Nobel laureate who discovered superfluidity and refused to work under Beria
Over the last two decades, fundamentally new directions in world technology based on new discoveries in physics all developed abroad, and we adopted them only after they had received indisputable recognition. — Letter to Stalin, 1946
Soviet experimental physicist. Trained under Rutherford at Cambridge and detained in the USSR in 1934. Discovered the superfluidity of liquid helium in 1937 and famously refused to work under Beria on the atomic bomb project. Awarded the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Career Timeline
- 1921–1934Researcher, Deputy Director for Magnetic Research, and Mond Laboratory Director, Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge
- 1934–1946Director, Institute for Physical Problems (IFP), USSR Academy of Sciences
- 1943–1946Head, Glavkislorod (Main Oxygen Administration), Council of People's Commissars
- 1945Member, Special Committee on the Atomic Project — resigned after refusing to work under Beria
- 1946–1955Dismissed and under de facto house arrest — continued research in home laboratory 'Izba of Physical Problems'
- 1955–1984Director, Institute for Physical Problems (reinstated)
- 1957–1984Member, Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences
Related historical events
The 1934 Detention: From Cambridge to the USSR
Kapitsa worked under Rutherford at Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory from 1921, earning international recognition for his ultrastrong magnetic field research. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1929, and in 1933 the Society spent £15,000 to build the Mond Laboratory specifically for him. In September 1934, Kapitsa arrived in Leningrad with his wife to attend the Mendeleev centenary congress. Soviet authorities barred his return to England. Kuibyshev and Kaganovich proposed 'arrest as a last resort' to Stalin, who ordered that Kapitsa 'must be detained.' Devastated, Kapitsa considered abandoning physics to become Pavlov's assistant and appealed to Einstein and Rutherford. The Soviet government purchased the Mond Laboratory equipment for £30,000, and in 1935 the Institute for Physical Problems (IFP) opened in Moscow, allowing Kapitsa to resume his research.