Russian Academy of Science

From Wikinfo

Russian Academy of Science is the national academy of Russia. This organization includes the best scientific institutes all over Russian Federation. To be a member in the RAS is extremely honorable and means a certain acknowledgement from direction of colleagues.

History

The Academy was founded in St. Petersburg by Peter the Great, and implemented in the Senate decree of January 22, 1724. Those invited to work there included mathematicians Leonard Euler, Christian Goldbach, Nicholas and Daniel Bernoulli, astronomer and geographer Joseph-Nicolas Delisle, physicist Georg Kraft and historian Gerard Miller.

Expeditions to explore remote parts of the country had Academy scientists as their leaders or most active participants. These included Vitus Bering�s Second Kamchatka Expedition of 1733�43, and Peter Simon Pallas expeditions to Siberia.

References

• Adapted from the Wikipedia article, "Russian_Academy_of_Science" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Academy_of_Science, used under the GNU Free Documentation License