This book is dedicated to Akademgorodok (Academic City), the main educational and scientific center of Siberia, Russia, founded in 1958 by the Soviet Academy of Sciences. Mikhail Lavrentiev, physicist and mathematician, played a leading role in its establishment. At its peak, the Akademgorodok was the home of 65,000 scientists and their families.
Gersh Budker was the first director of the Institute of Nuclear Physics, made multiple contributions to modern physics, in the field of particle acceleration and electron and positron collision tubes. The now called Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics was for decades a pioneer in nuclear science. Today it remains an important center of scientific development and is part of the Akademgorodok.