Date of birth: 8 July 1894
Place of birth: Kronstadt, Russian Empire
Died: April 8, 1984
Place of death: Moscow, Russia

Petr Leonidovich Kapitsa- Soviet physicist.

Pyotr Kapitsa was born on July 8, 1894 in Kronstadt in the family of a lieutenant general and a teacher. In 1905 he began to study at the gymnasium, but in 1906, due to problems with the study of Latin, he began his studies at the Kronstadt real school.

From 1914 to 1918 he studied at the St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute, where he was educated as an electrical engineer.

From 1918 to 1921 he worked as a teacher and his talent was noticed by the physicist Ioffe, who invited Peter to collaborate in the study of atomic physics.

So, together with Ioffe and another physicist, his classmate Semenov, Kapitsa invented a method with which it was possible to measure the magnetic moment of an atom.

In 1916, he married, his wife bore him two children, but in 1920 all members of his family died of an epidemic - only Kapitsa remained.

In 1921, at the request of Maxim Gorky, Kapitsa left for England, where he began to work in a laboratory at Rutherford in Cambridge. They soon became friends.

At Cambridge, Kapitsa studied radioactive particle nuclei in a magnetic field, which made it possible to create a strong electromagnet and corresponding magnetic fields. Such equipment allowed the scientist to study the physics of low temperatures.

In 1934, he created a device that makes it possible to obtain helium in a liquid state in a shorter time and in more quantity than was previously possible.

In 1923, Kapitsa received the title of Doctor of Science and the Maxwell Scholarship, and a year later he became Deputy Director of the Laboratory for Magnetic Research, in 1925 he became a member of Trinity College. In 1928 he received his doctorate in physics and mathematics in the USSR, and a year later became a member of the Academy of Sciences.

In 1930, Kapitsa was appointed professor of the Royal Society of London, which built a specially designated laboratory for him at the request of Rutherford.

In 1934, the laboratory was opened, was named Monda, and Kapitsa became its director, but a year later it had to be left, as the Soviet government canceled the visas of Kapitsa and his wife to leave the country.

Kapitsa stayed in Moscow, and his wife returned to England, but later also moved to Moscow with her children to live with her husband. Kapitsa unsuccessfully tried to get the visas back, he attracted Rutherford for this, but the Soviet government was adamant.

In 1935, he became director of the Institute for Physical Problems at the Academy of Sciences, and agreed to the post on the condition that his equipment be delivered from England to Moscow.

At the institute, Kapitsa again took up low-temperature physics, studied the properties of liquid helium. In 1938 he created a new turbine for liquefying air.

The new equipment allowed him to discover the superfluidity of helium and to publish an article on this property. Taking advantage of his exceptional position, Kapitsa more than once defended physicists and colleagues from the purges carried out at that time by Stalin.

During the war years he lived in Kazan, worked on the development of an oxygen cryogenic plant, in 1943 he founded the Main Directorate for Oxygen and became its lava.

In those same years, the government invited him to work on the atomic bomb together with Kurchatov, but Kapitsa, dissatisfied with Beria's leadership, wrote a letter to Stalin asking him to release him from the project and was released.

In 1946, he was dismissed from his post and put under house arrest; he managed to recover only after Stalin's death.

In 1955, Kapitsa was again appointed director of the Institute for Physical Problems and worked there until his death.

After the war, he was engaged in hydrodynamics, the study of ball lightning, plasma. In the late 50s, he created a project for a thermonuclear reactor.

While on the post of director of the institute, he founded many scientific towns throughout the country - in Novosibirsk, Moscow and other cities.

In 1965, he left the USSR for the first time during the years of the travel ban and visited Denmark, where he received the Bohr medal, a year later he visited England with a speech about Rutherford, and in 1969 the United States.

In 1978 he received the Nobel Prize.

Achievements of Peter Kapitsa:

Discovery of superfluidity of helium, a thermonuclear reactor
Nobel Prize
Honorary Doctor of World Academies of Sciences
6 Orders of Lenin, the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, many awards from other countries
Stalin Prize
Lomonosov Medal

Dates from the biography of Peter Kapitsa:

July 8, 1894 - was born in Kronstadt
1906-1914 - training in a real school
1914-1918 years - study at the St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute
1921-1934 - work at Cambridge
1938 - discovery of superfluidity of helium
1946-1955 - house arrest
1965 - Bohr Medal
1978 Nobel Prize
April 8, 1984 - death

Interesting facts of Peter Kapitsa:

He was married twice, two children from his first marriage died, but in his second marriage he had two sons
Until the end of his life he kept English habits - he smoked a pipe, lived in a cottage and wore tweed suits
He was fond of chess and the study of clock mechanisms
Constantly criticized the USSR and Stalin's policies, was adamant in his opinion and stubborn
The name of the scientist is the street, school, plane and minor planet.
A medal was established in his honor

Kapitsa Pyotr Leonidovich
Born: June 26 (July 8) 1894.
Died: April 8, 1984

Biography

Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa (1894-1984) - Soviet physicist.

A prominent organizer of science. Founder of the Institute for Physical Problems (IPP), the director of which remained until last days life. One of the founders of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. First Head of the Department of Low Temperature Physics, Faculty of Physics, Moscow State University.

Laureate of the Nobel Prize in Physics (1978) for the discovery of the phenomenon of superfluidity of liquid helium, introduced the term "superfluidity" into scientific use. He is also known for his work in the field of low-temperature physics, the study of superstrong magnetic fields and the confinement of high-temperature plasma. Developed a high-performance industrial gas liquefaction plant (turbo expander). From 1921 to 1934 he worked in Cambridge under the direction of Rutherford. In 1934, having returned to the USSR for a while, he was forcibly abandoned in his homeland. In 1945, he was a member of the Special Committee on the Soviet atomic project, but his two-year plan for the implementation of the atomic project was not approved, in connection with which he asked for his resignation, the request was granted. From 1946 to 1955 he was dismissed from state Soviet institutions, but he was left with the opportunity to work as a professor at Moscow State University until 1950. Lomonosov.

Twice winner of the Stalin Prize (1941, 1943). He was awarded the M.V. Lomonosov Big Gold Medal of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1959). Twice Hero Socialist Labor(1945, 1974). Full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Fellow of the Royal Society.

Youth

Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa was born on June 26 (July 8), 1894 in Kronstadt (now the administrative district of St. Petersburg), in the family of a military engineer of Moldavian (Bessarabian) origin Leonid Petrovich Kapitsa and his wife Olga Ieronimovna, daughter of topographer Jerome Stebnitsky from the Ukrainian Volyn region noble family... In 1905 he entered the gymnasium. A year later, due to poor academic performance in Latin, he transferred to the Kronstadt real school. After graduating from college, in 1914 he entered the electromechanical faculty of St. polytechnic institute. A capable student quickly notices A.F. Ioffe, attracts to his seminar and work in the laboratory.

The first World War caught young man in Scotland, which he visited on summer vacation for the purpose of learning the language. He returned to Russia in November 1914 and a year later volunteered for the front. Kapitsa served as a driver in an ambulance and drove the wounded on the Polish front. In 1916, after demobilization, he returned to St. Petersburg to continue his studies. Kapitsa's father dies of a Spanish woman in revolutionary Petrograd, then his first wife, two-year-old son and newborn daughter died.

Even before defending his diploma, AF Ioffe invited Pyotr Kapitsa to work in the Physico-Technical Department of the recently created Roentgenological and Radiological Institute (transformed in November 1921 into the Physicotechnical Institute). The scientist publishes his first scientific work in ZhRFHO and begins teaching.

