On 30 March, 2004 our Mother, Dyna Pavlovna Karavashkina, passed. This page is devoted to her memory.

Dyna Makhinenko was born on 23 February, 1930 in Anapa, Black sea shore, in the family of presviter of illegal at that time Baptist church Pavel A. Makhinya (this surname that means 'tremendous' was given to them because of Herculean figure and power of all men in the family). Her father, my grandfather, was a progeny of Cossacks that came from Ukraine in 18th century, when Caucasus was conquerred; they established near Anapa the Gostagai settlement. Grandfather, as I remember him, was always calm and laconic; in his youth he had a command of sabre as well as in old years - of bookkeeper's job. In thirties he served his sentence for religion, Dyna's mother was rejected from any employment, relatives took younger children to their families and saved from starvation.

Dyna's oldest brother Vladimir was a pride of family and school. He studied at Moscow institute for geodesy, aerial photograph and cartography and promised to become a brilliant mathematician and engineer, but was mobilised to World War II and in the very first battle they all, all his unit were killed in the environs of Pskov. Her second brother, Nicolay, was arrested by Rumanian invaders which already retreated from Anapa - simply because he was 17 years old and was able to take arms. In filtration camp in Crimea they gathered 50 000 of such boys and left them to die from hunger and antisanitation. In the end of war the family moved to Novorossiysk where grandfather got a job and where I was born..

So the war took lives of two brothers and deprived elder sister, Lydia of high education. All hopes of the family were addressed to Dyna - she also was the pride of school, had only excellent marks and was greatly talented in natural sciences

In 1948 Dyna entered the Department of Physics and Mathematics of Rostov university; when she was third-year student, this department was transferred to Kharkov university, so Dyna appeared in Kharkov, in the radio physical group. Here before graduating she married one of most talented students, Boris K. Karavashkin. He also was a hope and pride of his family and its central person, so that his family (parents and two brothers) moved to where he lived. And I Sergey was born in 1953.

At that time my Father worked on dissertation, while Mother was meanwhile constrained with nappies and saucepans. In the image, from left to right, we see a famous Professor Shpanion, genius of metrology and lamp electronics, next (young) is my Father, after whose theoretical development they in co-authorship have created the etalon of amplitude modulation; next to right is Nicolai Petrov who developed the etalon of frequency-phase modulation, created also after Father's study of 1956.

The school of Professor Shpanion, Kharkov Institute for Metrology, gave a great education. When many years after I was employed to the same institute and Professor Shpanion got to hear the name Karavashkin, he asked, whether I am a son of Boris, and invited me to work at his laboratory. He taught me just as many years ago taught my Father (with all novelties, of course), only now he also used as a textbook Father's reports - 20 years after they still were kept as a model. And I am forever grateful to Professor, our scientific Daddy, for my metrological awareness that enables us to avoid errors in quite scrupulous experiments now.

However, Father was not fated to work there long time. In 1957 he was invited to develop a large automated complex of equipment in Chelyabinsk; there he defended his doctoral degree and turned down the postdoctoral. He was the Head of large metrologic laboratory of giant Chelyabinsk Metallurgical mill, then a teacher in Kurgan polytechnic institute, invented together with famous doctor Ilizarov who returned maimed people to normal life; Father was highly appreciated. His second son Alexander, my brother by father, graduated with distinction the department of mechanics and mathematics of Chelyabinsk university, began working on doctoral thesis, but 'occasionally' has solved the problem that 'fed' a whole generation of post-graduate students; as the result … he also turned down to pursuit the getting on. Well, maybe they were right? Anyway, they have weekends with the forest and lake, fishing and yacht, bike and skiing, good talk with friends, time for good novels - and have not a slave-owner called Computer.

My Mother also became an experienced specialist in metrology at world-wide famous Kharkov Govorov radio engineering military academy.

After this academy, she worked at the design institute of coke industry, but the road knew where to bring her, and soon Mother became a teacher in Kharkov Polytechnic Institute. Some time later she entered a post-graduate course at the department of industrial electronics. The subject of her doctoral thesis was "Selection of optimal parameters of spark-extinguishing circuits for protection of contacts switching low-current inductive loads fed by direct current".

It seemed, the destiny led her over the way of discoveries. Once, when Mother successfully worked on topological methods of electric circuit synthesis and sought the application to her methods, we undertook a journey to my Father, and he showed her an interesting phenomenon in the discharge gap: "This is just what forms the discharge and damages contacts". Co-authorship in three appeared, however, impossible, but Mother and me have developed Father's idea.

Mother's Department initially treated a new interesting effect quite favourable and provided us with the facilities to study it. But the more strong discovery and great application in industry has outlined the more problems arose. Hard, very hard and sometimes absolutely illogic are ways people go from their birth to death. We can only ascertain the 'dry residual' that remains when the way has been passed. Mother has never succeeded to defend the done thesis, to legalise the discovery, to continue the study at the Institute, to get a possibility to continue and publish her materials elsewhere. All what remained from so much labour, hopes and trouble, were the certificate for a side invention and few publications in the Kharkov Polytechnic Institute Proceedings.

After this, she never succeeded to work in science. She was a teacher, participated in the study of other industrial researcher, founded a section of electric-spark treatment at the mill "Teploautomat", adjusted this new high technology, taught the personnel. She much struggled for possibility to continue the study on discovery - it remained to conduct the final series of experiments, and they required an equipment. The scientific System stood as a bastion, doing not heeding any appeals, arguments, profit. It was a time of stagnation, time of indifference and arbitrary rule of officials. Rule of clans definitively has ousted from scientific circles the spirit of sake-of-truth science, and if you belonged to no clan, it was very bad for you. It seemed, Gorbachev's perestroyka (State reconstruction) opened new hopes, but factually it ruined the scientific structure. Mother for her personal expenses attended conferences, enormously addressed to publish her works, made new scientific and editorial contacts, appealed to many officials. They showed interest, but 'time of changes' and hyperinflation destroyed all agreements.

