What led you into science and your chosen area of research?

Curiosity about science and passionate interest in programming and mathematics, on one hand, and general interest about nature, on the other.

Can you describe the results in your paper and their importance for your field?

Development of methods needed for computation of various properties of solids.

What research projects are you working on at the moment?

On the method of computing damageability under irradiation.

What do you think will the next big breakthrough be in your field?

Forecasting the properties of specific materials and successful applications in contiguous fields of knowledge (biophysics and medical sciences).

What book are you reading right now?

One on the biology of mosses.

If you could have dinner with any 3 people, past or present, who would they be and why?

S. Goedecker: In Stuttgart he and I together tried to figure out the wavelet transformation. Also my grandfather and grandmother who have departed this world a long time ago.

What has been the most exciting moment in your career so far?

This moment is yet to come – I think so anyway.

What would you like to say in connection with the 90th anniversary of “Uspekhi Fizicheskikh Nauk” journal?

I wish the journal to reach its centenary having retained the same expansion momentum as it showed in all the years that I remember reading it.