Russian physicist, academician and popular science TV show host Sergei Kapitsa died on Tuesday in Moscow at age 84.

      Kapitsa was born in 1928 in Cambridge, England, in the family of the physicist and Nobel laureate Pyotr Kapitsa. In 1935 the family moved to Moscow, and there Sergei Kapitsa graduated from the Moscow Aviation Institute in 1949.

      Sergei Kapitsa made contributions to physics in supersonic aerodynamics, applied electrodynamics, and accelerator physics. Later the scientist went into the question of human population and overpopulation, and published several books about it.

      For public at large, he was best known as host of the long running science TV show Ochevidnoye-Neveroyatnoye (Evident, but Incredible) launched in 1973 for which was awarded UNESCO's Kalinga Prize for the Popularization of Science in 1979. The program covered the most interesting questions about scientific and technological advance in down-to-earth language. Sergei Kapitsa was its unchallenged host till this year.

      He was also active in issues of science and society through his participation in the Pugwash conferences and the Club of Rome. Kapitsa gave lectures at the Moscow Physicotechnical Institute, in 1965 he was appointed to the rank of professor.