1904–1990
○ Natural causes
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.
Activities and affiliations
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
From the Blue Glow to Particle Detection
Cherenkov began work as a senior scientific officer at the Lebedev Institute in 1930. In the laboratory of Sergei Vavilov, who took charge of the institute’s physics department in 1932, he studied the effects of gamma rays on liquids. He observed a faint blue glow even in pure solvents that do not ordinarily luminesce, such as water and sulfuric acid; Vavilov helped identify it as a phenomenon distinct from ordinary fluorescence. In 1934 Cherenkov published a report on visible light produced in pure liquids under gamma irradiation. Rather than accept fluorescence, which would vary with the liquid’s composition, he investigated the emission systematically. According to the 1958 Nobel presentation speech, he found that the light was polarized along the incoming radiation and that fast secondary electrons were its primary cause, a result he checked by irradiating liquids with electrons from a radium source alone.
Cherenkov’s experimental papers published from 1934 to 1937 established the general properties of the new radiation, but a mathematical explanation remained to be provided. Igor Tamm and Ilya Frank supplied the theoretical interpretation in 1937. The radiation occurs when a charged particle travels through a medium faster than light does in that medium, and it became important in nuclear-physics experiments and cosmic-ray research. Counters using the Cherenkov effect became standard instruments for detecting high-speed particles and measuring their velocities; one was installed aboard Sputnik 3. Cherenkov also contributed to the development and construction of electron accelerators and studied photonuclear and photomeson reactions.