Nikolai Sergeevich Akulov

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Nikolai Sergejewitsch Akulow ( Russian: Никола́й Серге́евич Аку́лов ; English transcription Nikolay Akulov; * December 12, 1900 in Orjol ; † September 21, 1976 ) was a Russian physicist who dealt with magnetism .

Life

Akulov volunteered for the Red Army in 1920. He studied chemistry at the Polytechnic of the Kuban Region , at the Plekhanov Institute in Moscow and graduated from Lomonosov University (MSU) in 1926 with a degree in physics . In 1929 he received his doctorate (candidate title) and in 1936 he completed his habilitation (Russian doctorate). He was a student of the German magnetism expert Richard Gans in Königsberg. In 1931 he was appointed professor and head of the newly established department of magnetism at Lomonosov University, which he remained until 1954. After Stalin's death , Akulov lost his position at the university. This was in the context of a general power struggle between physicists from the Soviet Academy of Sciences ("Academy Physicists") and physicists from Lomonosov University, in which the latter temporarily had the upper hand in the late 1940s, but was systematically pushed back from around 1953. Akulow was one of the "most militant university physicists". In a letter to the Central Committee of the CPSU "he accused the entire Mandelstam group of espionage and sabotage".

In the case of the well-known chemist and academician Nikolai Nikolajewitsch Semjonow , Akulov tried to destroy his reputation in 1941 by accusing him of plagiarism in the theory of chemical chain reactions. Initially, he alleged plagiarism by two Danish scientists, but when it turned out to be unfounded or was pointed out that it did not look good to question the priority of Soviet scientists, he unearthed a 19th century Russian chemist. He also accused Semyonov of cringing in front of foreign ("cosmopolitan") scientists for dedicating his 1934 book on chemical chain reactions to the famous physical chemists Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff and Svante Arrhenius . At the same time Akulow himself was scientifically active in this field and wanted to establish himself as a leading expert in this field in the Soviet Union. Semyonov turned on a high-ranking commission of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, which met until 1945 and acquitted him of plagiarism. In addition, Semyonov himself went on the offensive and accused Akulov of harming Soviet science. As a result, Akulov lost his chair at Lomonosov University in 1954 and went to Minsk. In addition to their traditionally high reputation in the Soviet Union, the strengthening of the academy members was not least due to the fact that many of them (including Semyonov) played a key role in the Soviet atomic bomb.

1955 to 1957 Akulov worked at the Moscow Institute of Chemical Technology. From 1959 he headed the Magnet Laboratory and the Laboratory for Physical Problems of the Physical-Technical Institute of the Belarusian Academy of Sciences. In 1963 he founded the independent department for non-destructive materials testing, which later became the Academy's Institute for Applied Physics. He headed its magnet laboratory from 1967 until his death.

plant

Akulow developed a theory of magnetic anisotropy , magnetostriction and the relationship between mechanical and magnetic properties of magnetic solids. He also dealt with plasticity theory and the theory of dislocations in solids, about which he wrote a monograph, and with methods of materials testing and the investigation of ferromagnetic compounds. He published a monograph on chemical dynamics and one on chemical chain reactions, which he examined in the context of combustion processes. Most recently he also turned to elementary particle physics.

Akulow-Bitter patterns are named after him (collaboration with MV Degtyar 1932) and Francis Bitter (1931): if a fine ferromagnetic powder is distributed on a magnet, the particles are arranged according to these patterns, which is used to map magnetic domains .

Awards and memberships

Akulow received a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation in 1932 , with which he was in Germany. In 1940 he became a full member of the Academy of Sciences of the Belarusian SSR . He received the Stalin Prize (1941) and the Lomonosov Prize (1953). In 1976 he was posthumously awarded the Belarusian State Prize.

Fonts

  • Dislocations and Plasticity. Rajkamal Prakashan, Delhi 1964 (Russian original Minsk 1961)
  • Ferromagnetism (Russian), Moscow, Leningrad 1939.
  • Basics of Chemical Dynamics , Moscow 1940 (Russian)
  • Theory of chain reactions , Moscow, Leningrad 1951 (Russian)

Web links

Notes and individual references

  1. ↑ A laboratory for magnetism had existed since 1918, founded by Vladimir Arkadyev, cf. History. Magnetism Department, MSU, accessed October 18, 2018 .
  2. ↑ This simplified formula by Gennady Gorelik My anti-Soviet activity ... Russian physicists under Stalin , Vieweg, 1995 (Akulov's dismissal in this context p. 243). Important academy members like Igor Tamm and Lew Landau were able to give lectures at the Lomonossow again.
  3. ↑ Gennady Gorelik: Andrei Sakharov: A life for science and freedom . Springer-Verlag, 2013, ISBN 978-3-0348-0474-5 , pp. 128-129 .
  4. ↑ István Hargittai , Buried Glory: Portraits of Soviet Scientists, Oxford UP, 2013, p. 195
personal data
SURNAME Akulow, Nikolai Sergeyevich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Аку́лов, Никола́й Серге́евич (Russian)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Russian physicist
DATE OF BIRTH December 12, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Oryol
DATE OF DEATH September 21, 1976