Ioffe believed that a promising young physicist needed to continue his studies in an authoritative foreign scientific school, but it took a long time to organize a trip abroad. Thanks to the assistance Krylova and the intervention of Maxim Gorky in 1921, Kapitsa, as part of a special commission, was sent to England. Thanks to Ioffe's recommendation, he managed to get a job at the Cavendish Laboratory under the supervision of Ernest Rutherford, and on July 22, Kapitsa began working in Cambridge. The young Soviet scientist quickly earns the respect of his colleagues and management thanks to his talent as an engineer and experimenter. His work in the field of superstrong magnetic fields brought him wide recognition in scientific circles. At first, the relationship between Rutherford and Kapitsa was not easy, but gradually the Soviet physicist managed to win his trust and soon they became very close friends. Kapitsa gave Rutherford the famous nickname "crocodile". Already in 1921, when the famous experimenter Robert Wood visited the Cavendish Laboratory, Rutherford commissioned Peter Kapitsa to conduct a spectacular demonstration experiment in front of the famous guest.

The topic of his doctoral dissertation, which Kapitsa defended in Cambridge in 1922, was "The passage of alpha particles through matter and methods of obtaining magnetic fields." Since January 1925, Kapitsa has been deputy director of the Cavendish Laboratory for magnetic research. In 1929, Kapitsa was elected a full member of the Royal Society of London. In November 1930, the Council of the Royal Society decided to allocate £ 15,000 for the construction of a special laboratory for Kapitsa in Cambridge. The grand opening of the Mond laboratory (named after the industrialist and philanthropist Mond) took place on February 3, 1933. Kapitsa was elected Professor of the Royal Society of Messel. Leader of the Conservative Party of England, former Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin said in his opening speech:

We are happy that our laboratory director is Professor Kapitsa, who brilliantly combines both physics and engineer in his person. We are convinced that under his skillful leadership, the new laboratory will contribute to the knowledge of the processes of nature.

Kapitsa maintains ties with the USSR and in every possible way promotes the international scientific exchange of experience. V " International Series Monographs on Physics ”published by Oxford University, one of the editors of which was Kapitsa, monographs by Georgy Gamow, Yakov Frenkel, Nikolai Semyonov are published. At his invitation, he comes to England for an internship Julius Khariton and Kirill Sinelnikov.

Back in 1922, Fyodor Shcherbatskoy spoke about the possibility of electing Pyotr Kapitsa in Russian Academy Science. In 1929, a number of leading scientists signed up for election to the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. February 22, 1929 indispensable secretary of the USSR Academy of Sciences Oldenburg informs Kapitza that “The Academy of Sciences, wishing to express its deep respect for your scientific merits in the field of physical sciences, elected you at the General Meeting of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR on February 13, p. d. to its corresponding members ”.

Return to the USSR

The 17th Congress of the CPSU (b) appreciated the significant contribution of scientists and specialists to the success of the industrialization of the country and the fulfillment of the first five-year plan. However, at the same time, the rules for the departure of specialists abroad became stricter and a special commission now monitored their implementation.

Numerous cases of non-return of Soviet scientists did not go unnoticed. In 1936 V.N. Ipatiev and A. E. Chichibabin were deprived of Soviet citizenship and expelled from the Academy of Sciences for staying abroad after a business trip. A similar story with the young scientists G.A. Gamov and F.G. Dobzhansky had a wide resonance in scientific circles.

Kapitsa's activities in Cambridge did not go unnoticed. The authorities were particularly concerned about the fact that Kapitsa provided consultations to European industrialists. According to the historian Vladimir Esakov, a plan related to Kapitsa was developed long before 1934, and Stalin knew about it. From August to October 1934, a number of Politburo resolutions were adopted, signed by L.M. Kaganovich, ordering to detain the scientist in the USSR. The final resolution read:

Proceeding from considerations that Kapitsa provides significant services to the British, informing them about the state of science in the USSR, as well as the fact that he provides British firms, including the military, the largest services, selling them his patents and working on their orders, to prohibit P L. Kapitza departure from the USSR.

Until 1934, Kapitsa lived with his family in England and regularly came to the USSR on vacation and to see his relatives. The USSR government offered him several times to stay in his homeland, but the scientist invariably refused. At the end of August, Pyotr Leonidovich, as in previous years, was going to visit his mother and take part in the international congress dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the birth of Dmitry Mendeleev.

After arriving in Leningrad on September 21, 1934, Kapitsa was summoned to Moscow, to the Soviet people's commissars where he met Pyatakov. The deputy commissar of heavy industry recommended that the proposal to stay should be carefully considered. Kapitsa refused, and he was sent for an appointment with a higher authority to Mezhlauk. The chairman of the State Planning Commission informed the scientist that it was impossible to travel abroad and the visa had been canceled. Kapitsa was forced to move to his mother, and his wife, Anna Alekseevna, left for Cambridge to live with her children alone. The British press, commenting on the incident, wrote that Professor Kapitsa was forcibly detained in the USSR.

Pyotr Leonidovich was deeply disappointed. At first, I even wanted to leave physics and switch to biophysics, becoming Pavlov's assistant. I asked for help and intervention to Paul Langevin, Albert Einstein and Ernest Rutherford. In a letter to Rutherford, he wrote that he barely recovered from the shock of what had happened, and thanked the teacher for helping his family left in England. Rutherford, in a letter to the plenipotentiary of the USSR in England, asked for an explanation - why the famous physicist was denied a return to Cambridge. In a reply letter, he was informed that Kapitsa's return to the USSR was dictated by the accelerated development of Soviet science and industry planned in the five-year plan.

1934-1941 years

The first months in the USSR were difficult - there was no work and no certainty with the future. I had to live in the cramped conditions of a communal apartment with the mother of Peter Leonidovich. His friends Nikolai Semyonov, Alexey Bakh, Fyodor Shcherbatskoy helped him a lot at that moment. Gradually, Pyotr Leonidovich came to his senses and agreed to continue working in his specialty. As a condition, he demanded that the Mondovka laboratory, in which he worked, be transported to the USSR. If Rutherford refuses to transfer or sell the equipment, then it will be necessary to purchase duplicates of unique devices. By the decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, 30 thousand pounds were allocated for the purchase of equipment.

On December 23, 1934, Vyacheslav Molotov signed a decree on the organization of the Institute for Physical Problems (IPP) within the USSR Academy of Sciences. On January 3, 1935, the newspapers Pravda and Izvestia announced that Kapitsa had been appointed director of the new institute. At the beginning of 1935, Kapitsa moved from Leningrad to Moscow, to the Metropol Hotel, and received a private car. In May 1935, construction began on the institute's laboratory building on Vorobyovy Gory. After rather difficult negotiations with Rutherford and Cockcroft (Kapitsa did not take part in them), it was possible to come to an agreement on the terms of transferring the laboratory to the USSR. In the period from 1935 to 1937, equipment was gradually received from England. The case was greatly stalled due to the sluggishness of the officials involved in the supply, and it was necessary to write letters to the top leadership of the USSR, right up to Stalin. As a result, we managed to get everything that Pyotr Leonidovich demanded. Two experienced engineers came to Moscow to help with installation and adjustment - mechanic Pearson and laboratory assistant Lauerman.

In his letters from the late 1930s, Kapitsa admitted that the opportunities for work in the USSR were inferior to those that were abroad - this even despite the fact that he received a scientific institution at his disposal and had practically no problems with funding. It was depressing that the problems that were solved in England with one phone call were mired in bureaucracy. The harsh statements of the scientist and the exceptional conditions created for him by the authorities did not contribute to the establishment of mutual understanding with colleagues in the academic environment.

The situation is depressing. Interest in my work has fallen, and on the other hand, fellow scientists were so indignant that there were, at least in words, attempts were made to put my work in conditions that simply had to be considered normal, that they are indignant without hesitation: “If we do the same if we did, then we will not do what Kapitsa did ”... Apart from envy, suspicion and everything else, an impossible and downright terrible atmosphere was created ... Scientists here are definitely unfriendly to my move here.

