An experimental physicist who explored fission and nuclear isomerism
In 1935, studying bromine's radioactivity, he and the Kurchatov brothers and Mysovsky discovered nuclear isomerism.
Lev Rusinov was a Soviet physicist who expanded the experimental foundations of nuclear physics at the Leningrad Physico-Technical Institute. In 1939, working with Georgy Flerov, he demonstrated that uranium fission releases more than two neutrons per event, a result central to understanding the conditions for a chain reaction. He also investigated nuclear isomerism and the interaction of neutrons and gamma rays with nuclei, and after the war led reactor construction and the organization of nuclear research in Leningrad.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1926–1930Student, Faculty of Physics and Mechanics, Leningrad Polytechnic Institute
- 1930–1944Researcher, Kurchatov laboratory, Leningrad Physico-Technical Institute
- 1939–1940Conducted fission-neutron experiments on uranium with Flerov
- 1944Earned a doctorate in physics and mathematics for research on nuclear isomerism
- 1948Professor of experimental physics
- 1946–1960Participant in the Soviet Atomic Project and research-reactor development
- 1950sScientific director of a research-reactor project with high neutron parameters
Related historical events
Postwar reactor construction and the expansion of the experimental base
After the war the center of Rusinov's activity shifted to broadening the experimental base in Leningrad. He was the initiator of the proposal to build a water-water research reactor at the Physico-Technical Institute and threw himself into the work of reactor construction. On his initiative the design of a series reactor was modernized and a design was produced for a modern reactor with high neutron parameters and broad possibilities for experimental research, and he became the scientific director of that project. Through design, construction, physical experiments and commissioning, he directed the research and took an active creative part in the work. In 1954 a decision was taken to build a 2 MW research reactor, the "R installation", at the Physico-Technical Institute. After the war he also continued his nuclear isomerism research; from 1947 to 1949, with Arkady Karamyan, he carried out studies developing and clarifying the mechanism of new methods for separating nuclear isomers. He did not confine himself to work at the laboratory bench but also gave much attention to training young researchers. The collective he led solved a whole complex of scientific and technical questions and provided a research base for a number of physicists. Amids the effects of long years of work with radioactive materials, he died on 18 May 1960 at the age of fifty-three. He is buried in the Bogoslovskoye cemetery in St Petersburg.