Kurchatov Igor Vasilyevich was the father of Soviet nuclear power. He played a key role in the creation and development of the peaceful atom and led the development of the first atomic bomb in the USSR in the late 1940s.
The article briefly describes the life path that the Soviet physicist Igor Kurchatov went through. A biography for children will be especially interesting.
Young physicist
On January 12, 1903, Igor Kurchatov was born in the village of Simsky Zavod (now the city of Sim) in the Urals. His nationality is Russian. His father, Vasily Alekseevich (1869–1941), at various times worked as an assistant forester and surveyor. Mother, Maria Vasilievna Ostroumova (1875–1942), was the daughter of a local clergyman. Igor was the second of three children: his sister Antonina was the eldest, and his brother Boris was the youngest.
In 1909, after the family moved to Simbirsk, studies began at the Simbirsk gymnasium, where Igor graduated from elementary school. Three years later, after moving to the Crimea due to his sister's he alth, Kurchatov was transferred to the Simferopol gymnasium. The boy did well at first.literally in all disciplines, but after reading a book on physics and technology as a teenager, he chose physics as the occupation of his life. In 1920, working during the day and studying at night school, Igor graduated from the Simferopol gymnasium with a gold medal. In the same year he entered Tauride University.
Freedom of action
Igor Kurchatov (photo is given later in the article) was one of the best in the Department of Physics and Mathematics. Due to academic success, he and another student were placed in charge of the university's physics laboratory and given free rein to conduct experiments. From these early experiences, Kurchatov gained an important understanding of the value of practical evidence in supporting scientific perception, which was very useful in his later research. In 1923, Igor graduated from the university with a degree in physics, completing a four-year course in three years.
Moving to Petrograd
Moving soon to Petrograd, he entered the Polytechnic Institute to become a naval engineer. As in Simferopol, Kurchatov had to work in order to study and support himself. He was admitted to the Magnetometeorological Observatory in Pavlovsk, which allowed him to earn a living and do what he loves. Since work at the observatory began to take a lot of time, Kurchatov lagged behind in his studies and left the institute in the second semester. From that moment on, he decided to focus on physics.
After working as a researcher at the Baku Polytechnic Institute in 1924-1925. Igor Kurchatov was appointed inPhysical-Technical Institute in Leningrad, which was at the forefront of the study of physics and technology of that time in the USSR. At the same time, in 1927, he married Marina Dmitrievna Sinelnikova and worked as a teacher at the Department of Mechanical Physics of the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute and at the Pedagogical Institute. Here he spent his best years and made some of his most important discoveries.
Igor Kurchatov: a short biography of the scientist
In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Kurchatov became interested in what was then called ferroelectricity - the study of the properties and characteristics of various materials under the influence of an electric current. These studies led to the creation of semiconductors and drew his attention to nuclear physics. After conducting initial experiments with beryllium radiation, meeting and corresponding with the pioneer of this science Frederic Joliot in 1933, Kurchatov began fruitful work on curbing the power of the atom. Together with other researchers, including his brother Boris, he made a breakthrough in the study of isomeric nuclei, radioactive isotopes of bromine, which had the same mass and composition, but had different physical characteristics. This work led to advances in understanding the structure of the atom in the Soviet scientific community.
At the same time (in 1934–1935), Kurchatov, together with scientists from the Radium Institute (a scientific and educational organization created in the USSR as an imitation of similar institutions founded by the pioneer in the study of radiation, Marie Curie in France and Poland), was engaged in research neutron, neutrala subatomic particle about which little was known at the time. High-energy neutrons are used to bombard the nucleus of a radioactive atom, such as uranium, in order to split the atom and release large amounts of energy during the nuclear reaction.
Wonder Weapon
In the 1930s, researchers such as Joliot, Enrico Fermi, Robert Oppenheimer and others began to realize that a nuclear reaction, if handled properly, could be used to create a bomb of unprecedented explosive power. Kurchatov, as one of the leading Soviet nuclear scientists, was de facto considered the leader of research and experiments in this area. For various reasons, including a lack of resources and the politically repressive atmosphere of the Stalinist regime at the time, the Soviet Union lagged behind the rest of the world in the race to domesticate the atom.
Watchful comrade
News of the 1938 discovery of nuclear fission by German chemists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann quickly spread throughout the international community of physicists. In the Soviet Union, the news caused excitement and concern about the possible applications of this discovery.
In the late 1930s, Soviet physicist Igor Kurchatov, whose photo is posted in the article, with a group of researchers in Leningrad, made a breakthrough in the nuclear reaction of radioactive isotopes of thorium and uranium. In 1940, two of his colleagues accidentally discovered the fission of a uranium isotope and, under his direction, wrote a short article about it in the American edition of Physical Review, which at that time was the leading scientifica journal that published articles on progress in nuclear research.
