Dmitri Sergeevich Roshdestvensky

Dmitry Sergeyevich Rozhdestvensky ( Russian Дмитрий Сергеевич Рождественский ; born March 26 ^{. Jul} / 7. April  1876 ^greg. In St. Petersburg ; † 25. June 1940 in Leningrad ) was a Russian physicist and university teacher .

Life

Roshdestvensky was one of six children of the history teacher and director of the elementary schools of the St. Petersburg Governorate Sergei Roshdestvensky . Like his siblings, he received good home schooling so that he learned English , German and French perfectly . After the father's death, his pension and the income from the reprinting of his books allowed all children to continue their education. In 1894 Dmitri Roschdestvensky graduated from the 6th St. Petersburg High School with a silver medal. He then studied physics at the University of St. Petersburg with a degree in 1900. He stayed at the university to prepare for a professorship. In 1901 he was visiting scholar with Otto Wiener at the University of Leipzig and in 1903 with Paul Drude at the University of Giessen .

After his return in 1903 Roschdestvensky worked in the Physics Institute of the University of St. Petersburg. In 1908 he married the historian Olga Dobiasch . He studied spectroscopically the anomalous dispersion of light in metal vapors , especially sodium vapors , using a modified Jamin interferometer . He presented the first results in 1909 in the Russian Physicochemical Society , for which he received the FF Petrushevsky Prize. In 1912 he successfully defended his candidate dissertation Anomalous Dispersion in Sodium Vapors . For the investigation of the anomalous dispersion in sodium vapors in the immediate vicinity of the absorption band , he received the Small Lomonosov Prize of the Russian government in 1912 . As a private lecturer , he now gave lectures on important problems in optics and electrodynamics . In 1915 he successfully defended his doctoral thesis, Simple Correlations in the Spectra of Alkali Metals . Arnold Sommerfeld rated his results positively. In the same year he was elected head of the Physics Institute and was appointed professor in 1916. Also in 1916 he was elected President of the Russian Physicochemical Society . Among his most famous students were AA Lebedew , JF Gross , IW Obreimow , WK Prokofiev , AN Terenin and SE Frisch .

After the beginning of the First World War , the Russian army immediately learned of the shortage of optical devices because imports from Germany were interrupted and the corresponding industry in Russia was lacking. Therefore, a group of scientists around Roschdestvensky together with IV Grebenschtschikow , AI Tudorowski and later GG Sljusarew , JG Jachontow , NN Katschalow , AA Lebedew and IV Obreimow began to produce optical glass in the Imperial Porcelain Manufactory St. Petersburg . Production ended with the economic standstill after the October Revolution . On Roshdestvensky's initiative, the Optics Institute (GOI) was founded in Petrograd in 1918 , and Roshdestvensky became its scientific director. His most important employees included AN Terenin, WA Fock , JF Gross, SE Frisch, AA Gerschun , AN Sacharjewski , WK Prokofjew and LW Schubnikow .

In 1919 Roschdestwenski initiated the Atomic Commission for the investigation of the structures of atoms and their spectra , which included AF Joffe , OD Chwolson , WR Bursian , JA Krutkow , AN Krylow , AI Tudorowski, AA Friedmann , JD Tamarkin and JG Jachontow.

In addition, Roschdestvensky organized the production of optical glasses . He also founded the physics department in the Physics and Mathematics Faculty of the University of St. Petersburg in 1919 and fundamentally reformed the physics curriculum. In 1921 he became a member of the Russian Mineralogical Society . In 1922 he initiated the Russian Optical Society . From 1924 he also contributed to the development of the Russian opto-mechanical industry.

In 1925 Roshdestvensky became a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (AN-SSSR) and honorary member of the Metrology Council of the Main Office for Weights and Measures now in Leningrad . In 1928 he became an honorary member of the Society of Nature, Astronomy and Ethnography Researchers . In 1929 he became a full member of the AN-SSSR.

In 1932 Roshdestvensky resigned from his position as director of the GOI and proposed SI Wawilow as his successor. Until 1938 he was still in charge of the spectroscopy department at GOI. He then advised the GOI's microscopy laboratory. At the same time he headed the Spectroscopy Laboratory of the Physical Institute of Leningrad University .

The loss of his wife in 1939 hit Roshdestvensky hard. He got his affairs in order, gave his last orders and shot himself in 1940 with a small bore rifle.

In 1968 a memorial plaque in memory of Roshdestvensky was placed in the GOI and his bust was erected in 1976 . In 1969 the Council of Ministers of the USSR founded the Roshdestvensky Prize for work in the field of optics. In 1970 the International Astronomical Union named a lunar crater on the back of the moon after him: Rozhdestvenskiy crater . In 1974, an asteroid discovered by the Crimean Observatory was named after Roshdestvensky Institute: (5839) GOI . In 1990 the Russian Optical Society added Roshdestvensky's name to its name. In 1995 the Russian Academy of Sciences donated the Roshdestvensky Prize for Optics.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Article Roschdestvenski Dmitri Sergejewitsch in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (BSE) , 3rd edition 1969–1978 (Russian)http: //vorlage_gse.test/1%3D037448~2a%3DRoschdestwenski%20Dmitri%20Sergejewitsch~2b%3DRoschdestwenski%20Dmitri%20Sergejewitsch
2. ↑ JA Khramov: Roschdestwenski Dmitri Sergejewitsch . In: AI Achijeser : Physics: Biographical Lexicon . Nauka, Moscow 1983, p. 235 (Russian).
3. ↑ University of St. Petersburg: Дмитрий Сергеевич Рождественский (accessed January 5, 2017).
4. ↑ Линник В. П .: Д. С. Рождественский - основатель ГОИ (к 90-летию со дня рождения) . In: Труды ГОИ . tape 36 , no. 165 , 1969, pp. 45-52 .
5. ↑ Рождественский Д. С .: К исследованию дисперсии в парах натрия . In: Журнал Русского физико-химического общества. Часть физическая . tape 42 , 1910, pp. 87-97 .
6. ↑ Рождественский Д. С .: Простые соотношения в спектрах щелочных металлов . Типография М. М. Стасюлевича, Petrograd 1915.
7. ↑ Государственный Оптический Институт им. С.И. Вавилова (accessed January 3, 2016).