The Leading Mid-European Astronomer Marian Wolfgang Koller

Marian Wolfgang Koller used to be considered the very best astronomer from Carniola next to Augustin Hallerstein. Today, his work connected with the Dalton Minimum is again in limelight as the alternative explanation of global warming phenomena. Koller wrote precise notes of six semestrial courses of Josef Stefan to promote Stefan’s talents. By using the international connection of his patron Koller, Stefan published at least twenty articles in the British Philosophical Magazine, some of them also in Paris and Geneva.

Vasyl Pastushenko’s Scientific School in the Development of Soil Protection Technologies in Ukraine

The article describes the achievements of scientists of the leading scientific school of thought on the development of soil protection technologies in Ukraine, founded by Vasyl Onufriievych Pastushenko (1907–1999). The introduction of the years of the scientists’ research in Ukrainian farms with different soil and climatic conditions has resulted in efficient production of quality agricultural products and improvement of environmental conditions, particularly, the improvement of soil protection crop rotations with the cultivation of mixtures of perennial legumes and siderates, anti-erosion cultivation of soil across the slopes, fertilizer and mulching, etc. Among the followers of Vasyl Pastushenko are the well-known scientists P. I. Boiko, V. O. Borodan, V. V. Kulbida, H. K. Medvid, I. H. Predko, I. H. Zakharchenko, and others. The purpose of the article is to review the achievements of these scientists in the development of soil protection, anti-erosion measures in different soil and climatic conditions in Ukraine.

The Estonian Mycological Collections of Heinrich August Dietrich (1820–1897)

Heinrich August Dietrich was a gardener with a deep interest in mycology. He published a two-volume monograph dealing with over 1,000 fungal and fungal-like taxa, the first cryptogamic research of this kind for the Baltic region. Between 1852 and 1857, H. A. Dietrich issued nine volumes of exciccatae named Centuria Plantarum Florae Balticae cryptogamarum. The preserved eight Centuriae and additional collections from Estonia (then the Imperial Russian Baltic province, Estonian Governorate) are revised and their current status in collections is presented. As a result, a new myxomycete species for Estonia, Physarum gyrosum, and the once doubtfully-reported species, Arcyria oerstedii, are recorded, and the earliest vouchers of some endangered ascomycetes, such as Poronia punctata and Sabuloglossum arenarium, are identified in his material. The most remarkable findings among lichenized fungi are Alectoria sarmentosa, Dibaeis baeomyces, Flavoparmelia caperata, Lasallia pustulata, Nephroma laevigatum, Peltigera venosa and Ramalina calicaris, as well as the oldest Estonian specimen of Lobaria pulmonaria.

Organization of Documentation in Ukraine during the Soviet Period

The article discusses issues surrounding the introduction of new forms of documents and the organization of document circulation in Ukraine during the Soviet period, revises the organization of office work and presents a selection of valuable documents. The authors also explore the organizational and scientific activities in the field of management, stipulated in regulatory enactments, and describe the creation of a network of public organizations, institutes and laboratories that dealt with issues of scientific organization of labor and reference activities. In the article, an analysis of the organization of office work and archival management through the evolution of regulatory framework is presented, highlighting the most important stages of the organization of documentation in the USSR. It is noted that, by the end of the 1980s, a holistic system of documentation support, which met at that time the requirements of Soviet business broadcasting and the standards of compiling official documents, had been formed.

Kuhn, Putnam and the Reference

In some of his writings, Kuhn criticized Putnam’s causal theory of reference for natural kind terms put forward in his classic paper “The Meaning of ‘Meaning’” claiming that Putnam’s theory cannot explain the reference changes of natural kind terms. After looking into Kuhn’s objections to Putnam’s reference theory, some of the main features of Kuhn’s incommensurability thesis and some traits of Putnam’s later version of his theory, we will argue, on the one hand, that Putnam’s later reference theory contains some components that enhance the explanation of the reference change of natural kind terms, and on the other hand, that Kuhn’s and Putnam’s views on reference do no differ that much, especially in virtue ofcertain similarities between Kuhn’s incommensurability thesis and Putnam’s thesis of conceptual relativity.

The Ensemble Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics and Scientific Realism

The article takes under consideration three versions of the ensemble (statistical) interpretation of quantum mechanics and discusses the interconnection of these interpretations with the philosophy of science. To emphasize the specifics of the problem of interpretation of quantum mechanics in the USSR, the Marxist ideology is taken into account. The present paper continues the author’s previous analysis of ensemble interpretations which emerged in the USA and USSR in the first half of the 20th century. The author emphasizes that the ensemble approach turned out to be a dead end for the development of the interpretation of quantum mechanics in Russia. The article also argues that in Soviet Russia, the classical Copenhagen (standard) approach to quantum mechanics was used. The Copenhagen approach was developed by Lev Landau in 1919–1931 and became the basis of the Landau-Lifshitz famous course on quantum mechanics, one of the classics of twentieth-century physics literature (the first edition was published in 1947). Although Vladimir A. Fock’s approach to the interpretation of quantum mechanics differs from the standard presentation by Lev Landau and Evgeny Lifshitz, Fock put forward a very important principle that complementarity is a “firmly established law of nature”. The fundamental writings of Lev Landau, Vladimir Fock and Igor Tamm, the authors of the mid-twentieth century, did a lot to defend the standard point of view such as the popular interpretations by Landau and Lifshitz. This approach can be traced back to Landau’s early writings and to Fock’s criticism of the ensemble approach.