In 1935, Kapitsa's candidacy was not even considered in the elections to full members of the USSR Academy of Sciences. He repeatedly writes notes and letters about the possibilities of reforming Soviet science and the academic system to representatives of the authorities, but does not receive a clear reaction. Several times Kapitsa took part in the meetings of the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, but, as he himself recalled, after two or three times he “disappeared”. In organizing the work of the Institute of Physical Problems, Kapitsa did not receive any serious help and relied mainly on his own strength.

In January 1936, Anna Alekseevna returned from England with her children, and the Kapitsa family moved to a cottage built on the territory of the institute. By March 1937, the construction of the new institute was completed, transported and installed most of devices, and Kapitsa returns to active scientific activities... At the same time, at the Institute of Physical Problems, a "kapichnik" began to work - the famous seminar of Peter Leonidovich, which soon acquired all-Union fame.

In January 1938, Kapitsa published an article in the journal Nature about a fundamental discovery - the phenomenon of superfluidity of liquid helium and continued research in a new direction of physics. At the same time, the staff of the institute, headed by Petr Leonidovich, is actively working on a purely practical task of improving the design of a new installation for the production of liquid air and oxygen - a turboexpander. Fundamentally new approach academician about the functioning of cryogenic installations causes heated discussions both in the USSR and abroad. However, Kapitsa's activities are approved, and the institute he heads is held up as an example of the effective organization of the scientific process. At the general meeting of the Department of Mathematical and Natural Sciences of the USSR Academy of Sciences on January 24, 1939, by unanimous vote, Kapitsa was accepted as a full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

War and post-war years

During the war, the IFP was evacuated to Kazan, and the family of Peter Leonidovich moved there from Leningrad. During the war years, the need for the production of liquid oxygen from air on an industrial scale increases sharply (in particular, for the production of explosives). Kapitsa is working on the introduction into production of the oxygen cryogenic unit developed by him. In 1942, the first copy of Object No. 1 - the TK-200 turbine-oxygen plant with a capacity of up to 200 kg / h of liquid oxygen - was manufactured and at the beginning of 1943 was put into operation. In 1945, "Object No. 2" was commissioned - the TK-2000 unit with a capacity ten times higher.

At his suggestion on May 8, 1943, by a resolution of the State Defense Committee, the Main Directorate for Oxygen was created under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, and Pyotr Kapitsa was appointed head of Glavkislorod. In 1945, a special institute for oxygen engineering, VNIIKIMASH, was organized and a new journal, "Kislorod", began to appear. In 1945 he received the title of Hero of Socialist Labor, and the institute headed by him was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.

In addition to practical activities, Kapitsa also finds time for teaching. On October 1, 1943, Kapitsa was admitted to the post of head of the Department of Low Temperatures at the Physics Faculty of Moscow State University. In 1944, at the time of the change of the head of the department, he became the main author of a letter from 14 academicians, which drew the government's attention to the situation at the Department of Theoretical Physics of the Physics Faculty of Moscow State University. As a result, after Igor Tamm, the head of the department was not Anatoly Vlasov, but Vladimir Fok. After briefly working in this position, Fock left this post two months later. Kapitsa signed a letter from four academicians to Molotov, the author of which was A.F. Ioffe. This letter initiated the resolution of the confrontation between the so-called "academic" and "university" physics.

Meanwhile, in the second half of 1945, immediately after the end of the war, the Soviet atomic project entered an active phase. On August 20, 1945, the atomic special committee was created under the USSR Council of People's Commissars, headed by Lavrenty Beria. The committee initially included only two physicists:

Kurchatov was appointed scientific supervisor of all works. Kapitsa, who was not an expert in nuclear physics, was supposed to be in charge of certain areas (low-temperature technology for the separation of uranium isotopes). Both Kurchatov and Kapitsa are members of the Technical Council of the special committee; IK Kikoin, AF Ioffe, Yu. B. Khariton and VG Khlopin are also invited there. Kapitsa immediately becomes dissatisfied with the methods of Beria's leadership, he speaks very impartially and sharply about the General Commissar of State Security - both personally and professionally. On October 3, 1945, Kapitsa wrote a letter to Stalin asking him to be relieved of his work in the Committee, but there was no response. On November 25, Kapitsa writes a second letter, more detailed (on 8 pages), and on December 21, 1945, Stalin authorizes Kapitsa's resignation. Protocol No. 9 of November 30, 1945 was published "minutes of the meeting of the Special Committee under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR", in which P. L. Kapitsa makes a report on the conclusions he made on the basis of an analysis of data on the consequences of the use of atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and not no instructions were given, a detailed analysis of the bombing of these cities was entrusted to the commission headed by A.I. Alikhanov.

Actually, in the second letter, Kapitsa described how it was necessary, in his opinion, to carry out an atomic project, defining in detail an action plan for two years. As the biographers of the academician believe, Kapitsa at that time did not know that Kurchatov and Beria had already received Soviet intelligence data on the American atomic program. The plan proposed by Kapitsa, although it was fast enough in execution, was not fast enough for the current political situation around the development of the first Soviet atomic bomb... Historical literature often mentions that Stalin handed over to Beria, who offered to arrest an independent and harsh academician, "I'll take him off, but you don't touch him." Authoritative biographers of Pyotr Leonidovich do not confirm the historical reliability of such words of Stalin, although it is known that Kapitsa allowed himself behavior that was completely exceptional for a Soviet scientist and citizen. According to the historian Lauren Graham, Stalin valued frankness and frankness in Kapitsa. For all the severity of the problems they raised, Kapitsa kept his messages to the Soviet leaders secret (the content of most of the letters was disclosed after his death) and did not widely promote his ideas.

At the same time, in 1945-1946, the controversy around the turbo expander and the industrial production of liquid oxygen again escalated. Kapitsa enters into a discussion with leading Soviet cryogenic engineers, who do not recognize him as a specialist in this field. The State Commission recognizes the promise of Kapitsa's developments, but believes that the launch into an industrial series will be premature. Kapitsa's installations are dismantled, and the project is frozen.

On August 17, 1946, Kapitsa was removed from the post of director of the IFP. He retires to the state dacha, to Nikolina Gora. Instead of Kapitsa, Aleksandrov was appointed director of the institute. According to Academician Feinberg, at that time Kapitsa was "in exile, under house arrest." The dacha was the property of Petr Leonidovich, but the property and furniture inside were for the most part state and they were almost completely taken out. In 1950, he was fired from the Physics and Technology Faculty of Moscow State University, where he lectured.

In his memoirs, Pyotr Leonidovich wrote about the persecution by law enforcement agencies, direct surveillance initiated by Lavrentiy Beria. Nevertheless, the academician does not abandon his scientific activity and continues research in the field of low-temperature physics, separation of uranium and hydrogen isotopes, and improves knowledge in mathematics. Thanks to the assistance of the President of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Sergei Vavilov, it was possible to obtain a minimum set of laboratory equipment and install it in the country. In numerous letters to Molotov and Malenkov, Kapitsa writes about experiments carried out in artisanal conditions and asks for the opportunity to return to normal work. In December 1949, Kapitsa, despite the invitation, ignored the ceremonial meeting at Moscow State University dedicated to the 70th anniversary of Stalin.

Last years

The situation changed only in 1953 after the death of Stalin and the arrest of Beria. On June 3, 1955, Kapitsa, after a meeting with Khrushchev, returned to the post of director of the IFP. At the same time, he was appointed editor-in-chief of the country's leading physics journal, the Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Physics. Since 1956, Kapitsa has been one of the organizers and the first head of the Department of Physics and Technology of Low Temperatures at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. In 1957-1984 - Member of the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

Kapitsa continues active scientific and teaching activities... During this period, the attention of the scientist is attracted by the properties of plasma, the hydrodynamics of thin layers of liquid, and even the nature of ball lightning. He continues to conduct his seminar, where the best physicists of the country were honored to speak. "Kapichnik" became, in a way, a scientific club where not only physicists were invited, but also representatives of other sciences, culture and art workers.

