Alexander Isaakowitsch Kitaigorodski

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Alexander Isaakowitsch Kitaigorodski ( Russian Александр Исаакович Китайгородский , English transcription Kitaigorodskii ; * 1914 in Moscow ; † 1985 ibid) was a Russian physicist.

biography

Kitaigorodski was the son of a professor of physical chemistry Isaak Ilyich Kitaigorodski (specialist in silicate glass). He studied physics at Lomonosov University in 1935, was an assistant professor at the Moscow University of Petroleum and Natural Gas in 1936/37 and headed a laboratory for X-rays until 1941. From 1938 to 1940 he taught theoretical physics at the Moscow Pedagogical Institute and from 1942 to 1944 he headed a department in the Moscow Oil Institute and worked for large armaments companies. From 1944 he headed the X-ray diffraction department at the Institute for Organic Chemistry of the Soviet Academy of Sciences . In 1946 he completed his habilitation (Russian doctorate) and was professor from 1947. From 1954 he headed a laboratory at the Institute for Organic Components ( Russian Институт элементоорганических соединений ) of the Soviet Academy of Sciences.

He dealt with X-ray structure analysis of amino acids and other organic substances and is best known from physics textbooks.

He won the Mendeleev Prize in 1949 and the Fedorov Prize of the Soviet Academy of Sciences in 1967.

In the Literaturnja Gazeta of October 1979, he initiated a debate about the usefulness of mathematics in the sciences, advocating the extreme position that pure mathematicians are superfluous and at most should be valued on a par with visual artists, and that applied mathematics is also increasingly playing a role questioned the success of the computer.

With the famous theoretical physicist Lew Landau , he wrote several popular science books on physics.

Kitaigorodskii Packing Index (KPI)

Analogous to the packing density of spherical packings of metals, a packing index can also be determined for organic molecules. The molecules are built up from spheres that correspond to the van der Waals radius of the atoms. Then you can calculate how much of the crystallographic unit cell is occupied. The packing index of organic molecules is typically 65–75%.

Density rule

Kitaigorodskii described the empirical rule that in the case of polymorphic organic compounds, the crystal structure with the greatest density is the most stable.

Fonts

  • with Lew Landau Physik für Alle , 4 volumes, Aulis Verlag 1981,
    • English edition Physics for Everyone , 2nd edition, 4 volumes, MIR 1980
  • Molecular crystals and molecules , Academic Press 1973
  • Introduction to Physics , MIR 1968
  • I am a physicist , MIR 1971
  • Order and Disorder in the World of Atoms , Longmans, Springer Verlag 1967
  • Theory of crystal structure analysis , New York, Consultants Bureau 1961
  • with AI Pertsinym The method of atom-atom potential in the physics and chemistry of organic molecular solids (Russian), Moscow 1985
    • English edition The Atom-Atom Potential Method: Applications to Organic Molecular Solids , Springer-Verlag Heidelberg (1987). ISBN 3-540-16246-1 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Author of Technologie des Glases , Verlag der Technik, Berlin 1959
  2. ↑ Ralph Boas Are mathematicians unnecessary? , Mathematical Intelligencer, 1980, No. 4, pp. 172/73
  3. ↑ AI Kitajgorodskij: Molecular Crystals and Molecules . Academic Press, New York 1973, ISBN 0-12-410550-5 .
  4. ^ JD Dunitz: X-ray Analysis and the Structure of Organic Solids . 2nd Edition. Verlag Helvetica Chimica Acta, Basel 1995, ISBN 978-3-906390-14-7 .
  5. ^ AI Kitaigorodskii: Organic Chemical Crystallography . Consultants Bureau, New York 1961, ISBN 978-0-592-01213-1 .
personal data
SURNAME Kitaigorodski, Alexander Isaakowitsch
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Китайгородский, Александр Исаакович
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Russian physicist
DATE OF BIRTH 1914
PLACE OF BIRTH Moscow
DATE OF DEATH 1985
Place of death Moscow