1) That old man is Aksionov.

2) The speaker is asking about the truth of digging an escape hole .

3) The speaker means the prison's wall.

In mitosis, the prophase is further understood by dividing it into the given sub-stages:

1.Leptotene :

In this stage the nucleus enlarges in size in the chromosome. The chromosomes appear thin, thread-like and single-stranded in this stage. They have swollen or beaded structures along their length and their ends appear converged towards one side of the nucleus called bouquet.

2.Zygotene:

In this stage, the identical chromosomes come together and form bivalent or homologous pairs. Further, ...

There is, for sure, effect of gravity on fire. We know for a fact that fires on Earth are "pointy" while those in zero-gravity are "round". This is because fire is simply glowing gas. Gas is matter and matter has weight. For a body to have weight, gravity must influence it in some way.