Raphael Borisovich Shapiro

---

Raphael Borisovich Shapiro (January 13, 1926 – July 16, 1993) also known by his writing pseudonym Raphael Bachtamov was born in Moscow, USSR and later moved to and died in Jerusalem, Israel. He was an inventor, author, journalist, translator, radio announcer, and an active promoter of science.

Raphael was one of the founders of TRIZ and co-author of the first publications on the methodology of Invention.

Author of numerous popular-science and science-fiction books.

Biography

Raphael Shapiro was born to a Jewish family in Moscow on January 13, 1926.

In 1930, his father – Boris Shapiro – was convicted in relation to the “Shakhty Trial” and sent to Kazakhstan, and later to Siberia. The mother and five-year-old Raphael went with him. When Boris was released in 1936, the family moved to live with the father’s relatives in Baku.

On November 9, 1943, Raphael Shapiro was a senior in high school and applied for a patent for his first invention. while working together with Genrich Altshuller and Igor Talyansky, getting support from D.D. Kabanov – the Head of the Office for Rationalization and Invention of the Caspian Fleet. The invention was classified as “top secret”. The patent certificate for the invention was not given until 1947.

In the following years, Shapiro and Altshuller applied for several dozens of patents for various inventions and received at least five certificates for them before 1950. The most significant of these inventions was the gas- and heat-proof suit (patent certificate #111144), which was detailed in a popular science article “Through fire in a suit” (About individual means of heat protection) / «В костюме сквозь огонь» (Об индивидуальных средствах теплозащиты) /Г. Альтшуллер, Р. Шапиро//Знание — сила. — 1965, № 12. — С. 20 — 22.)

After World War II, Shapiro studied at the Azerbaijan State Oil and Industrial University. It was at this time that he met his future wife Nora.

At the start of 1950, when Shapiro was in his fifth year of the oil-mechanical school, he and Altshuller were arrested by NKVD after a report from one of their friends. In conversations with students in the 1980s, Altshuller often mentioned that under Shapiro’s influence and collaboration in 1948, a letter was written to Joseph Stalin, containing rough criticism of the state of things regarding inventions and inventiveness in the USSR:

“Shapiro had an idea to write a letter to Stalin. It should be noted that for him, it is characteristic to respond in such a way. Whenever he became enthralled by the greatness of something, he wanted to implement it as soon as possible and get a result… Shapiro was an unrelenting optimist.”

— G.S. Altshuller, Жизнь Человека 1-Ч-502, 1985—1986

However, this occurrence did not get any factual, documented proof during the lifetimes of Shapiro and Altshuller. Shapiro never mentioned this letter in any accounts. Altshuller’s descriptions of the causes and details of the arrest were inconsistent and contradictory. Each telling of the incident was acquiring more details of an adventurous or dubious character, gradually giving the story some truly legendary aspects. In the Western world, this story served as a basis for the creation of a heroic image of one of the founders of TRIZ.

The true, but no less tragic, circumstances of the two friends’ arrest were finally revealed only 50 years later, after Shapiro’s death, through the memoirs of Inna Lisnyanskaya. A joke, incautiously mentioned in their circle of friends, regarding Altshuller’s idea about a possible application of methanethiol for civil defense, played a fateful role in their lives:

“…they knew about the whiskered 'snout' and the powder invented by Genrich with Raphael’s help. …And it doesn’t matter which other forbidden jokes and plans the three friends discussed among themselves! The authorities only knew about the 'snout' and the powder, which could stink up a whole Parade…" “After Stalin’s death, they freed and rehabilitated Altshuller and Shapiro, who both had received 25 years of maximum security, and it turned out that my poor Kopejkis had nothing to do with it. Edelsohn was the traitor. Who can possibly understand those traitors, who betray out of hasty cowardice? Edelsohn wrote a single report – about a book passage, the one at the corner of our street. Later, he told about the stinky powder. He mentioned Kopejkis and I as witnesses. Prior to this, he probably heard all kinds of passages regarding the government from Genrich and Raphael, without us. But in our presence, he soiled himself and hastily made a report, scared we would beat him to it.”

— Inna Lisnyanskaya on Shapiro's and Altshuller's arrest

R. Shapiro survived Lubyanka, Butyrka Prison, Lefortovo Prison, and in 1951 was sentenced, under articles 58-1, 58-10, and 58-11 of the Criminal Codex, to serve 10 years in prison camp with the right to correspondence (according to Altshuller’s version of the story it were 25 years of maximum security). By a strange coincidence, the sentencing happened on Shapiro’s 25^th birthday – January 13, 1951. Then he repeated the childhood journey – Kazakhstan, Siberia. (Leonid Shub, «РАФАЭЛЬ ШАПИРО. К 85-летию со дня рождения»). Shapiro described his hardships and experiences of life in a prison camp, and the possibilities of continuing his creative work in prison in his unfinished autobiographical account “Twenty-five plus twenty-five”. The book was edited by Vladimir Portnoy and published by Shapiro’s widow Nora after his death in 1994.

