The main stages of the life and work of A.D. are traced. Sakharov - with an emphasis on demonstrating a method for achieving the desired non-trivial results. Analysis shows that his method in science, in the design of nuclear charges, in the protection of human rights, in the formation of a new system of international security was the same: in all cases, he remained a man of the exact sciences, a physicist, and a designer-developer. The visible result of the efforts could be exact numbers at the end of an article full of formulas or the release of a prisoner of conscience from imprisonment - in all cases this was the result of a certain “scientific research”, while the special holism of Sakharov’s thinking offered completely unexpected steps towards solving the problem, often not understood by his contemporaries and even shocking to many. The epigraph of this report is Sakharov’s statement: “An unrealized idea is not yet an idea.”