Sergey Alexeyevich Lebedev

Sergey Alexeyevich Lebedev (November 2, 1902) was a Soviet scientist in the field of electrical engineering and computer science, and designer of the first Soviet computer. Lebedev was born in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia. He graduated from Moscow Highest Technical School in 1928. From then until 1946 he worked at All-Union Electrotechnical Institute. In 1939 he was awarded a degree of Doctor of Science for the development of the theory of "artificial stability" of electrical systems. During World War II Lebedev worked in the field of control automation of complex systems. His group designed an automatic guidance for airborne missiles. To perform these tasks Lebedev developed an analog computer system to solve ordinary differential equations

From 1946 to 1951 he headed the Kiev Electrotechnical Institute of the Ukrainian /icademy of Science working on improving the stability of electrical systems. For this work he received the State Prize in 1950.

In 1948 Lebedev learned from foreign magazines that scientists in western countries were working on the design of electronic computers although the details were secret. In the autumn of the same year he decided to focus the work of his laboratory on computer design. On December 25, 1951 the first in the USSR and on the European continent computing machine MESM was put into operation.

In 1953 a new computing machine BESM was developed. All the other Electronic Computing Machines "Strela", "Minsk", "Ural", "Dnipro", "Mir", M-20, M-220 were developed on BESM basis. Lebedev's report at the international conference in Darmstadt in 1956 about the success of Kyiv scientists made clear that Ukrainian electronic computing machines were on the same level with the American ones and the fastest operating computers in Europe.

Lebedev's scientific school successfully competed with the famous American company IBM. 18 different types (15 of them were put into production) of the mosl complicated computing machines each of them a new word in computer engineering, each new one - more efficient, more reliable, easier in operation - were developed under Lebedev's leadership, starting with computers on the basis of electronic vacuum tube lo the machines based on integrated circuits.

In 1997 the IEEE Computer Society recognized Sergey Lebedev with a Computer Pioneer Award for his work in computer design and his founding of the Soviet computer industry.

I. Answer the questions.

1. Who designed the first Ukrainian computer?

2. Was S.A. Lebedev Ukrainian by birth?

3. What was he awarded a degree of Doctor of Science for?

4. When and where was the first Soviet computing machine put into operation?

5. What made it clear that Ukrainian computers were the fastest in Europe and not worse than American ones?

6. How many types of computers were developed under Lebedev's leadership?

7. Was he awarded a Computer Pioneer Award during his lifetime?

Read and translate groups of words.

To rely on/upon - to be relied on/upon for - reliable - reliability

To award - to be awarded - an award - awarded

To solve - solved - solving - solvable - solution

To compete - competition - competitor - competitive

To develop - development - developer - developed

Fill in the gaps with a suitable word.

It's not easy to find a to this complicated problem.

He is a real friend. I can always_____on him.

Computers by Lebedev were quite with American ones.

The winners in the Olympic Games gold, silver and bronze medals.

A computer can thousands of mathematical operations in one second.

Every new model of computer was on the basis of the previous one.