Remembering Vladimir Koptsik, a theoretician of crystallography and co-author of a famous symmetry book, on his centennial

Vladimir A. Koptsik (1924−2005) was born in Ivanovo, an industrial town and educational and regional administrative center some 250 km north east of Moscow. He attended school in Moscow and completed the ninth grade in June 1941, just as Germany was about to attack the Soviet Union. First, he helped in building anti-tank barriers around Moscow, then, for three years, he worked in the defense industry. While working, he completed his school education and enrolled on the correspondent course of the Faculty of Physics of Moscow State University (MSU). In 1944, he became a full-time student of the Geophysical Department of the Faculty of Geology of MSU. In 1949, he graduated in the Department of Crystallography and Crystal Chemistry, and stayed on for PhD-equivalent graduate studies in the same department. Noted crystallographers, such as G. B. Bokii, A. I. Kitaigorodskii and A. V. Shubnikov, were among his professors, and Shubnikov acted as his mentor. Koptsik defended his candidate of science (PhD equivalent) dissertation in 1953. When MSU expanded hugely and took possession of its new campus on Lenin Hills, Koptsik followed Shubnikov to the Faculty of Physics of MSU and helped his mentor in organizing the new Department of Crystallography and Crystal Physics.

In 1963, Koptsik acquired the higher degree of Doctor of Science, a prerequisite for professorial appointment, which he soon received. In 1968, he became head of the department, by now called the Department of Crystal Physics. His principal research activities covered theoretical crystal physics, theory and applications of color symmetry, structural phase transitions and theory of real crystals. He authored and co-authored about 300 publications of original research. He is, however, best known for his co-authorship, with Shubnikov, of the monograph Symmetry in Science and Art, whose Russian original appeared in 1972 [1]. This is also how I came across his name in my symmetry studies and especially while working on the monograph Symmetry through the Eyes of a Chemist [2]. It was indeed our shared interest in symmetry that initiated our interactions.

Koptsik remained active in research of the theoretical aspects of crystallography throughout his career. He published monographs, had 27 pupils that earned the PhD-equivalent candidate of science degree, and creatively contributed to the efforts of the crystallography community both at domestic and international levels, among others, as a member of the IUCr Commission on International Tables from 1963 to 1983. I met Koptsik in person for the first time in 1987 during a conference in Moscow celebrating the 100th anniversary of Shubnikov’s birth. His contribution was a panoramic review about generalized symmetry in crystal physics [3]. Our second meeting happened at the “Symmetry 2000” conference where he was one of the invited speakers. Characteristic of his broad interests, Koptsik’s presentation at the Stockholm meeting was about symmetry compositions in the great Russian poet Alexander Pushkin’s works [4].

References and literature

[1] Shubnikov, A. V. & Koptsik, V. A. (1974). Symmetry in Science and Art. New York: Plenum Press. [Russian original: Симметрия в науке и исскустве. (1972). Moskva: Nauka. This monograph is a substantially expanded version of Shubnikov’s original volume: Симметрия (Закони симметрии и их применение в науке, технике и прикладном исскустве). The title in English translation: Symmetry (Principles of Symmetry and their Applications in Science, Technology and Applied Art) (1940). Moskva-Leningrad: Izd AN SSSR.]

[2] Hargittai, I. & Hargittai, M. (1986). Symmetry through the Eyes of a Chemist. Weinheim: VCH. [Hargittai, M. & Hargittai, I. (2009). Symmetry through the Eyes of a Chemist. 3rd ed. Springer.]

[3] Koptsik, V. A. (1988). Crystal Symmetries: Shubnikov Centennial Papers, edited by I. Hargittai & B. K. Vainshtein, pp. 407–424. Oxford: Pergamon Press. [To make this project viable, the materials of this book were first published in a journal of the same publisher: Comput. Math. Appl. 16, 351−669; the book retained the pagination of the journal version.]

[4] Koptsik, V. A. (2002). Symmetry 2000, Part 2, edited by I. Hargittai & T. C. Laurent, pp. 585–596. London: Portland Press.