The persuasiveness of scientific foresight and the weight of the opinion of PL Kapitsa sometimes manifested itself in unexpected areas. So, in August 1955, he influenced the decision to create the first artificial Earth satellite. This is how the Lenin Prize laureate, Honored Worker of Science and Technology of the RSFSR, Doctor of Technical Sciences, writes about it. D., prof. Anatoly Viktorovich Brykov:

At the end of August 1955, a meeting of the country's leading scientists in the field of rocketry was held at the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences, where, at the suggestion of Sergei Pavlovich Korolev, a special body was established to organize scientific research using a series of artificial earth satellites. This newly created organ was headed by MV Keldysh. Mstislav Vsevolodovich acted very energetically. The next day, all members of the newly created body gathered at the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences, where M.K. Tikhonravov made a report on the proposed design of the satellite and its weight characteristics. At the same time, Mikhail Klavdievich was based on the development of the simplest satellite of the first stage, since the work on the second stage had not yet been completed. After the report, Tikhonravov gave answers to numerous questions about the thermal regime of the satellite, power supplies, the weight of scientific instruments, etc. Igor Marianovich Yatsunsky took part in the work of this meeting and talked about the course of the discussion of the report: - After a heated discussion and statements by scientists from a number of valuable suggestions about the use of the satellite, Mstislav Vsevolodovich was still not satisfied and could not make a decision on this issue. The tension was resolved by Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa. He formulated the results of the discussion something like this: “This is a completely new case, here we are only entering the area of ​​the unknown, and this always brings results to science that cannot be foreseen in advance. But they will definitely be there. An artificial satellite of the earth must be made! " Everyone agreed with him, including Keldysh. The decision to create the first artificial Earth satellite was made.

In addition to achievements in science, Kapitsa showed himself as an administrator and organizer. Under his leadership, the Institute for Physical Problems became one of the most productive institutions of the USSR Academy of Sciences, attracting many leading specialists of the country. In 1964, the academician expressed the idea of ​​creating a popular science publication for young people. The first issue of the Kvant magazine was published in 1970. Kapitsa took part in the creation of the research center of Akademgorodok near Novosibirsk, and the higher educational institution a new type - the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. The gas liquefaction plants built by Kapitza after a long controversy in the late 1940s found wide application in industry. The use of oxygen for blowing oxygen led to a revolution in the steel industry.

In 1965, for the first time after more than a thirty-year hiatus, Kapitsa received permission to leave Soviet Union to Denmark to receive the Niels Bohr International Gold Medal. There he visited scientific laboratories and gave a lecture on high energy physics. In 1969, the scientist and his wife visited the United States for the first time.

V last years Kapitsa became interested in a controlled thermonuclear reaction. In 1978, Academician Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics "for fundamental inventions and discoveries in the field of low temperature physics." The academician met the news of the awarding of the prize during his vacation in the Barvikha sanatorium. Contrary to tradition, Kapitsa dedicated his Nobel speech not to those works that were awarded the prize, but modern research... Kapitsa referred to the fact that he moved away from questions in the field of low-temperature physics about 30 years ago and is now carried away by other ideas. The Nobel laureate's speech was titled Plasma and the controlled thermonuclear reaction. Sergei Petrovich Kapitsa recalled that his father completely kept the prize for himself (put it in his name in one of the Swedish banks) and did not give anything to the state.

These observations led to the idea that ball lightning is also a phenomenon created by high-frequency oscillations that occur in thunderclouds after ordinary lightning. Thus, the energy necessary to maintain the continuous glow of ball lightning was supplied. This hypothesis was published in 1955. Several years later, we had the opportunity to resume these experiments. In March 1958, already in a spherical resonator filled with helium at atmospheric pressure, in a resonant mode with intense continuous oscillations of the Hox type, a free-floating oval-shaped gas discharge arose. This discharge was formed in the region of the maximum of the electric field and slowly moved in a circle coinciding with the line of force.

Until the last days of his life, Kapitsa retained an interest in scientific activity, continued to work in the laboratory and remained the director of the Institute for Physical Problems.

On March 22, 1984, Pyotr Leonidovich felt unwell and was taken to the hospital, where he was diagnosed with a stroke. On April 8, without regaining consciousness, Kapitsa died. Buried at the Novodevichy cemetery in Moscow.

Works of 1920-1980

One of the first significant scientific works (together with Nikolai Semyonov, 1918) was devoted to measuring the magnetic moment of an atom in an inhomogeneous magnetic field, which was improved in 1922 in the so-called Stern-Gerlach experiment.

While working in Cambridge, Kapitsa was closely engaged in research of superstrong magnetic fields and their influence on the trajectory elementary particles... One of the first Kapitsa in 1923 placed the Wilson camera in a strong magnetic field and observed the curvature of the tracks of alpha particles. In 1924, he received a magnetic field with an induction of 32 Tesla in a volume of 2 cm3. In 1928 he formulated the law of the linear increase in the electrical resistance of a number of metals from tension magnetic field(Kapitsa's law).

The creation of equipment for studying the effects associated with the influence of strong magnetic fields on the properties of a substance, in particular on magnetic resistance, led Kapitsa to the problems of low-temperature physics. To carry out experiments, first of all, it was necessary to have a significant amount of liquefied gases. The techniques that existed in the 1920s and 1930s were ineffective. Developing fundamentally new refrigeration machines and installation, Kapitsa in 1934, using an original engineering approach, built a high-performance gas liquefaction plant. He was able to develop a process that eliminated the compression phase and high air purification. Now it was not required to compress the air to 200 atmospheres - five was enough. Due to this, it was possible to increase the efficiency from 0.65 to 0.85-0.90, and the installation price was reduced by almost ten times. In the course of work on improving the turboexpander, it was possible to overcome the interesting engineering problem of freezing lubrication of moving parts at low temperatures - liquid helium itself was used for lubrication. The scientist made a significant contribution not only to the development of an experimental sample, but also to bringing the technology to serial production.

In the post-war years, Kapitsa was attracted by high-power electronics. He developed the general theory of electronic devices of the magnetron type and created continuous magnetron generators. Kapitsa put forward a hypothesis about the nature of ball lightning. Experimentally discovered the formation of high-temperature plasma in a high-frequency discharge. Kapitsa expressed a number of original ideas, for example, the destruction of nuclear weapons in the air using powerful beams of electromagnetic waves. In recent years, I have worked on issues thermonuclear fusion and the problem of confining high-temperature plasma in a magnetic field.

The name of Kapitsa is called the "Kapitsa pendulum" - a mechanical phenomenon that demonstrates stability outside the equilibrium position. Also known is the quantum-mechanical Kapitza-Dirac effect, which demonstrates the scattering of electrons in the field of a standing electromagnetic wave.

The discovery of superfluidity

Even Kamerlingh Onnes, studying the properties of the first liquid helium he obtained, noted its unusually high thermal conductivity. Liquid with abnormal physical properties attracted the attention of scientists. Thanks to the Kapitsa installation, which began operating in 1934, it was possible to obtain liquid helium in significant quantities. Kamerlingh Onnes in the first experiments received about 60 cm3 of helium, while the first Kapitza installation had a capacity of about 2 liters per hour. The events of 1934-1937 associated with excommunication from work in the Mondovo laboratory and forced detention in the USSR greatly delayed the progress of research. Only in 1937, Kapitsa restored laboratory equipment and returned to the new institute to the previous developments in the field of low temperature physics. Meanwhile, at the former workplace of Kapitsa, at the invitation of Rutherford, young Canadian scientists John Allen and Austin Meisner began to work in the same field. Kapitsa's experimental installation for the production of liquid helium remained in the Mond laboratory - Alain and Meisner worked with it. In November 1937 they obtained reliable experimental results on the change in the properties of helium.

