Personalia Mikhail Mikhaĭlovich Miroshnikov (on his ninetieth birthday)

September 3, 2016 was the ninetieth birthday of one of Russia’s outstanding academic physicists and optical engineers, a great specialist in the area of informational optics and optoelectronic instrumentation, noted organizer of the optical industry of the USSR and Russia, Hero of Socialist Labor, recipient of the Lenin Prize, and corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Mikhail Mikhaı˘lovich Miroshnikov.
M. M. Miroshnikov was born on September 3, 1926 in Tashkent. He was admitted to the Leningrad Institute of Aviation Instrumentation (LIAP) in 1945, and all his life and career since then has been spent in Leningrad–St. Petersburg. He finished at LIAP in 1949 and began to work at the S. I. Vavilov State Optical Institute (GOI). He held the offices of scientific staff member, deputy chief (1959–61), and laboratory chief (1961–63). Starting in 1963, he was the deputy director for scientific work in the area of optoelectronics and was director of GOI from 1966 through 1989. He became a professor (1970), a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences (1984), and a full member of the Russian Academy of Engineering Sciences and the Metrological Academy of the Russian Federation. In 1989–92 he was board counselor, and since 1992 the honorary director of GOI. He was the editor-in-chief of Opticheskiı˘ Zhurnal (1989–2001) and a scientific consultant of this journal since 2002. He was president of the D. S. Rozhdestvenskiı˘ Optical Society (1989–1996) and the honorary president of the society since 1996.
The results of his first ten years of work became the basis of Miroshnikov’s candidate’s dissertation “Thermal directional rangefinder with a flexible base” (1958). The promise of the scientific specialization that he developed was confirmed by the creation in 1961 of a new laboratory under his management with the goal of studying the general properties of optical images, including thermal-vision images, their production, conversion, and recording, as well as for the creation of thermal viewers for various purposes. In connection with the ever-wider usage of electronic components and information-processing methods in optical instrumentation, the office of deputy director for optoelectronics was introduced at GOI in 1963, to which Miroshnikov was appointed. He defended his dissertation of “Thermal vision and its application” in 1965 for the academic degree of doctor of technical sciences.
By order of the Ministry of Defense Industry of the USSR, under whose jurisdiction GOI was in those years, Miroshnikov was named director of the institute in 1966. He became the second director of GOI after the departure of Academician D. S. Rozhdestvenski from this post in 1932, combining complex administrative responsibilities with many-faceted scientific work and active managerial functions.

