Vernadsky’s Birthday

Vladimir Vernadsky is the father of Earth sciences: geochemistry, biogeochemistry, radiogeology, hydrogeology, and others. He developed several scholarly traditions including the theory of the noosphere. Vernadsky’s ideas made a great contribution to creating the modern scientific worldview. His natural science and philosophical research interests included a holistic teaching about the biosphere, a live matter that organizes the Earth’s crust and the evolution of the biosphere to the noosphere in which human intellect and human activity as well as science become the decisive development factor, a powerful force that could be compared with geological processes. Vernadsky’s ideas about the relationship of nature and society had a great impact on the formation of modern ecological conscience. Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky developed Russian Cosmism, which was based on internal unity of humanity and space. From the very start of his academic career, Vernadsky proved himself as an open-minded natural scientist. He strived to integrate various spheres of human knowledge into large natural scientific and philosophical concepts. This attracted many scholars, which led to the creation of world-famous schools of science.