Historians of science, talking about the events at the turn of 1937-1938, note that there are some controversial points in the competition between the priorities of Kapitsa and Allen and Jones. Pyotr Leonidovich formally sent the materials to Nature earlier than his foreign competitors - the editors received them on December 3, 1937, but was in no hurry to publish, awaiting verification. Knowing that the verification could be delayed, Kapitsa clarified in his letter that the proofs could be checked by John Cockcroft, director of the Mond laboratory. Cockcroft, having read the article, informed his employees, Allen and Jones, about it, and hastened them to publish. Cockcroft, a close friend of Kapitsa, was surprised that Kapitsa only at the last moment let him know about the fundamental discovery. It is worth noting that Kapitsa in June 1937, in a letter to Niels Bohr, reported that he had made significant progress in the study of liquid helium.

As a result, both articles were published in one issue of Nature on January 8, 1938. They reported an abrupt change in the viscosity of helium at temperatures below 2.17 Kelvin. The complexity of the problem solved by the scientists was that the exact measurement of the viscosity of a liquid that freely flowed into a half-micron hole was not easy to evaluate. The resulting turbulence of the liquid introduced a significant error in the measurement. Scientists have taken a different experimental approach. Allen and Meisner considered the behavior of helium-II in thin capillaries (the same technique was used by the discoverer of liquid helium Kamerlingh Onnes). Kapitsa investigated the behavior of a liquid between two polished disks and estimated the resulting viscosity below 10−9 P. Kapitsa called the new phase state the superfluidity of helium. The Soviet scientist did not deny that the contribution to the discovery was largely joint. For example, in his lecture, Kapitsa emphasized that the unique phenomenon of the gushing of helium-II was first observed and described by Alain and Meisner.

This work was followed by a theoretical substantiation of the observed phenomenon. It was given in 1939-1941 by Lev Landau, Fritz London and Laszlo Tissa, who proposed the so-called two-fluid model. Kapitsa himself continued his studies of helium-II in 1938-1941, in particular, confirming the speed of sound predicted by Landau in liquid helium. The study of liquid helium as a quantum liquid (Bose - Einstein condensate) has become an important direction in physics, which has given rise to a number of remarkable scientific works. Lev Landau received the Nobel Prize in 1962 in recognition of his merits in building a theoretical model of liquid helium superfluidity.

Niels Bohr three times recommended the candidacy of Pyotr Leonidovich to the Nobel Committee: in 1948, 1956 and 1960. However, the prize was awarded only in 1978. The contradictory situation with the priority of discovery, in the opinion of many researchers of science, led the Nobel Committee to delay the award of the prize to the Soviet physicist for many years. Allen and Meisner were not awarded the prize, although the scientific community recognizes their important contribution to the discovery of the phenomenon.

civil position

Historians of science and those who knew Pyotr Leonidovich closely described him as a multifaceted and unique personality. He combined many qualities: intuition and engineering flair of an experimental physicist; pragmatism and business approach of the organizer of science; independence of judgment in dealing with the authorities.

If it was necessary to resolve some organizational issues, Kapitsa preferred not to call by phone, but to write a letter and in it clearly state the essence of the matter. This form of appeal presupposed an equally clear written response. Kapitsa believed that it was more difficult to "wind up" the matter in a letter than in a telephone conversation. In defending its civil position Kapitsa was consistent and persistent, writing about 300 messages to the highest leaders of the USSR, touching on the most pressing topics. As Yuri Osipyan wrote, he knew how to intelligently combine destructive pathos with creative activity.

There are known examples of how, in the difficult time of the 1930s, Kapitsa defended his colleagues who fell under the suspicion of the security forces. Academicians Fock and Landau owe the release of Kapitsa. Landau was released from the NKVD prison under the personal surety of Pyotr Leonidovich. The formal pretext was the need for support from a theoretical physicist to substantiate the superfluidity model. Meanwhile, the accusations against Landau were extremely serious, since he openly opposed the government and really participated in the dissemination of materials critical of the dominant ideology.

In 1966, he signed a letter from 25 cultural and scientific workers to the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee L.I.Brezhnev against the rehabilitation of Stalin. Kapitsa also defended the disgraced Andrei Sakharov. In 1968, at a meeting of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Keldysh called on the members of the academy to condemn Sakharov and Kapitsa spoke up in his defense, saying that one should not oppose a person if it was not possible to first get acquainted with what he had written. In 1978, when Keldysh once again invited Kapitsa to sign the collective letter, he remembered how the Prussian Academy of Sciences expelled Einstein from its membership and refused to sign the letter.

On February 8, 1956 (two weeks before the XX Congress of the CPSU) Nikolai Timofeev-Resovsky and Igor Tamm made a presentation on the problems of modern genetics at a meeting of Kapitsa's physics seminar. For the first time since 1948, an official scientific meeting was held on the problems of the disgraced science of genetics, which Lysenko's supporters tried to disrupt in the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences and in the Central Committee of the CPSU. Kapitsa entered into polemics with Lysenko trying to offer him an improved method of experimental verification of the perfection of the square-nest method of planting trees. In 1973, Kapitsa wrote to Andropov with a request to release the wife of the famous dissident Vadim Delone. Kapitsa took an active part in the Pugwash movement, advocating the use of science exclusively for peaceful purposes.

Even during the Stalinist purges, Kapitsa maintained a scientific exchange of experience, friendly relations and correspondence with foreign scientists. They came to Moscow, visited the Kapitsa Institute. So in 1937, the American physicist William Webster visited Kapitsa's laboratory. Kapitsa's friend Paul Dirac came to the USSR several times

Kapitsa always believed that the continuity of generations in science has great importance and the life of a scientist in a scientific environment takes on real meaning if he leaves students. He strongly encouraged work with young people and the education of personnel. For example, in the 1930s, when liquid helium was a rarity even in the best laboratories in the world, MSU students could get it in the IPP laboratory for experiments.

Under the conditions of a one-party system and a planned socialist economy, Kapitsa managed the institute as he himself considered necessary. Initially, he received Leopold Olbert as a “party deputy” from above. A year later, Kapitsa gets rid of him, choosing his own deputy - Olga Alekseevna Stetskaya. At one time, there was no head of the personnel department at the institute, and Pyotr Leonidovich himself was in charge of personnel issues. He quite freely independently disposed of the institute's budget, regardless of the schemes imposed from above. It is known that Pyotr Leonidovich, seeing the disorder on the territory, ordered the dismissal of two of the three janitors of the institute and the remaining one to pay a triple salary. At the Institute of Physical Problems, only 15-20 scientific workers worked, and in total there were about two hundred people, while usually the staff of a specialized research institute of those times (for example, FIAN or Phystech) consisted of several thousand employees. Kapitsa entered into polemics about the methods of conducting a socialist economy, expressing quite freely about the comparison with the capitalist world.

If we take the last two decades, it turns out that fundamentally new directions in world technology, which are based on new discoveries in physics, all developed abroad and we adopted them after they received undeniable recognition. I will list the main ones: shortwave technology (including radar), television, all types of jet engines in aviation, gas turbines, atomic energy, isotope separation, and accelerators. But the most offensive thing is that the basic ideas of these fundamentally new directions in the development of technology often originated in our country earlier, but did not develop successfully. Since they did not find recognition and favorable conditions for themselves.
- from a letter from Kapitsa to Stalin

Family and personal life

Father - Leonid Petrovich Kapitsa (1864-1919), Major General of the Engineering Corps, who built the Kronstadt forts, a graduate of the Nikolaev Engineering Academy, descended from the Moldavian noble family of Kapits-Milevsky (belonged to the Polish coat of arms "Yastrzhembets").

Mother - Olga Ieronimovna Kapitsa (1866-1937), nee Stebnitskaya, teacher, specialist in children's literature and folklore. Her father Jerome Ivanovich Stebnitsky(1832-1897) - cartographer, corresponding member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, was the chief cartographer and geodesist of the Caucasus, so she was born in Tiflis. Then she came from Tiflis to St. Petersburg and entered the Bestuzhev courses. Taught at the preschool department Pedagogical Institute them. Herzen.

