ALEKSEY PETROVICH SOKOLOV (1854–1928)

(Obituary)1

V. K. Arkad’ev, Moscow.

Among the scholars whose memory will long be preserved by Russian physicists, the name of Prof. A. P. Sokolov, who for 50 years devoted his life to the development of science and knowledge, will not be forgotten. At the time to which the beginning of Aleksey Petrovich’s activity belongs, the teaching of physics in our universities was only just beginning to acquire the forms that could meet the pressing demands of this branch of knowledge. This was a time when scientific and even teaching laboratories had only just begun to arise at departments of physics. This was so not only in Russia. As late as 1862, Kirchhoff in Heidelberg had no physical laboratory, and at approximately the same time Magnus in Berlin conducted his research in his own private laboratory. At Moscow University, thanks to the energy of Prof. A. G. Stoletov and to the support given him in this by Prof. N. A. Lyubimov, after nearly three years of effort, in 1872 it was finally possible to set up a physical laboratory and open it

for the students’ practical work. Despite the primitiveness of the equipment, and the fact that attendance at it was not obligatory for students, there was never any shortage of practicants. But most importantly, from the very beginning of its existence this laboratory began to play another role as well—to be a place for the strengthening and development of science. In this laboratory there was vigorous scientific work, which gave us an entire school of physicists “brought up in the spirit of the new direction—love of science and unremitting labor”1. A. P. Sokolov also belonged to this school. The dream of the inspirer and leader of this school, Prof. A. G. Stoletov—the dream of the last ten years of his life—was the creation in Moscow of a Physical Institute, modeled on the institutes that had by that time arisen in Western Europe, where it would be possible to undertake those works whose realization was hindered by the poverty of equipment and lack of space of the first physical laboratory in Moscow. A. G. Stoletov did not succeed in realizing this dream: he died in 1896. Eight years passed after that before the construction of the new building of the Physical Institute was completed. The pupils of A. G. Stoletov, Prof. A. P. Sokolov and Prof. N. A. Umov, together with Prof. P. N. Lebedev, brought this dream to life. A. P. Sokolov took upon himself the organization, direction, and administration of the new General Physical Practicum, which constituted the main part of the new institute. Everything that during A. P. Sokolov’s numerous trips abroad had been noted by him as original and important in the various laboratories of the West was arranged by him also in the Physical Practicum of the new institute. Together with the new ideas in physics and the requirements of teaching that found their reflection in a number of the practicum’s problems, the practicum as a whole—owing its origin to the activity and organizational leadership of A. P. Sokolov—became the first in Russia, the most extensive and best-equipped classical physical practicum. Several thousand graduates of Moscow University, having passed through this practicum—

…carried away with them not only a formal knowledge of physics as an abstract science, but also a love for it and for experiment, so necessary for fixing and clarifying physical phenomena. It is not our task to analyze in detail and comprehensively the activity of the deceased; our task goes no further than to give a brief sketch of the life and work of A. P., to the presentation of which we now turn.

A. P. Sokolov was born in the city of Kaluga on February 22, 1854, into a poor civil-servant family; he was the fifth child. We know nothing of his childhood years, except that A. P. Sokolov received his secondary education at the Kaluga gymnasium. He studied at the gymnasium free of charge, since the means of his parents’ family, consisting of ten persons, were evidently insufficient. From the age of 12, A. P. was already giving lessons, earning for himself, as he himself put it, “white bread.” These occupations enabled A. P., by the time he finished the gymnasium in 1873, to save 200 rubles—the sum with which he went to Moscow to continue his education. From the curriculum vitae written by the deceased himself, we know that in 1873 he entered Moscow University in the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics. At the university at that time lectures in physics were delivered by Professors N. A. Lyubimov and A. G. Stoletov. Listening to them, A. P. soon began to specialize in physics and, already from the second year, began to work in the physical laboratory, not long before organized by Prof. A. G. Stoletov. Work in it, despite the necessity of earning means for living by lessons that took up considerable time, resulted in the appearance of A. P. Sokolov’s first scientific work: “On the Torsion of Prismatic Bodies,” which was awarded a gold medal and printed in the Mathematical Collection of the Moscow Mathematical Society in 1878. This year may be regarded as the year of the beginning of A. P.’s scientific activity, which continued until the last days of his life. In 1877 A. P. graduated from Moscow University and was retained there to prepare for a professorship in the department of physics. After passing, in the month of January 1879, the magi—

