantly thinking that my girlfriend didn’t love me, and so on. I felt that I couldn’t study, I felt that I probably wouldn’t be able to finish the year. I ceased to respect myself. I hated myself. Back then I was quite egocentric. It seemed that the whole world was spinning around me, and I was so amazing. Now, it all collapsed, and the old me died under the debris. I even remember the moment when I died. We were first-year students, and had some hands-on practice in the Crimea. We were entitled to one day off a week. I set off to Yalta, but didn’t make it there. I was exhausted then, and I stopped somewhere halfway in Alushta. I remember looking around. I was really weary. I had something to eat, but I had just a of bottle of water. I drank water and I fell asleep on the grass. Then I looked around and saw homeless people. And I thought: “Well, that's it. This is where I die. All I can do is fall asleep on the grass among bums." This was probably the darkest period in my life. I didn't want to live. But I didn't have the strength to commit suicide. I dreamed of being run over by some car. This is what I felt at that moment. And at some point, an idea came to my head. Well, actually, I was trying to do something. I tried jogging, quenching in cold water and so on. I didn’t have the will to do all this. I hated myself even more. So everything became even worse. At some point, I had the following thought: “If God exists - even if only idiots believe in Him - and if He is somewhere, let him save me. Because nothing else will save me.” Well, a thought flashed through my mind and went away. Then one night I was sleeping, shortly after this slow death of mine, remember?

- Yes, go on.

- And I saw myself reborn. I was a baby in a cradle. Everything around was white, as if I were in heaven, or something. There were babies around. They were just like me, born again. And I knew my dad was coming now. All these kids around were waiting for the same dad. Suddenly I felt it: he was coming. I saw that Jesus Christ was coming. Twenty-five years have passed and I still cannot speak about it placidly. Then I felt every cell of my body screaming: “I believe!” Of course, I understood that this was a dream, but I felt that I was liberated. Dark times ended. I was alive again. I was happy again and I believed. I didn’t want to wake up, because I knew that this was a dream. I thought that if I woke up, the same things would happen again. But I woke up and nothing changed. I realized that I was a happy person and a believer. So tell me, after this how can I say that there is no God? Well, I would be a dishonest person then. God does exist. I have no freedom not to believe.

- That’s interesting.

- I probably already started reading the Bible back then. And I learnt Apostle Paul’s story. That was it.

- Yes.

- There is no freedom not to believe. There are people who are really stubborn and persevering. That’s what rabbi Shaul was like. That’s what I was like. God deprived them of the freedom not to believe. He came and said: “Open the door”. You have an option of not opening, but then you keep on living like you have been. I opened that door.

HOPE

- We had a chat before the camera was turned on. You said that while in London you met with Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh. Although you are a Catholic, you communicated with an Orthodox pastor. We now move to our next block, Hope, and I want to ask you: what hope do you think he gave through his conversations with people or personally with you? Because you said that you also had personal meetings, not just conversations.

- Yes. The hope to become like him someday. Metropolitan Anthony is the most outstanding, the most wonderful person I have ever met. I have met a lot of people in my life, outstanding and not. But I have not yet met anyone on a par with him. By the way, he taught me a lot. Thanks to him, I realized that I wanted to be Orthodox.

- What stopped you?

- At that moment, I even thought to become an Orthodox. And it was an opportune moment, too: I lived in a Catholic dormitory in London. We had a chaplain – a priest.

- Yes.

- He lived on campus. He was gay and he had a crush on me. There were nuns, which were gossiping about students. Not so much positive.

- Not indeed.

- And then one sees a clean, radiant person, and this person is Orthodox. I realized two important things. First, I realized that I didn't need to become Orthodox, because I was already part of it. Catholics and Orthodox Christians quarreled over budgetary and administrative issues back in 1054. Then they pulled a theoretical excuse to justify their rift. That is why I am already Orthodox. On the other hand, we should not go into faith because of a personality.

- Uh-huh.

- There are priests like that among Catholics. Then again, there are other kinds of priests too.

- And others.

- In Orthodoxy, there are many such priests. There are others as well. But we don’t convert because of people, but because of God. These are two important points. And the hope to become as wonderful as Metropolitan Anthony one day… Well, hope dies hard. I think it is very difficult to become like him. There are people who are sent by God. By the way, Metropolitan Anthony attracted tens of thousands of Britons to Russian Orthodoxy. Even though he never canvassed in the street...

- It is true.

- He never imposed his faith on anyone. People came to him at will.

- I cannot but ask you about science. Although I wasn’t going to focus on it as a centerpiece, I'm quite interested anyway. Sometimes it appears to me that we witness the rebirth of scientism. There is a belief that science is all-powerful, it has all the answers. Science is the greatest human achievement, and so on. What do you think? What kind of hope does science give and what can it never give us?