After Stalin’s death in 1953, Shapiro was rehabilitated, and in 1954 freed and reinstated to his studies in the mechanical engineering faculty. After receiving his diploma, he worked as an engineer in Baku and was a regular author for the newspaper “Baku Worker”. Shapiro was published in many mainstream newspapers and journals; and translated a lot of Azerbaijanian authors’ works into Russian.

In 1980, Shapiro, along with his wife and son, moved to Israel. Lev Kopelev and his wife Raise, being long-time friends of the Shapiro family, were a big influence in the decision to emigrate from the USSR.

From 1985 and through 1991, Shapiro closely collaborated with Kronid Lyubarsky, Boris Chasanow , and other members of the Human Rights Movement in the Soviet Union. During this time, he was also the leading political expert for “Country and the World” (Munich), where he published editorials under the pseudonym Raphael Bachtamov (his mother’s maiden name) and articles under his real name. According to his wife, he spent these years living in airplanes, travelling almost monthly between Jerusalem and Munich.

During the last years of his life (1991-1993), he was the lead announcer of the radio station “REKA”, Israel.

Creation of TRIZ

Shapiro and Altshuller were released from prison together on October 23, 1954, just as they were together during the arrest in 1950. After release and rehabilitation, Shapiro continued to closely partner with Altshuller in their work to create a methodology of inventiveness, ideas for which they developed together in the late 1940s. Factually, Shapiro was the strategist behind TRIZ, setting the main directions for its development.

Altshuller commented on the role of Shapiro in the creation of TRIZ:

“Shapiro very quickly evaluated and appreciated our perspective and potential. Kabanov appreciated the technical aspect, while Shapiro appreciated the outcome. Shapiro made a most powerful comparison:

“Marx derived the laws for the development of society, Darwin derived the laws for the development of living organisms, and we will derive a theory, which will give the world the laws for the development of technical systems.”

“…So he was the first to appreciate what we were doing, which is very important. He understood the scale of it.”

— Г. С. Альтшуллер, Жизнь Человека 1-Ч-502, 1985—1986

In 1956, Shapiro and Altshuller published the article “The Psychology of Inventive Creativity”, which laid the foundation for the development of TRIZ. The article described the main principles of TRIZ: technical contradiction; “Algorithm of Inventive problem Solving” (ARIZ); the existence of objective, dialectic regularities for the development of technologies. (Альтшуллер Г. С., Шапиро Р. Б., «О психологии изобретательского творчества», Вопросы психологии, № 6, 1956. — с. 37-49).

At the end of the 1950s, Shapiro received his correspondence diploma from the University of Azerbaijan Law School. During his studies, he took an active part in discussions regarding the project “Statements about inventions, discoveries, and rationalization suggestions” in the “Soviet State and Law” journal.

In 1959, in the “The Exile of the Six-Winged Seraph” article, Shapiro and Altshuller described the first extended version of ARIZ, the so-called ARIZ-59, and announced that they started work on “a scientific method for inventive creativity”, which they had already taught in seminars since 1957.

In 1961, Shapiro published a book also titled “The Exile of the Six-Winged Seraph”. The book not only managed to be the first mass-advertisement of TRIZ (the first edition sold 115,000 copies), but made the name Altshuller known among young technical specialists by dedicating one of the stories to Genrich and the “methodology of inventiveness”.

Raphael Shapiro deeply felt the meaning of practical applications of the philosophy, and technology was far from the only field of work, where the word “law” became of great importance. After receiving his law degree, Shapiro applied the principles, patterns, and “development lines”, derived through years of working on “inventive methodology”, in the field of lawmaking. The result of many years of research was the book “Law is Law”, the creation of which used the principles of TRIZ

In recent years, the importance of the work completed by Shapiro and Altshuller is being increasingly recognized in Western Europe, their books are translated and cited in many languages. Materials, which gave light to the story of the creation of TRIZ and its various instruments are published in leading technical publications.

Works

Popular-science books and science-fiction

“The Exile of the Six-Winged Seraph” (1961)

“Lord of the Oxyworld” (1965)

“Law is Law” (1968)

“For Whom the Apples Fall” (1973)

“The Mystery of the Technical Science Revolution” (1976)

“Has no shape…” (1977)

and others.

Autobiographical novel “Twenty-Five plus Twenty-Five” (1992).

See also

• Theory of Inventive Problem Solving

• Altshuller, Genrich Saulovich

References

This article "Raphael Borisovich Shapiro" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Raphael Borisovich Shapiro. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

---