In 1916, Kapitsa married Nadezhda Chernosvitova. Her father, member of the Central Committee of the Cadet Party, State Duma deputy Kirill Chernosvitov, was later shot in 1919. From his first marriage, Peter Leonidovich had children:

Jerome (June 22, 1917 - December 13, 1919, Petrograd)
Nadezhda (January 6, 1920 - January 8, 1920, Petrograd).

Sergey (February 14, 1928, Cambridge - August 14, 2012, Moscow)
Andrey (July 9, 1931, Cambridge - August 2, 2011, Moscow).

They died with their mother from a Spanish woman. All were buried in one grave, at the Smolensk Lutheran cemetery in St. Petersburg. Pyotr Leonidovich was very upset by the loss and, as he himself recalled, only his mother brought him back to life.

In October 1926, in Paris, Kapitsa became closely acquainted with Anna Krylova (1903-1996). They got married in April 1927. It is interesting that Anna Krylova was the first to make a marriage proposal. Pyotr Leonidovich knew her father, academician Alexei Nikolaevich Krylov for a long time, even from the time of the 1921 commission. From the second marriage, two sons were born in the Kapitsa family:

Sergey (February 14, 1928, Cambridge - August 14, 2012, Moscow) Andrey (July 9, 1931, Cambridge - August 2, 2011, Moscow). They returned to the USSR in January 1936.

Together with Anna Alekseevna, Pyotr Leonidovich lived for 57 years. The wife helped Pyotr Leonidovich in the preparation of manuscripts. After the death of the scientist, she organized a museum in his house.

V free time Pyotr Leonidovich was fond of chess. While working in England, he won the Cambridgeshire chess championship. He loved to make household utensils and furniture in his own workshop. He repaired old watches.

Awards and prizes

Hero of Socialist Labor (1945, 1974)
Nobel Prize in Physics (1978)
Stalin Prize (1941, 1943)
Lomonosov Gold Medal of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1959)
Medals named after Faraday (England, 1942), Franklin (USA, 1944), Cotenius (East Germany, 1959), Niels Bohr (Denmark, 1965), Rutherford (England, 1966), Kamerling Onnes (Netherlands, 1968), Helmholtz (East Germany) , 1981)
six Orders of Lenin
Order of the Red Banner of Labor
Order of the Partisan Star (Yugoslavia, 1964)
medals
Honorary Lectures Rutherford Memorial Lecture (1969) and Bernal Lecture (1977) in England

Sergei Petrovich Kapitsa continued the scientific work of the dynasty of Russian scientists. He conducted educational activities, studied physics, was a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences (vice president). From the pen of Sergei Kapitsa came the journal "In the world of science". For 39 years, Sergei Kapitsa hosted the TV show "Obvious-Incredible" and did not leave his post until his death.

Childhood and youth

Sergei Petrovich Kapitsa was born on February 14, 1928 in the city of Cambridge. The scientist's parents were professor, Nobel laureate and Anna Alekseevna Krylova - housewife, daughter of Aleksey Nikolaevich Krylov. The maternal grandfather reached heights in shipbuilding and mechanics, was an academician of the Petersburg Academy of Sciences / RAS / USSR Academy of Sciences. The younger brother, Andrei Petrovich Kapitsa, achieved heights in geography and geomorphology, since 1970 - a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

In infancy, the brothers were baptized. A Russian physiologist became the godfather of little Sergei. At the age of seven, the future scientist went to the Cambridge School. In 1934, Pyotr Leonidovich left for Russia on business and never returned. The country's authorities did not release Father Sergei from the USSR to England. And a year after her husband's departure, Anna Alekseevna and her sons went to her husband in Moscow.

During the terrible period of World War II, Kapitsa and his family left for Kazan and remained in the city until the end of hostilities. Sergei Petrovich studied as an external student and received a certificate in 1943, at the age of 15. Then, returning to the capital again, he applied to aviation institute and studied at the faculty of aircraft engineering.

The science

After graduation in 1949, he worked for two years at the Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute named after N.E. Zhukovsky, where he investigated the problems of heat transfer and aerodynamic heating at high flow rates. Then, for two years, he conducted research work, holding the position of a junior researcher at the Institute of Geophysics.

In 1953 he began research at the Institute of Physical Problems of the Academy of Sciences of the SSR (RAS). After a while, he was entrusted with the head of the laboratory. This was followed by the position of the leading researcher and next - the chief researcher. He worked at the Institute for Physical Problems until 1992. In 1953 he received his PhD in Physics and Mathematics.

Since 1956 he taught at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. In 1961 he defended his doctorate in the field of physical and mathematical sciences on the topic "Microtron", after which Sergei Petrovich was awarded the title of professor. He held the position of head of the department of general physics at the Institute of Physics and Technology. Sergey Petrovich Kapitsa is a supporter of the independent activity of students and, heading the department, introduced a similar approach into educational practice.

In 1957 he became interested, and then took up swimming underwater. He became one of the first founders of Soviet scuba gear and even mastered scuba. Subsequently, he received a diver's license under number 0002.

Sergei Kapitsa did not ignore the world of literature. The first published book "The Life of Science" was published in 1973. It contains introductory words and the prefaces of the enlightener to world scientific works, starting with and. The publication of the book became a prerequisite for the creation of the brainchild of Sergei Kapitsa - the scientific program "Obvious-Incredible". In 2008, Kapitsa was awarded the prestigious TEFI award as the permanent host of a TV program. They noted the achievements of the researcher in the formation of Russian television.

In 1983, the researcher organized a journal that he called "In the world of science", and stood at the head of printed edition... In 2000 he founded the Nikitsky Club. The association was created to rally the great minds of Russia.

In 2006, Sergei Kapitsa was invited to the presidency of the World of Knowledge International Festival of Popular Science Films.

Shortly before his death, the scientist took up problems modern society, globalization and demography, published articles on this topic and published the book "General Theory of Population Growth."

Sergei Petrovich played a significant role in the development of cliodynamics. The name of Sergei Petrovich Kapitsa is known to every novice researcher. He is the main popularizer of science in the country, and quotes and statements of the professor are found in scientific treatises.

Personal life

The personal life of the scientist was successful. In 1949 he married Tatyana Alimovna Damir. The girl was brought up in the family of the doctor Alim Matveyevich Damir. The future spouses first met while vacationing at a country cottage with friends in 1948. A year later, Sergei Petrovich made a marriage proposal to Tatyana Alimovna, and soon they got married.

Sergey Petrovich and Tatyana Alimovna built a strong family and lived together for 63 years. The couple had three children - the heir Fyodor and two beautiful daughters - Maria and Varvara. Over the years of marriage, Tatyana Alimovna has become a faithful friend and ally for her husband. Once the interviewer asked the professor which of his achievements he considers the greatest, and Sergei Petrovich, without hesitation, answered: "Marriage to Tanya."

In 1986, the professor was unsuccessfully attempted by a mentally unhealthy person. The attacker came to the lecture hall and attacked Sergei Kapitsa with an ax. The scientist was seriously injured and was hospitalized, but then took up work again.

In 2008, a book-biography of Sergei Kapitsa "My Memories" appeared in stores. In his memoirs, he described in detail his life and the difficulties he faced. In the publication, the professor shared a photo from the family archive.

Death

Sergei Petrovich Kapitsa died on August 14, 2012 in Moscow at the age of 84. The cause of death was liver cancer. Tatyana Alimovna lived a year after her husband's death and passed away on August 28, 2013. In honor of the scientist, a memorial plaque was unveiled on February 14, 2013.

Awards and achievements

Scientific activity

• Author of 4 monographs, dozens of articles, 14 inventions and 1 discovery.
• Creator of the phenomenological mathematical model hyperbolic growth of the population of the Earth. He was the first to prove the fact of the hyperbolic growth of the Earth's population up to 1 year A.D. NS.