- I believe that science and faith are, scientifically speaking, orthogonal. They do not run counter each other. They don’t go like this, they go like that (shows the direction with his hands). In theory, they don’t overlap very much. They explore different layers, different areas of the universe. Therefore, they cannot contradict each other, but they can complement.

- Ok.

- Perhaps, I would agree, that science is the greatest human achievement. However, it is ridiculous to think that science can help in everything, satisfy all our needs. You see, if you have remorse, science won't help you in any way.

- No, it won’t.

- Science can extend your life. It can give you physical health. Science can improve quality of life. Basically, that’s what science is for. And that's great. Science can satisfy curiosity. I feel such a thrill when I tell my four children...

- Yes.

- …about black holes. My children are all kids. The eldest is 10. So when I tell them something, I feel the same excitement of knowledge. It happens when you understand the amazing things happen in the world.

- Right.

- That is what science can give us. Science can also give elation, which can hint at something more than that. At how amazing our world is! Why is the world so amazing? Where did the laws governing this world come from? Aren't these laws odd? Perhaps, here there is a link to faith. Who, in fact, gave us these laws? Well, you could say no one did. Or we can say that Someone did. Here believers and non-believers are divided, and no one can ever prove anything to anyone.

- We touched upon the conflict between science and religion slightly. Once at a meeting with physicists in Sarov, His Holiness the Patriarch said that earlier astronauts proved that there was no God, and now some were proving with their help that God existed. It was some kind of a theological conference. Science and theology. One physicist made a speech. He said that science and religion didn’t contradict each other but had somehow come together. They had to be in conjunction. I spoke next. I said: “I have the impression that we have Christians, Muslims, Buddhists - and physicists.” I believe that this striving to show that there is no conflict is the line we cross in the other direction. They still go different ways.

- Indeed, they go different ways.

- Do they?

- I think they can be used in conjunction, but with caution.

- OK.

- Caution is important. I would like to quote a great scientist Louis Pasteur…

- Right.

- “Little knowledge leads away from God, and great knowledge returns to Him.” I still think we will never be able to prove the existence of God by scientific methods.

- We can’t prove it wrong either.

- Yes. That’s right. But this shouldn’t confuse us. Because there are scientific statements that are not subject to proof. We call them axioms. They are the foundation of science. This is the path of human knowledge. We need to take something at face value, but this something should be intuitively close to us. Well, for example: parallel lines do not intersect. You will never prove it, but we intuitively feel that this is right. Just like God. Some of us intuitively feel that God exists. And therefore, they may as well accept this as a truth that does not require proof. I believe that. Personally, I received my proof of the existence of God.

- I believe that apart from religion another important aspect in the life of a scientist is art, right? For example, I remember how surprised and delighted I was when I read a note in the diary of Yuliy Khariton, one of the leaders of the Soviet atomic project. When he was still a very young man, he was at an evening gathering where Mayakovsky read his verses. So Mr. Khariton wrote in his diary: “A whole sea of ​​new poetry opened before me. It was one of the most powerful shocks in my life." We can see that an outstanding physicist calls his most powerful shock hearing Mayakovsky's poetry. He always had a poetry book on the bedside table. Though not by Mayakovsky, as far as I remember, but by some other Russian poet. Do you think that this is generally important for a scientist to have this artistic experience, these emotions? Do they play any role?

- Depends on a person. There are people who are more art-oriented, so to say. There are people who are less interested. Scientists are very different. There are people who don’t want to know anything but science.

- Right.

- But it seems to me that they deprive themselves of many things. I think that a person will benefit if he or she is involved in all layers of human culture. Culture is something that was created by our ancestors and contemporaries. With its help we become smarter, better and deeper. Art helps us in many ways to become deeper. Some people may not take advantage of this. But it is better to use it.

- I just think, it is still impossible to prove here how Mayakovsky influenced the scientist in Khariton. But if he had not listened to Mayakovsky, he would have been a different person and, possibly, a different scientist. This fact is probably also difficult to dispute.

- Of course, we are responsible for our mindset. The environment in which we live also shapes us. Therefore, it is very important to always be with the best - to learn from the best, be friends with the best. We all know how bad company affects a person. You know, I have been to a juvenile prison a couple of times giving lessons.

- In Russia?

- Yes, in Mozhaysk. And it was also an amazing experience for me. I think it was even more useful for me than for the children. Children were very different there. In general, people don’t get there with minor offences. They get there ... for some serious things they did. But the children were very different. It was clear that many of them got there because they were in bad company, more or less for random reasons. Like I said, we are responsible for our mindset. The environment in which we live also shapes us. If a person tries to find the right environment to live in, he or she will become what they want.

