Schmidt Otto Yulievich is an outstanding explorer of the North, a Soviet astronomer and mathematician, statesman and public figure, Hero of the Soviet Union, who has achieved world recognition in the scientific field.
At the beginning of a difficult and interesting journey
Who is Otto Yulievich Schmidt and what contribution did this person make to Soviet science?
The future conqueror of the northern lands was born on September 30, 1891 in Belarus (the city of Mogilev). Otto showed a desire for knowledge and great curiosity from childhood. The constant moving of his family from place to place led to a frequent change of schools (Mogilev, Odessa, Kyiv). In 1909, Schmidt Otto Yulievich, whose biography is a vivid example of determination, graduated with a gold medal from a classical gymnasium in Kyiv, then from the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of the Capital University. In his student years, Otto was awarded a prize for mathematical work. After graduating from an educational institution in 1913, a talented young man was left to prepare for a professorship. A significant work in the field of mathematics was the monograph Abstract Group Theory, published in 1916.year.
Schmidt's brilliant career
The career of Otto Yulievich, a promising associate professor, was rapidly moving up. Possessing organizational skills and actively participating in social activities, the young man showed himself in many areas of life. He was engaged in food supply and worked in the Ministry of Food of the Provisional Government, then as head of the Directorate for Product Exchange, while simultaneously studying the patterns of the emission process.
From the 1920s Schmidt Otto Yulievich taught mathematics at higher educational institutions, and from 1929 he headed the Department of Algebra at Moscow University. He showed himself most effectively in the field of education: he organized vocational education for young people of school age, created technical schools, provided advanced training for workers in factories and plants, and reformed the university system. It was Otto Yulievich Schmidt (years of life - 1891-1956) who introduced the widespread word "graduate student" into use.
Work on the Great Soviet Encyclopedia
A short biography of Otto Schmidt is interesting even to the young generation, standing at the beginning of life and the path and, perhaps, big changes. Under his leadership, a huge publishing house was formed, the purpose of which was not commerce, but cultural and political education.
The fruit of great labors and efforts of Otto Yulievich is the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, the creator and chief editor of which he was. ATThe preparation of the multi-volume edition brought together the efforts of many figures of culture and science who were interested in the need for socialist transformations. The ongoing research contributed to increased interest in the problems of the history of science and natural science. With lectures from these areas, as well as reports on other diverse topics, Otto Yulievich often spoke to a wide audience.
Otto Yulievich Schmidt: expeditions
From his youth, Schmidt suffered from tuberculosis, which worsened every ten years. In 1924, the Soviet scientist was given the opportunity to improve his he alth in Austria. There Otto Yulievich graduated from the mountaineering school along the way. Being at the head of the Soviet-German expedition, in 1928 he studied the glaciers of the Pamirs. The next ten years, starting in 1928, were devoted to the study and development of the Arctic.
In 1929, an Arctic expedition was formed on the icebreaker Sedov, which successfully reached Franz Josef Land. In Tikhaya Bay, Schmidt created a polar geophysical observatory that surveyed the lands and straits of the archipelago. In 1930, during the second expedition, such islands as Isachenko, Vize, Long, Voronina, Domashny were discovered. In 1932, the Sibiryakov icebreaker for the first time in one navigation made a passage from Arkhangelsk to the Pacific Ocean. The leader of this expedition was Otto Yulievich Schmidt.
Success of the expedition
The success of the expedition confirmed the feasibility of active development of the Arctic for economic purposes. For the practical implementation of this project, it was organizedMain Directorate of the Northern Sea Route, headed by Schmidt Otto Yulievich. The task of the institution was the development of a complex route, its technical equipment, the study of the polar bowels, the organization of comprehensive scientific work. Along the coast, the construction of weather stations was revived, a huge impetus was given to ice shipbuilding, radio communications and polar aviation.
Saving the Chelyuskinites
To test the possibility of cruising transport ships in the Arctic Ocean in 1933, the Chelyuskin steamship headed by Otto Yulievich and V. I. Voronin was sent along the Sibiryakov route. The expedition was attended by people of various speci alties, including carpenters, who were sent to build dwellings for winterers. A group of winterers with their families was to land on Wrangel Island. The expedition ended dramatically: due to strong winds and currents, the Chelyuskin was unable to enter the Pacific Ocean. The ship was crushed by ice and sank within two hours.
104 people stranded on an ice floe were forced to spend two months in polar winter conditions until they were rescued by aircraft. The pilots who removed the Chelyuskinites from the ice floe became Heroes of the Soviet Union. In the last days of his stay in the ruthless northern conditions, Otto Yulievich fell ill with pneumonia and was transferred to Alaska. Cured, he returned to Russia as a world-famous hero. The researcher of the North, Otto Yulievich Schmidt, also made presentations on scientific successes and possible prospects for the development of the Arctic expanses inRussia, and abroad.
The title of Hero of the Soviet Union was awarded to Schmidt in 1937; the scientist at that time organized an expedition to the North Pole, the purpose of which was to create a drifting station there.
Schmidt's cosmogonic hypothesis
In the mid-40s, Schmidt put forward a new cosmogonic hypothesis about the appearance of the Earth and the planets of the solar system. The scientist believed that these bodies were never hot gas bodies, but were formed from solid, cold particles of matter. Schmidt Otto Yulievich continued to develop this version until the end of his life together with a group of Soviet scientists.
Schmidt's disease
During the Great Patriotic War, Otto Yulievich Schmidt, whose biography is an example of a true leader, led the evacuation processes and established the activities of academic institutions in a new environment for the country. From the winter of 1943, tuberculosis progressed, affecting the entire body. Doctors periodically forbade Otto Yulievich to speak; he was often treated in sanatoriums, and in the last years of his life he was practically bedridden. But at any moment of improving his condition, he worked hard and even gave lectures in Leningrad and Moscow. Otto Yulievich died on September 7, 1956 at his dacha in Mazinga, near Zvenigorod.
Schmidt Otto Yulievich: interesting facts
The life of Otto Yulievich Schmidt was full of sharp turns: from a mathematician he turned into a statesman. Then he became interested in creating an encyclopedia, and then became a traveler-pioneer. Some events in the life of this great man took place by his will, others by coincidence. Otto Yulievich Schmidt, whose brief biography is a vivid example for the modern generation, has always worked at full strength, with maximum efficiency, without allowing himself a single minute of rest. This was facilitated by broad erudition, tireless curiosity, organization in work, a clear logic of thinking, the ability to highlight important details against the general background of multitasking, democracy in human relations and the ability to cooperate with others.
At some point, the disease tore away from people this cheerful, witty interlocutor, irrepressible person of creative energy, accustomed to practical public activities. Otto Yulievich Schmidt, whose brief biography arouses the sincere interest of the younger generation, did not despair: he still read a lot. Knowing about his imminent death, he passed away wisely and with dignity. They buried Otto Yuryevich at the Novodevichy cemetery. The memory of this man with a capital letter is immortalized in the publication of selected works, the naming of a cape on the coast of the Chukchi Sea, the peninsula of Novaya Zemlya, an island in the Kara Sea, a pass, one of the peaks in the Pamir Mountains, and the Institute of Physics of the Earth.