Awards and prizes

• 1979 - Kalinga Prize (UNESCO)
• 1980 - USSR State Prize for organizing the TV show "Obvious - Incredible"
• RAS Prize for the Popularization of Science
• 2002 - Government Prize Russian Federation in education
• 2006 - Order of Honor, Order of Merit to the Fatherland, IV degree (2011)
• 2012 - Gold Medal of the Russian Academy of Sciences for Outstanding Achievements in the Promotion of Scientific Knowledge

Bibliography

• 1981 - Science and Media
• 2000 - Model of the growth of the population of the Earth and economic development humanity
• 2004 - The Global Demographic Revolution and the Future of Humanity
• 2004 - On the acceleration of historical time
• 2005 - Asymptotic methods and their strange interpretation.
• 2005 - Global demographic revolution
• 2006 - Global population blow-up and after The demographic revolution and information society.
• 2007 - Demographic Revolution and Russia.
• 2010 - Paradoxes of Growth: The Laws of Human Development.

Kapitsa Pyotr Leonidovich (1894-1984), physicist, one of the founders of low temperature physics and physics of strong magnetic fields.

Born July 8, 1894 in Kronstadt in the family of a military engineer. He graduated from high school, then a real school. He was fond of physics and electrical engineering, he was especially fond of clock design. In 1912 he entered the St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute, but in 1914, with the outbreak of the First World War, he went to the front.

After demobilization he returned to the institute and worked in the laboratory of AF Ioffe. The first scientific work (devoted to the production of thin quartz filaments) was published in 1916 in the "Journal of the Russian Physicochemical Society". After graduating from the institute, Kapitsa became a teacher at the Faculty of Physics and Mechanics, then an employee of the Physics Institute created in Petrograd, which was headed by Ioffe.

In 1921, Kapitsa was sent to England - he worked at the Cavendish Laboratory of the University of Cambridge, headed by E. Rutherford. The Russian physicist quickly made a brilliant career - he became the director of the Mond laboratory at the Royal Society of Science. His works of the 20s. XX century. devoted to nuclear physics, physics and technology of superstrong magnetic fields, physics and technology of low temperatures, high-power electronics, physics of high-temperature plasma.

In 1934 Kapitsa returned to Russia. In Moscow, he founded the Institute for Physical Problems of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, the post of director of which he took over in 1935. At the same time, Kapitsa became a professor at Moscow State University (1936-1947). In 1939, the scientist was elected Academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences, since 1957 he was a member of the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

Along with the organization of the scientific process, Kapitsa was constantly engaged in research work... Together with NN Semyonov, he proposed a method for determining the magnetic moment of an atom. Kapitsa was the first in the history of science to place the Wilson chamber in a strong magnetic field and observe the curvature of the trajectory of alpha particles. He established the law of linear increase in the electrical resistance of a number of metals depending on the strength of the magnetic field (Kapitsa's law). He created new methods for liquefying hydrogen and helium; a method for liquefying air using a turboexpander has been developed.

Kapitsa developed the general theory of electronic devices of the magnetron type, received continuous generators - the planotron and the nigotron.

In 1959, he experimentally discovered the formation of high-temperature plasma in a high-frequency discharge, and proposed a scheme for a thermonuclear reactor. The scientist's merits were highly appreciated by the Soviet and world scientific community.

Kapitsa twice became the Hero of Socialist Labor (1945.1974) and twice - the USSR State Prize laureate (1941.1943).

In 1978 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Collage

Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa, 1964.

Kapitsa (left) and Semyonov (right). In the fall of 1921, Kapitsa appeared in the studio of Boris Kustodiev and asked him why he painted portraits of celebrities and why the artist did not paint those who would become famous. Young scientists paid the artist for the portrait with a bag of millet and a rooster.

Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa (June 26, 1894, Kronstadt - April 8, 1984, Moscow) - Soviet physicist. Academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1939).

A prominent organizer of science. Founder of the Institute for Physical Problems (IPP), the director of which he remained until the last days of his life. One of the founders of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. First Head of the Department of Low Temperature Physics, Faculty of Physics, Moscow State University.

Laureate of the Nobel Prize in Physics (1978) for the discovery of the phenomenon of superfluidity of liquid helium, introduced the term "superfluidity" into scientific use. He is also known for his work in the field of low-temperature physics, the study of superstrong magnetic fields and the confinement of high-temperature plasma. Developed a high-performance industrial gas liquefaction plant (turbo expander). From 1921 to 1934 he worked in Cambridge under the direction of Rutherford. In 1934, during a guest visit, he was forcibly abandoned in the USSR. In 1945, he was a member of the Special Committee on the Soviet atomic project, but his two-year plan for the implementation of the atomic project was not approved, in connection with which he asked for his resignation, the request was granted. From 1946 to 1955 he was dismissed from state Soviet institutions, but he was left with the opportunity to work as a professor at Moscow State University until 1950. Lomonosov.

Twice winner of the Stalin Prize (1941, 1943). He was awarded the M.V. Lomonosov Big Gold Medal of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1959). Twice Hero of Socialist Labor (1945, 1974). Fellow of the Royal Society.

Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa was born in Kronstadt, in the family of military engineer Leonid Petrovich Kapitsa and his wife Olga Ieronimovna, daughter of topographer Ieronim Stebnitsky. In 1905 he entered the gymnasium. A year later, due to poor academic performance in Latin, he transferred to the Kronstadt real school. After graduating from college, in 1914 he entered the electromechanical faculty of the St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute. AF Ioffe quickly noticed a talented student and attracted him to his seminar and work in the laboratory. The First World War found the young man in Scotland, which he visited during the summer holidays to study the language. He returned to Russia in November 1914 and a year later volunteered for the front. Kapitsa served as a driver in an ambulance and drove the wounded on the Polish front. In 1916, after demobilization, he returned to St. Petersburg to continue his studies.

Even before defending his diploma, AF Ioffe invited Pyotr Kapitsa to work in the Physico-Technical Department of the recently created Roentgenological and Radiological Institute (transformed in November 1921 into the Physicotechnical Institute). The scientist publishes his first scientific works at ZhRFHO and begins teaching.

Ioffe believed that a promising young physicist needed to continue his studies at an authoritative foreign scientific school, but it took a long time to organize a trip abroad. Thanks to the assistance of Krylov and the intervention of Maxim Gorky in 1921, Kapitsa, as part of a special commission, was sent to England.
Thanks to Ioffe's recommendation, he managed to get a job at the Cavendish Laboratory under the supervision of Ernest Rutherford, and on July 22, Kapitsa began working in Cambridge. The young Soviet scientist quickly earns the respect of his colleagues and management thanks to his talent as an engineer and experimenter. His work in the field of superstrong magnetic fields brought him wide recognition in scientific circles. At first, the relationship between Rutherford and Kapitsa was not easy, but gradually the Soviet physicist managed to win his trust and soon they became very close friends. Kapitsa gave Rutherford the famous nickname "crocodile". Already in 1921, when the famous experimenter Robert Wood visited the Cavendish Laboratory, Rutherford commissioned Peter Kapitsa to conduct a spectacular demonstration experiment in front of the famous guest.

The topic of his doctoral dissertation, which Kapitsa defended in Cambridge in 1922, was "The passage of alpha particles through matter and methods of obtaining magnetic fields." Since January 1925, Kapitsa has been deputy director of the Cavendish Laboratory for magnetic research. In 1929, Kapitsa was elected a full member of the Royal Society of London. In November 1930, the Council of the Royal Society decided to allocate £ 15,000 for the construction of a special laboratory for Kapitsa in Cambridge. The grand opening of the Mond laboratory (named after the industrialist and philanthropist Mond) took place on February 3, 1933. Kapitsa was elected Professor of the Royal Society of Messel. Leader of the Conservative Party of England, former Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin said in his opening speech:

We are happy that our laboratory director is Professor Kapitsa, who brilliantly combines both physics and engineer in his person. We are convinced that under his skillful leadership, the new laboratory will contribute to the understanding of the processes of nature.