It was truly a tragedy of scientist. Doing not wasting those years, doing not give way to despair, Mother has found a trend which she was able to develop independently. Being the expert in discharge phenomena, she devoted those years to atmosphere study, thinking that not pressure and temperature but electric phenomena take leading part in atmosphere processes. She created her original theory of meteorology which she called Lightning meteorology, and the voluminous monograph - "Stormy phenomena on the Earth". There followed years of battles for this new 'child' - again conferences, offices, editorials - with the same outcome. Though we have to admit, reviewers treated this work quite favourably and criticism of this clearly raw and much contradictive conception was quite constructive. Mother did not reconsider her views, thinking that the new always is hard to be understood, and tried to popularise her ideas through educational and scientific novels. She has written several versions of these novels, but that stormy, extremely destructive time needed them not, too.

Dyna Pavlovna always generated new ideas. Having finished the cycle of works on lightning meteorology, she endeavoured to solve the problem of controlled thermonuclear fusion. This was she who guessed, why it is impossible to succeed in stellarators, despite so many labour, funding and witty solutions have been contributed to them. The cause is following. To achieve reaction, scientists applied to the plasma beam a strong pinching field, and the more field the more beam is turned inside out, so that the effect appeared basically unachievable. After we published that paper in the first volume of our Transactions (1994), academicians went back on stellarators, but this changed nothing for Dyna Pavlovna. She still had to appeal to officials proving that she not only has come close to the solution of controlled thermonuclear fusion but phenomenologically fully solved this problem and needs to check experimentally. In the course of preliminary discussion, leaders of Kharkov Physical and Engineering Institute doubted her electrophysical solution and refused. Just as in the Lightning institute refused to arrange an experiment on obtaining artificial ball lightning after her scheme. And so on, so on - rejections, rejections… Though, perhaps failures in these negotiations protected her from worse disappointment - she never got to know that these her ideas also were not finally worked out. None the less, they also were some contribution, especially noting, with what attention and generosity much less perfect and productive attempts in these trends are met. Thereupon, the principal result of her activity, which she personally disregarded in comparison with fusion etc, remained her study on contact phenomena and contact protection from erosion. These developments are really correct and highly important.

Of course, there arises the question: why, with all her wholehearted motherly love, with all uncommon mutual understanding of us as co-authors, Mother did not want to join efforts with us at laboratory SELF? The answer is dispirit and simple. We, just as she, had no funding, no expensive equipment that she needed, no possibility to publish our results, - we also many years worked 'to a stock'. But we had a future, while years cried to her: "hurry, you have no time!" She did not like much to repeat the destiny of her uncle Stepan A. Makhinya whose work on history of religion that took his 15 years remained an unpublished manuscript, family relic. She did not see another way out than to knock at every door seeking a possibility to work and to publish today. She never understood, this was a senseless way. A business not for women - to walk on minefields in single…

After common and our mind, this was fruitless way, but perhaps each of us has a right for his own opinion and own decision. Dyna Pavlovna appeared a steadfast, quick-witted, lively, never-giving-up fighter - rather, more fighter than diplomat, this was injurious for her relations and prevented her from agreement, but age urged her and required: "now either never!" Her main works, doctoral thesis and discovery, few years ago have been stolen. Despair that would long ago sink anyone other finally caught her up and, despite mighty health, strength began leaving her. Last years she spent in restoring lost materials and putting papers in order. Thanks to this, today we have available the restored version of thesis - true, there is absent the description of the essence of powerful mathematical method for spark-extinguishing circuits calculation, though all the rest and formulas yielded by this method remained. But Dyna Pavlovna had not enough time to restore the discovery. Internet already was implemented here and as if a magic wand solved the problem of publication, she already arranged personal web site, hoping to publish there her works, but! She could live long and work much, but languished. On 23 february 2005 she would celebrate her 75 jubilee. Doctors never could find 'a real disease' - only in novels people dye from grief, don't they?

For us this was a double grief. Above all, we had not materials to show the world, what a significant scientist she was, and seemed, we also will be unable to save her name from oblivion. But we have found among old papers a reduced version of the paper on discovery, rather its brief survey, that she prepared many years ago, found old oscillograms obtained 30 years ago; this allowed me to recall missing links. Thanks to these odd sources, now we can show you the heart of her work. For sure, it will impress specialists.

Such was the life of Dyna Pavlovna Makhinenko, Karavashkina in first marriage and Borycenko in second - the physicist without titles and positions, without funding and support, but fruitful, as we can only wish to many others. We will gradually publish her main works, they will be uncovered for the world, will find their application in contact engineering, will provide the reliability and longevity of devices and products, as all electric and electronic equipment stand on contacts as on whales; they will provide a tremendous economy; this knowledge will soon become of everyday use for engineers and technologists, as if they always used her results. Thus, electric engineers and technologists, circuit designers and researchers, recall from time to time Dyna Karavashkina. She was a beautiful, attractive woman, she united bright intellect and huge talent, she was very lively and workable, strongly devoted to science, targeted and enterprising. She was all-round expert, from sewing and knitting to formulas, soldering iron and devices, she was a cordial hostess with famous cakes and holiday dinners, and a woman of fashion whose wardrobe was sewed and knitted by herself. She was very warm, fascinating woman, staunch and loving mother and grandmother (and her grand-grand-son was born in a week after she passed - a robust, real Makhinya). She was a fighter who endured on the ring so many rounds of fight out of rules as not many succeeded. Single. This was her trouble and her right. Warriors who spent their life battling do not live long but do not pity of it.