- You are a world-renowned scientist, you’re in the top lists of various journals. Why would you go to a children’s prison? Do you want to give hope to those children?

- I want to give them a little dignity. Because when a person is in prison and is serving a sentence for a crime, which he or she cannot forget, it is very important for this person not to see himself or herself as an outcast. It is important to feel that at least someone at least sometimes treats him or her as equal. I always treat people as equals. And when I came to those children, I treated them as equals. I wasn’t trying to tell them to become different, that they must justify the trust of society and so on. I was trying to show them that life can be different. There would be a different life after this. In this life they deserved everything that other people deserved - me and anyone else. And I saw how their eyes opened, how they somehow stretched. It helped me, too.

PATIENCE

- The next topic is Patience. There is a middle-brow belief that science should be in conflict with religion. Likewise, a person may think that he or she has a scientific understanding of the world. Although, as far as I can judge by my students, such people would remember Newton's physics from a school textbook at best. Even though a course of modern natural sciences was introduced in schools as a compulsory one. And an average person has no ideas of really modern science. What do you think about this kind of scientific ignorance? Well, provided you agree with this at all, maybe I'm wrong. Is it tolerable, is it acceptable for a modern person?

- I think that it’s tolerable. I also answered your question about scientists, who are not interested in art. This is tolerable, but not optimal. This is not the best situation. Because science is one of the most important parts of the world culture. This is something that was created for us to become smarter, deeper and better. You can either use it or ignore. But it’s better to use it.

- I also have another thought: a person thinks that his ideas about the world are scientific ones. But he or she doesn’t really have them. He or she can’t reflect on all these difficult things — neither about Einstein, nor about Hawking. But, tentatively speaking, he or she thinks that he or she knows how the world works. At the same time, he or she thinks that this idea of how the world works contradicts religious ideas. I believe this is also a problem.

- Well, this is probably the same thing that Louis Pasteur said: little knowledge leads away from God, and great knowledge returns to him. Great scientists often think that they actually know very little. If a person thinks that he or she knows everything about how the world works, I can probably congratulate him or her on the fact that he or she doesn’t know anything. I don't think I know much. I think that a person who really knows a lot, doubts his or her knowledge. Such person seeks more knowledge, strives for it. People who think they know everything are intellectually dead.

- What about patience? Is it an important quality for a scientist?

- A scientist without patience will achieve little, because the profession of a scientist includes very painstaking work. He or she must work hard all the time. There should be continual self-education. Experiments or theoretical work require a lot of time, great perseverance. There will be nothing without this.

- It turns out rather interesting. In this studio, I talked with people of different occupations. Now it turns out that patience is actually a key thing. Directors told me that this was eighty percent of success in profession. The actor also confirms the importance of patience. I am a teacher and I also can confirm it. But can it really be unimportant? Can we say that a journalist or a military man doesn't need patience?

- You are absolutely right. I once read a book by, if I remember correctly, academician Amosov. It was called "Encyclopedia of Health". He had a definition of what health is. Health is a measure of stress that the body can take without consequences. And so I think that patience is a kind of measure of spiritual health. This is the pressure - emotional, exhausting and so on - that you can bear without irritation, without breaking down. It is better to be healthy rather than unhealthy. It is better to be patient than impatient.

- A very nice definition. It really fits both physical, mental and spiritual health. But I also have a favorite question, so to say. It is about walking through fire, so to say. But I haven’t asked it to scientists yet, so I am very interested in how you will answer it. Is it difficult to deal with fame and your scientific importance? Is it easy for you to endure it? Do you see it as a test? Or in relation to that case when you were making a decision in Alushta – does it help you to deal with everything?

- It is easy for me. It has almost no effect. Well, except that maybe it gives some kind of confidence. I don't know, some kind of reinforcement of self-esteem, no more. The point is how my temperament works. I am very lucky with my temperament. I am sanguine and take everything very emotionally, but only for the first five minutes. Therefore, if some luck happened or some honor fell on me, I would be very happy about it. I’d jump to the ceiling. And after five minutes I would forget what I was talking about at all, and we would go on working as if nothing happened. Therefore, I believe it is impossible for me to lose my mind. And it is impossible to suppress me emotionally. Because my reaction is absolutely the same to bad news, too. I am terribly upset, I sprinkle ashes on my head, tear my hair out - it will last for five minutes. At the sixth minute, I would ask: what is the fuss about? Let’s move on as if nothing happened. I am truly lucky with my temperament.