After several weeks of waiting for a response, Igor Kurchatov initiated a search for current publications to find out news about nuclear fission experiments. As a result, he discovered that American scientific journals had stopped publishing such data since mid-1940. Kurchatov reported to the Soviet leadership that the US, in response to the growing threat of world war with the Germany-Italy-Japan axis, was probably making efforts to build an atomic bomb. This led to the intensification of research in the Soviet Union. Kurchatov's Leningrad laboratory became the focus of these efforts.
Demagnetization of the Black Sea Fleet
The advance of German troops deep into the territory of the USSR in July 1941 reduced the amount of available resources in all sectors of the Soviet Union, including the scientific community. Many of Kurchatov's researchers and physicists were assigned to solve current military problems, and he himself went to Sevastopol to train sailors to demagnetize ships to combat magnetic mines.
By 1942, the efforts of Soviet intelligence in the United States confirmed the fact that the Manhattan Project was making progress in creating atomic weapons. At the request of scientists and politicians, Igor Kurchatov was called from Sevastopol and appointed chief designer of the center for the development of a controlled nuclear reaction. This center would later become the heart of the Soviet Institute of Atomic Energy.
InspirationRozenberg
At the institute, Kurchatov's group built a cyclotron and other equipment needed to control a nuclear reactor. After the successful testing and use of atomic bombs by the United States at the end of World War II, the Soviet Union stepped up efforts to prevent the American nuclear threat. On December 27, 1946, Kurchatov and his group built the first nuclear reactor in Europe. This made it possible to obtain an isotope of plutonium, necessary for the creation of nuclear weapons. On September 29, 1949, after successfully testing the atomic bomb, the USSR officially entered the nuclear age. In November 1952, the American hydrogen bomb exploded, which was many times more powerful, and August 12, 1953 was marked by a similar achievement by the Soviet Union.
After the creation of atomic and hydrogen weapons, Kurchatov led the movement in the Soviet scientific community for the peaceful use of the atom. He helped design and build nuclear power plants. In 1951, Kurchatov organized one of the first conferences on nuclear energy in the Soviet Union and later became part of the group that launched the first nuclear power plant in the USSR on June 27, 1954.
Kurchatov Igor Vasilyevich: interesting facts
The nuclear physicist was a highly regarded figure in the power circles of the Soviet government. In addition to being a member of the presidium of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, he became the Hero of Socialist Labor three times, was a deputy of the Supreme Council and a respected political figure. His managerial talent is almost the same as that of a scientist, allowing him to successfully leadever larger organizations.
Kurchatov was highly appreciated by his colleagues in the international scientific community. Frédéric Joliot-Curie, Nobel laureate for his fruitful work in this field, corresponded with him for a long time. In the late 1950s, Kurchatov participated in international conferences on atomic energy and, along with other scientists, called for a worldwide ban on nuclear weapons. He also advocated a ban on atmospheric testing. In 1963, the Soviet Union and the United States signed the Treaty on the Prohibition of Testing Nuclear Weapons in the Atmosphere, Outer Space and Under Water.
Civilian applications of atomic energy, researched and developed under the leadership of Kurchatov, include power plants (the first of which began operation in 1954), the Lenin nuclear icebreaker. The scientist also led the research of thermonuclear fusion, developing means to keep the plasma at an extremely high temperature, necessary to initiate and maintain the fusion process in a thermonuclear reactor.
Practitioner, not theorist
After two strokes in 1956 and 1957. Kurchatov retired from active work, continuing to focus on nuclear physics and the design and construction of several Soviet nuclear power plants. On February 7, 1960, Igor Kurchatov allegedly died of a heart attack in Moscow.
The biography of the scientist was not limited to the projects to which he devoted his whole life. His theoretical work of considerable importance only echoed and usually lagged behindworks of the pioneers of nuclear physics at the beginning of the 20th century. Only the application of theory in practice made it possible to reveal the full importance of his activities.
Dry from water
Soviet physicist Igor Kurchatov lived and worked in the oppressive and technologically stuffy atmosphere of Joseph Stalin's regime. He was able to gather groups of outstanding scientists in difficult and harsh conditions and, moreover, motivate these specialists to create a creative, productive community. He managed to stay in favor and out of prison during several of Stalin's purges of the country's scientific and political leadership and at the same time put forward his demands.
Teacher Sakharov
Kurchatov was by all standards a selfless scientist who believed that the laboratory was the best place to develop and test physical theories. Thanks to this practical attitude, the scientist inspired a whole generation of Soviet physicists to pass their principles and concepts through the crucible of the creative process. He was the teacher of many great scientists, including nuclear physicist Andrei Sakharov.
Igor Kurchatov helped his country to enter the technological era of the last half of the twentieth century, forming a dual direction of development of atomic energy in the Soviet Union. If he had focused only on building weapons, then the peaceful use of nuclear energy (nuclear power plants) might not have appeared soon.
