What do quantum physics and human will have in common? An interview with Alexey Kavokin explores the intriguing connections between these two concepts.

— Some prefer to get straight to the point, so to speak: let’s talk about science right away. However, I would like to start with personal questions. Here I am, sitting across from a renowned physicist, and I wonder: why did you choose to become a physicist instead of something else? Everyone’s path is different. At what age did you make this decision? Who did you study under?

— It’s a family tradition. My father is a physicist, my older brother is a physicist, and now my eldest son is also a professional physicist. The choice was straightforward, although as a child, I wanted to be a writer and was very interested in history. But my parents enrolled me in the Leningrad Physics and Mathematics School, following in my brother's footsteps (now known as Presidential Lyceum No. 239 in Saint Petersburg). There, the focus was heavily oriented towards professional physics. I participated in and received diplomas in various Olympiads. Interestingly, I also received my first diploma at the All-Russian Literature Olympiad, and I really wanted to continue that passion, but my parents explained that literature is more of a leisure activity (just like history), while professionally, one must engage in something serious. Therefore, upon the recommendation of my physics teacher, Mikhail Georgievich Ivanov, I enrolled in the basic department of the Ioffe Institute of Physics and Technology at the Polytechnic University (now known as Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University). And that's where I studied, and by my second year, I started working in laboratories, and I believe I published my first scientific paper in my third year. So, it turns out I've been professionally involved in physics since I was about 20.

— I often like to ask my acquaintances: if your profession didn’t exist, what would you be doing instead? Sometimes the answers are quite unexpected! But in your case, it’s pretty clear what you would be doing if physics didn’t exist.

— In any case, I engage in many activities aside from physics: I write books, and I’ve published quite a few already. This is certainly a hobby. I don’t earn any money from it, but I do it with immense pleasure, and it would be a slight exaggeration to suggest that I could probably do this professionally.

— Wait a minute, your books can be purchased, so how is it that you don’t receive anything for them? That doesn’t seem right!

— Yes, they can be purchased. But someone else receives the money. Throughout my life, I haven’t earned a single penny from the books sold. I think this is related to the fact that perhaps the publishers or those who commission the books receive some benefits. But I’m satisfied with the number of author copies I receive, which I can give to people I like.

I haven’t earned a single penny from the books sold throughout my life.

— People often start writing children’s books when they have children, but your desire to write formed much earlier than you had kids. But they must have supported you, right?

— I wrote my first detective novel at the age of 12. However, it was never published, of course. It was very childish. When my eldest son, who is now a professor of physics, was born and had to learn to read in Russian while living abroad, I wrote him a page of text every day, typed in large print, and sent it to him by mail. We were living in different cities at that time. He read all of it. This led to the creation of the first book about the cat Saladin. It's formatted as a children's detective story. However, the foundation is probably educational. Some of my books are historical detective stories. Readers delve deeply into the history of the Middle Ages, partly into modern history, the Napoleonic Wars, and a little into the events of the 20th century. I have written extensively about the Middle Ages: about the Crusades, the Guelphs and Ghibellines wars, the conflict between the pope and the emperor—various topics that perhaps not every child knows well. Then I started writing commissioned books about a girl named Acronis. These were commissioned by the then-head of the Acronis corporation, Sergey Belousov, a well-known graduate of the Physics and Technology Institute and a major entrepreneur. For him, I wrote three books. One explains what Formula 1 racing is from the perspective of physics and engineering. The second is about quantum computers and quantum cryptography. The third is a conspiracy theory regarding the origins of the latest coronavirus, which also discusses vaccines, viruses, and how to combat them.

— My younger ones are just about the right ages: 13 and eight. It seems like they should enjoy it.

— I would be happy!

— If literature didn’t exist, what would you be doing? Do you enjoy working with your hands? Perhaps creating some crafts?

— I passionately love cooking. It’s very interesting to me. I always cook at home whenever I can. I even cook during business trips; I try not to eat out if there’s a kitchen available. But I realistically assess my skills: they are certainly negligible compared to what a true professional chef should be capable of. Therefore, in some hypothetical turn of events, I could probably focus on this and also cook professionally.

— I’m sure you would excel at that too. I won’t even ask about other hobbies because having even two such pronounced interests for someone who has also achieved success in science is quite remarkable and already a lot. Do you enjoy sports? Walking, running, cycling, swimming, sailing?

— I ski. I do this at least once or twice a year. However, I ski as an amateur and don’t set any records. But I have never broken anything! I also ran a marathon once in my life when I was 40. But I haven’t returned to that since, and I don’t run now. If we consider chess a sport, I can include that as well. I play chess. That’s it.

I ski as an amateur and don’t set any records. But I have never broken anything!

— Wow, that’s it! You’ve truly amazed me. Where do you find so much time? You must have more hours in your day than I do. Or perhaps just more abilities. But let’s return to physics. I’m curious about how a scientist’s path unfolds, especially at the beginning of a career. You are working in completely new fields. In part, one could say you invented them. How did you get there? After university, it’s unlikely anyone has a clear direction right away. Typically, it’s much more winding: here, there…

— Look, this year the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to John Hopfield[1]. He received it for developing the theory of artificial intelligence and creating a neuromorphic network. However, I knew his work from a completely different perspective. In 1958, Hopfield published a remarkable paper on exciton polaritons[2]. And this is indeed the area of my scientific activity. Probably 70% of my work is dedicated to these exciton polaritons, also known as “quanta of liquid light.” Hopfield was a pioneer in this field. Polaritonic research emerged long before I was born[3], in 1957. However, it didn’t develop very quickly and remained a narrow field known only to specialists until the 1990s. Thanks to the fact that I worked with such specialists, particularly my scientific advisor, Yevgeny Lvovich Ivchenko, who was and remains one of the leading experts in polaritonics, and I had much interaction with the second founding father of this field, Vladimir Alekseevich Agranovich, who, unfortunately, passed away last year, I became part of this small group. Over the course of my scientific career, it has grown into a vast community of researchers. There are just countless of them. Now, hundreds of laboratories on all continents are engaged in polaritonic research. When I started, it was primarily a field of interest for theorists. But since the late last century, due to outstanding experimental discoveries, practitioners have flooded into this area. And I was fortunate to be the head of the first international center for polaritonic research in the world, which was built in China[4], until September 2024. So yes, it’s a somewhat unusual story of how something very small grew into something very large.

— I see. Your path has been almost as direct as an arrow; you just initially floated down a stream, and now it has turned into a mighty river.

— That’s correct. I dug the channel of this river as best I could. But I also looked around a lot: I have works that have nothing to do with polarit