Yuri Fyodorovich Orlov
Yuri Fjodorowitsch Orlov ( Russian Юрий Фёдорович Орлов, English transcription Yuri Feodorovich Orlov; born August 13, 1924 in Moscow ; † September 27, 2020 ) was an American physicist and Soviet dissident. He has received several awards for his commitment to human rights.
Life
Yuri Orlov attended school in Moscow. During World War II he helped build T-34 tanks and later served in the artillery . After the war he worked at the "Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics" (ITEP) in Moscow and worked on a proton synchrotron . There he developed a theory of non-linear betatron resonance.
In 1956 he was dismissed because of pro-Western statements at ITEP and was no longer allowed to work in Moscow. He switched to the Physics Institute in Yerevan and worked there on an electron synchrotron. He received his PhD in Yerevan and a second PhD from Novosibirsk University .
In 1973 he returned to Moscow and worked at the "Institute for Terrestrial Magnetism and Radio Wave Propagation". He joined the dissident movement and became a member of the Russian branch of Amnesty International just a year after it was founded . He personally wrote a letter to Leonid Brezhnev in which he advocated Andrei Sakharov . In 1976 he founded the Moscow Helsinki Group , which monitored compliance with the Helsinki Final Act in the Soviet Union.
Yuri Orlov was arrested in 1977 and sentenced on May 18, 1978 to seven years in a strict labor camp and five years in exile for "anti-Soviet propaganda and agitation". He spent his imprisonment in Siberia . During his imprisonment in the camp, he managed to write several documents on human rights in the Soviet Union and to have them smuggled out of the country, as well as to publish three scientific papers.
In 1986 he was released to the United States in exchange for a Russian spy and his Soviet citizenship was revoked.
From 1987 he worked at Cornell University on the fundamentals of quantum mechanics . In 1988 and 1989 he spent at CERN . He has published several scholarly publications, as well as articles on human rights and an autobiography entitled “Dangerous Thoughts. Memoirs of a Russian Life " .
In 1993 he was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS). In 1995 the APS awarded him the Nicholson Medal for his humanitarian work. In 2005 he was also awarded the Andrei Sakharov Prize by the same company, which honors scientists for extraordinary commitment to human rights. In 2006 he received the APS's first Andrei Sakharov Prize .
Works
- Russian life. Hanser, Munich 1992, ISBN 3-446-17035-9 . (Spelling of the name in this edition: Jurij Orlow)
Web links
- Biography for the award of the APS Nicholson Medal
- Press release on the awarding of the APS Sakharov Prize
- Publications ( Memento of June 10, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
Individual evidence
- ↑ Death report accessed on September 28, 2020
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Orlov, Yuri Fyodorovich |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Орлов, Юрий Фёдорович (Russian) |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | American nuclear physicist and Soviet dissident |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 13, 1924 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Moscow |
| DATE OF DEATH | August 27, 2020 |