Revealing secrets of Nobel physicist 2010

When naming Andrei Konstatinovitch Geim who had the honor of being awarded the Nobel Prize, many Russians were surprised because they had never heard of this strange name. People had to ask questions, who is Andrei Geim?

Andrei Geim (right), one of two scientists who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010. (Photo: Internet).

Andrei Konstaninovitch was born in 1958 in Sochi in an engineer family. In 1975 he graduated with a gold medal at the 3rd High School in Nakchika, the capital of the Kabardino-Balkaria autonomous capital. In an interview, he said he felt he was European but in the bloodline 25% were karbadino-balkaria.

After graduating from high school, he entered the University of Finance in Moscow but failed because of his background: he belonged to a minority German. He had to find another way to get into college. So, worked as a worker for a year at the Nalchika power plant and then enrolled in the academic title of Moscow Technical Physics University. Geim graduated with a perfect score of 5 (except for a grade 4 in Socialist Political Economics) in 1982.

He applied for a postgraduate study and after 5 years of defending his doctoral thesis at the Institute of Solid Physics, belonging to VHLKH of the Soviet Union. Then worked at the Institute of newly established microelectronics and special materials.

In 1990, Geim received a scholarship from the Royal Society and worked at British, Danish and Dutch Universities. Since 2001, he has returned to work at Manchester University and was awarded honorary professor at Delf University of Technology, Zurich Technical College and Antwerpen University.

In 2008 he was invited to be president of the Max Planck Institute in Germany, but he refused. His wife, Irina Grogorieva, works with his lab.

Among scientific achievements, he built gecko tape (reptiles can crawl on the ceiling without falling because the foot has a special texture). In 2000, experiments using magnets to make a card jump made him awarded the Ig Nobel Prize, the award for the most silly inventions. It means that this intelligent person has been . very dumb and has been opposed to two Nobel Prizes.