The Soviet Nobel physicist who discovered the Cherenkov effect
"It is hard to judge what there was more of in life — luck, misfortune, happiness… But one thing I know for certain: there was a great deal of overcoming."
In 1934 an experimental physicist saw a blue glow in a bottle of radioactive solution and opened a new chapter in particle physics. Working under Vavilov, Cherenkov identified the emission (now known as Cherenkov radiation) produced when charged particles pass through a medium faster than light travels in it; Tamm and Frank supplied the theory. The discovery led to the Cherenkov detector, a standard tool of particle physics that flew aboard Sputnik 3, and earned the three the 1958 Nobel Prize in Physics. He spent his career at the Lebedev Physical Institute (FIAN), where he founded and directed the High-Energy Physics Department, and contributed to synchrotron construction and photo-nuclear research.
Career Timeline
- 1928Graduates Voronezh State University, Physics and Mathematics
- 1930Senior researcher at the Lebedev Physical Institute (FIAN)
- 1934Discovers the Cherenkov effect
- 1940Doctor of Physico-Mathematical Sciences
- 1946Stalin Prize 1st class; joins the CPSU
- 1948Professor at Moscow Power Engineering Institute (MEI)
- 1951Stalin Prize 2nd class; professor at MIFI
- 1958Nobel Prize in Physics, shared with Tamm and Frank
- 1959Head of the photo-meson processes laboratory, FIAN
- 1964Corresponding member, USSR Academy of Sciences
- 1970Full academician, USSR Academy of Sciences
- 1977USSR State Prize
- 1984Hero of Socialist Labour