Kapitsa maintains ties with the USSR and in every possible way promotes the international scientific exchange of experience. Monographs by Georgy Gamow, Yakov Frenkel, Nikolai Semyonov are published in the "International Series of Monographs on Physics" by the Oxford University Press, one of the editors of which was Kapitsa. At his invitation, Julius Khariton and Kirill Sinelnikov come to England for an internship.

Back in 1922, Fyodor Shcherbatskoy spoke about the possibility of electing Pyotr Kapitsa to the Russian Academy of Sciences. In 1929, a number of leading scientists signed up for election to the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. On February 22, 1929, the permanent secretary of the USSR Academy of Sciences Oldenburg informs Kapitza that “the Academy of Sciences, wishing to express its deep respect for your scientific merits in the field of physical sciences, elected you at the General Meeting of the USSR Academy of Sciences on February 13. d. to its corresponding members ”.

Return to the USSR

The 17th Congress of the CPSU (b) appreciated the significant contribution of scientists and specialists to the success of the industrialization of the country and the fulfillment of the first five-year plan. However, at the same time, the rules for the departure of specialists abroad became stricter and a special commission now monitored their implementation.

Numerous cases of non-return of Soviet scientists did not go unnoticed. In 1936, V.N. Ipatiev and A.E. Chichibabin were deprived of their Soviet citizenship and expelled from the Academy of Sciences for staying abroad after a business trip. A similar story with the young scientists G.A. Gamov and F.G. Dobzhansky had a wide resonance in scientific circles.

Kapitsa's activities in Cambridge did not go unnoticed. The authorities were particularly concerned about the fact that Kapitsa provided consultations to European industrialists. According to the historian Vladimir Esakov, a plan related to Kapitsa was developed long before 1934, and Stalin knew about it. From August to October 1934, a number of Politburo resolutions were adopted, signed by Kaganovich, ordering to detain the scientist in the USSR. The final resolution read:

Proceeding from considerations that Kapitsa provides significant services to the British, informing them about the state of science in the USSR, as well as the fact that he provides British firms, including the military, the largest services, selling them his patents and working on their orders, to prohibit P L. Kapitza departure from the USSR.

Until 1934, Kapitsa lived with his family in England and regularly came to the USSR on vacation and to see his relatives. The USSR government offered him several times to stay in his homeland, but the scientist invariably refused. At the end of August, Pyotr Leonidovich, as in previous years, was going to visit his mother and take part in the international congress dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the birth of Dmitry Mendeleev.

After arriving in Leningrad on September 21, 1934, Kapitsa was summoned to Moscow, to the Council of People's Commissars, where he met with Pyatakov. The deputy commissar of heavy industry recommended that the proposal to stay should be carefully considered. Kapitsa refused, and he was sent for an appointment with a higher authority to Mezhlauk.
The chairman of the State Planning Commission informed the scientist that it was impossible to travel abroad and the visa had been canceled. Kapitsa was forced to move to his mother, and his wife, Anna Alekseevna, left for Cambridge to live with her children alone. The British press, commenting on the incident, wrote that Professor Kapitsa was forcibly detained in the USSR.

Pyotr Leonidovich was deeply disappointed. At first, I even wanted to leave physics and switch to biophysics, becoming Pavlov's assistant. I asked for help and intervention to Paul Langevin, Albert Einstein and Ernest Rutherford. In a letter to Rutherford, he wrote that he barely recovered from the shock of what had happened, and thanked the teacher for helping his family left in England. Rutherford, in a letter to the plenipotentiary of the USSR in England, asked for an explanation - why the famous physicist was denied a return to Cambridge. In a reply letter, he was informed that Kapitsa's return to the USSR was dictated by the accelerated development of Soviet science and industry planned in the five-year plan.

1934-1941 years

The first months in the USSR were difficult - there was no work and no certainty with the future. I had to live in the cramped conditions of a communal apartment with the mother of Peter Leonidovich. His friends Nikolai Semyonov, Alexey Bakh, Fyodor Shcherbatskoy helped him a lot at that moment. Gradually, Pyotr Leonidovich came to his senses and agreed to continue working in his specialty. As a condition, he demanded that the Mondovka laboratory, in which he worked, be transported to the USSR. If Rutherford refuses to transfer or sell the equipment, then it will be necessary to purchase duplicates of unique devices. By the decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, 30 thousand pounds were allocated for the purchase of equipment.

On December 23, 1934, Vyacheslav Molotov signed a decree on the organization of the Institute for Physical Problems (IPP) within the USSR Academy of Sciences. On January 3, 1935, the newspapers Pravda and Izvestia announced that Kapitsa had been appointed director of the new institute. At the beginning of 1935, Kapitsa moved from Leningrad to Moscow, to the Metropol Hotel, and received a private car. In May 1935, construction began on the institute's laboratory building on Vorobyovy Gory. After rather difficult negotiations with Rutherford and Cockcroft (Kapitsa did not take part in them), it was possible to come to an agreement on the terms of transferring the laboratory to the USSR. In the period from 1935 to 1937, equipment was gradually received from England. The case was greatly stalled due to the sluggishness of the officials involved in the supply, and it was necessary to write letters to the top leadership of the USSR, right up to Stalin. As a result, we managed to get everything that Pyotr Leonidovich demanded. Two experienced engineers came to Moscow to help with installation and adjustment - mechanic Pearson and laboratory assistant Lauerman.

In his letters from the late 1930s, Kapitsa admitted that the opportunities for work in the USSR were inferior to those that were abroad - this even despite the fact that he received a scientific institution at his disposal and had practically no problems with funding. It was depressing that the problems that were solved in England with one phone call were mired in bureaucracy. The harsh statements of the scientist and the exceptional conditions created for him by the authorities did not contribute to the establishment of mutual understanding with colleagues in the academic environment.

The situation is depressing. Interest in my work fell, and on the other hand, fellow scientists were so indignant that there were, at least in words, attempts were made to put my work in conditions that simply had to be considered normal, that they are indignant without hesitation: “If<бы>they did the same to us, then we will not do what Kapitsa did. "

In 1935, Kapitsa's candidacy was not even considered in the elections to full members of the USSR Academy of Sciences. He repeatedly writes notes and letters about the possibilities of reforming Soviet science and the academic system to representatives of the authorities, but does not receive a clear reaction. Several times Kapitsa took part in the meetings of the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, but, as he himself recalled, after two or three times he “disappeared”. In organizing the work of the Institute of Physical Problems, Kapitsa did not receive any serious help and relied mainly on his own strength.

In January 1936, Anna Alekseevna returned from England with her children, and the Kapitsa family moved to a cottage built on the territory of the institute. By March 1937, the construction of the new institute was completed, most of the instruments were transported and installed, and Kapitsa returned to active scientific activity. At the same time, at the Institute of Physical Problems, a "kapichnik" began to work - the famous seminar of Peter Leonidovich, which soon acquired all-Union fame.

In January 1938, Kapitsa published an article in the journal Nature about a fundamental discovery - the phenomenon of superfluidity of liquid helium and continued research in a new direction of physics. At the same time, the staff of the institute, headed by Petr Leonidovich, is actively working on a purely practical task of improving the design of a new installation for the production of liquid air and oxygen - a turboexpander. The fundamentally new approach of the academician to the functioning of cryogenic plants is causing heated discussions both in the USSR and abroad. However, Kapitsa's activities are approved, and the institute he heads is held up as an example of the effective organization of the scientific process. At the general meeting of the Department of Mathematical and Natural Sciences of the USSR Academy of Sciences on January 24, 1939, by unanimous vote, Kapitsa was accepted as a full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences.)