In the 23 years of his management, GOI was transformed into the greatest optical institute not only in the Soviet Union but also the world, embracing the majority of crucial scientific, technological, and engineering specializations of optics. At the same time, being a positive advocate of the ideas of GOI’s founders and managers Academicians D. S. Rozhdestvenski and S. I. Vavilov, Miroshnikov actively and consistently fought for the manysidedness of the institute, the need for close coupling of science, production, and education, creating all possible conditions for this and imposing the corresponding requirements on the scientific management at all levels. Miroshnikov applied much effort to organize and maintain the former branches of GOI, which are now the AO Scientific Research Technological Institute of Optical Material Science (St. Petersburg), the AO NPO State Optical Institute of Applied Optics (Kazan), and the OAO Scientific Research Institute of Optoelectronic Instrumentation (Sosnovy Bor).
Under the direct supervision of Mikhail Mikhalovich, optoelectronic instrumentation was developed at GOI, whose theoretical bases he described in a monograph that has appeared in three editions, in 1977, 1983, and 2010. The practical results were the hundreds of scientific, commercial, medical, and special-purpose devices created at the institute, most of which were later put into batch production.
Miroshnikov made a significant contribution to the development of optical orientation and observation devices to equip artificial earth satellites and orbital spaceships and participated in the creation of devices for studying the thermal radiation of the earth’s surface and atmosphere from space. As scientific manager–chairman of the Interindustrial Scientific–Technical Coordination Council, he took an active part in creating on-board optical apparatus, including an IR telescope with a 1-m primary mirror made from vitrified beryllium for a space station for observing rocket launches. The results of visual observations of natural optical phenomena—polar auroras,noctilucent clouds, and much else—and the discovery of the vertical-ray structure of the earth’s atmospheric radiation were described in two monographs by Miroshnikov and co-authors.
We should especially point out Mikhail Mikhaı˘lovich’s role in the development of medical thermal vision in the USSR. As head of this scientific specialization, he was able to combine theory and practice and the knowledge of investigators and the experience of physicians and to organize a wide network of thermal-vision diagnostic units and specialized education of medical personnel. Beginning in 1971, industrial and all-Union conferences on the application of thermal vision in medicine and later also in industry were regularly held under his management. The papers presented at the conferences and the numerous methodological manuals and recommendations written by him as co-author with practicing physicians became reference material for specialists in optics and medicine.
The image-processing problem closely associated with thermal vision was solved in Miroshnikov’s co-authored papers in terms of a self-contained scientific specialization—iconics. Miroshnikov’s papers gave a detailed definition of iconics as the scientific specialization that studies the common properties of images, taking into account the specifics of visual perception. Seven collected Transactions of GOI on various aspects of iconics were published under his editorship in the period from 1979 through 1992. 
Starting in 1958 with lectures on IR engineering at the Leningrad A. F. Mozaı˘skiı˘ Red Ensign Air Force Engineering Academy (now the A. F. Mozaı˘skiı˘ Aerospace Academy), he continued his pedagogical activity by giving a basic course of lectures in 1963 at the Department of Optoelectronic Devices of the Leningrad Institute of Precision Mechanics and Optics (LITMO) and subsequently made a substantial contribution to raising the educational level of optical engineers. On his initiative, new specialties corresponding to the growing requirements of applied optics and optical industry were introduced into the leading academic institutions of optical profile. The Supreme Certification Commission of the USSR (VAK USSR) awarded him the honorary title of Professor in the Department of Optoelectronic Devices of LITMO in 1970. Hundreds of undergraduates and tens of graduate students obtained their start in scientific life under Professor Miroshnikov’s guidance, and many of them became well known scholars and specialists as candidates and doctors of sciences. The Academic Council of the St. Petersburg State University Institute of Precision Mechanics and Optics (SPbGU ITMO) unanimously awarded an honorary doctorate to Miroshnikov in February 2011.
In 1989, Miroshnikov became editor-in-chief of the journal Optiko-Mekhanicheskaya Promishlennost’—the country’s main publication on applied optics since 1931. Among many innovations, he introduced the practice of systematic preparation of special issues of the journal, devoted to the activity of the country’s leading optical institutions. At his proposal, the journal’s name Optiko-Mekhanicheskaya Promishlennost’ was changed in 1992 to Opticheskiı˘ Zhurnal, which corresponds better to its current contents.
Also in 1989, Mikhail Mikhaı˘lovich set about to restore the Russian Optical Society, which operated from 1922 to 1927. The First (Founding) Congress of the All-Union Optical Society was held in May 1990 and took the name of D. S. Rozhdestvenskiı˘. Miroshnikov was unanimously chosen as president of the society. In the six years (two “statutory” terms) of his presidency, the number of members of the society substantially increased, a network of regional sections was organized, and strong bonds were established with the optical societies of a number of other countries. In 1996, the next congress selected Mikhail Mikhalovich as honorary president of the society.
M. M. Miroshnikov is the author and co-author of more than 300 scientific works, reports, and presentations, including eight monographs, two disclosures, and more than sixty inventions. He is the author and editor of many papers devoted to the activity of GOI and its outstanding scholars.
For effective management of GOI and personal participation in many complex projects, Miroshnikov was awarded the order of Hero of Socialist Labor in 1976 and was presented with the Lenin Prize in 1981, and he has received numerous orders and medals. Miroshnikov’s scientific work in the investigation of the informational properties of images was recognized by his selection as corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. On August 4, 2001, the name “Miroshnikov” was given to one of the asteroids of the solar system, discovered on September 7, 1981 by Crimean Astrophysical Observatory Staff Member L. G. Karachkina and registered under No. 12214.
Besides numerous state awards, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences M. M. Miroshnikov was awarded the title “Honored Machine Constructor of the Russian Federation” (1999). The Federation of Aviation Sport and the Federation of Cosmonautics of Russia awarded him the Academician S. P. Korolëv medal (1974), Pilot–Cosmonaut Yu. A. Gagarin diplomas (1974 and 1985), Yu. A. Gagarin medals (1980 and 1985), the Academician M. V. Keldysh medal (1991), the Honorary Diploma of the Federation of Cosmonautics (2007), the P. F. Bratslavets medal (2007), and the honorary title of “Veteran of Cosmonautics” (2008). In 2009, Miroshnikov was awarded the Certificate of the Governor of St. Petersburg “For Many years of Diligent Work and Great Contribution to the Social–Economic Development of St. Petersburg,” and in 2011 the Sign of Distinction “For Service to St. Petersburg.”
With 90 years of life and 63 years of work at GOI behind him, Mikhail Mikhaı˘lovich Miroshnikov continues to be energetic and active. His enthusiasm, his devotion to science and to his GOI family, and his attention to the destiny of the institute’s staff have produced a reciprocal feeling of deep regard and serve all of us as a splendid example. We wish him continued health, unflagging energy, happiness, and well-being.

Board of Directors
AO S. I. Vavilov State Optical Institute
Presidium
D. S. Rozhdestvenskiı˘ Optical Society
Editorial Council and Board
Opticheskiı˘ Zhurnal