SCIENCES, ACADEMY OF

Russian Akademiya Nauk, highest scientific society and principal coordinating body for research in natural and social sciences, technology, and production in Russia. Composed of outstanding Russian scholars who are elected to the academy, membership is of three typesacademicians, corresponding members, and foreign members. The academy is also devoted to training students and to publicizing scientific achievements and knowledge. It maintains ties with many international scientific institutions and collaborates with foreign academies. The academy directs the research of other scientific institutions and institutions of higher education. The academy's many divisions are directed by its Presidium under four sections: physical-technical and mathematical sciences; chemotechnical and biological sciences; earth sciences; and social sciences. Founded in St. Petersburg in 1724 by Peter I the Great, the academy was opened in 1725 by his widow, Catherine I, as the Academy of Sciences and Arts. Later known under various names, it took its present name in 1925. In its early decades, foreign scholars, notably the Swiss mathematicians Leonhard Euler and Daniel Bernoulli, worked in the academy. The first Russian member was Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov, scientist and poet, who was elected in 1742 and contributed extensively to many branches of science. The society's highest prize, the Lomonosov Medal, bears his name. Under the tsars, the academy was headed by members of court circles and controlled a small number of institutions. After 1917 the academy chose its president and expanded its activities as new scientific institutions arose throughout the Soviet Union. By 1934, when it transferred from Leningrad (St. Petersburg) to Moscow, it embraced 25 institutes. Before the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the academy directed more than 260 institutions, including laboratories, naval institutes, observatories, research stations, and scientific societies, and its branches were spread throughout the Soviet Union. French Acadmie Des Sciences, French scientific society established in 1666 by Jean-Baptiste Colbert to formalize the periodic private meetings in Paris that began about 1662 among a group that included Ren Descartes, Blaise Pascal, Pierre Gassendi, and Marin Mersenne. Under Colbert's sponsorship, the society first met in the royal library and in 1666 was called the Royal Academy of Sciences (Acadmie Royal des Sciences); but in 1699, reorganized under royal patronage, the society transferred to the Louvre under its present name. As early as 1721, the academy established prizes, the number of which has steadily risen. In 1793, after the French Revolution, the Convention suppressed the Academy of Sciences along with all other royal academies. Its functions were then assumed in 1795 by a branch of the newly formed National Institute. In 1816 the former name was restored, but the academy remained part of the Institute of France. Its two large divisions(1) mathematics and physics and (2) chemistry and natural historyare composed of sections devoted to geometry, mechanics, astronomy, geography and navigation, physics, chemistry, geology, botany, zoology, rural economy, and medicine and surgery. Among the outstanding foreign scientists associated with the Academy of Sciences were Benjamin Franklin and Albert Einstein. Membership ordinarily includes about 130 ordinary members, 160 correspondents, and 80 foreign associates.