After the master's examinations, A. P. Sokolov was sent abroad for two years “for scholarly purposes,” with maintenance from the ministry. Abroad, A. P. spent these two years mainly in Berlin, attending lectures by Professors Kirchhoff and Helmholtz and working in the physical institute under the direction of the latter. The result of the lectures heard from Kirchhoff was A. P.’s article “From the Theory of Light,” printed in the Scholarly Notes of Moscow University in 1882. Work in Helmholtz’s laboratory was reflected in the appearance of A. P.’s second article, “From the Theory of Electricity,” printed in the Scholarly Notes of Moscow University in 1880, and also gave him the opportunity, as he himself writes in his curriculum vitae, to prepare his first experimental work, which served as the subject for his master’s dissertation, “On the Galvanic Polarization of Electrodes.”

Upon returning from abroad, in August 1881, A. P. was approved as acting docent at Warsaw University in the Department of Physics, where he taught a course in theoretical physics. After the “public defense” by him of his dissertation on the above-mentioned topic, he was approved by the Council of Moscow University on February 13, 1882, for the degree of Master of Physics. The defense of the dissertation was followed by the approval of A. P. in the position of docent of Warsaw University. In accordance with the election of A. P. by the Council of Moscow University to the position of docent in the Department of Physics, after the departure of Prof. N. A. Lyubimov, by the trustee of the district, in January 1883, A. P. was transferred to Moscow. At Moscow University A. P. lectured on theoretical physics, physical geography with meteorology, and also directed the practical work of students in the physical laboratory. In November 1884 A. P. was approved as extraordinary professor in the Department of Physics and Physical Geography. In March 1886, after defending his dissertation on the topic: “An Experimental Investigation of Electrical Oscillations in Electrolytes,” carried out entirely in the Moscow physics laboratory, A. P. was approved for the degree of Doctor of Physics. In April 1891 A. P. was approved as ordinary professor of Moscow University. In 1894 physical geography at Moscow ...

at the university was separated into a special department, and the teaching of experimental physics was divided into two parallel two-year courses. One of them was taught, to the end of his life, by A. G. Stoletov, while the other was entrusted to A. P. Sokolov. In 1904, as has already been said above, A. P. Sokolov undertook the organization of the physics practicum at the institute and, without interrupting his lectures, worked on its arrangement. To assist those working in this practicum, A. P. compiled a manual, published under the title The Physics Practicum of Moscow University, ed. 1909. At present there is a second edition of this manual, revised and published under the joint editorship of Professors A. P. Sokolov and K. P. Yakovlev, ed. 1926. In February 1907 A. P. was confirmed in the rank of Merited Ordinary Professor and, from 1909, upon completion of 30 years of service, received a pension, leaving the number of regular professors but not interrupting his work at the university. By 1912 belongs the organization by A. P. Sokolov, with the assistance of assistants K. P. Yakovlev and A. P. Snesarev, of the first radiological laboratory in Russia, intended both for the work of A. P. himself—who had already begun to take an interest in the field of radioactive phenomena in 1901—and for the work of practicum students. To acquaint them with the arrangement of special investigations abroad, A. P. secured travel assignments for K. P. Yakovlev to Manchester, to Rutherford’s laboratory, and for A. P. Snesarev to Berlin. Over the course of a number of years A. P. undertook trips to the Caucasus, to Crimea, and to other localities in Russia to study the radioactivity of waters and therapeutic muds, and also to study the ionization of air. But more than anything A. P. was drawn to the West, with the bustling life of its laboratories. During the period from 1878 to 1914 A. P. was sent abroad twenty times for scholarly purposes, and eight times was granted foreign leave. In 1914 A. P. organized, with funds allocated by the ministry, an expedition to observe the total solar eclipse in Kiev. The expedition did not achieve its aim, like many others also located in Kiev, because of inclement weather during the totality.

phases of an eclipse. The World War prompted A. P. Sokolov to organize in the Physical Institute, together with Prof. K. P. Yakovlev—then senior assistant of the Physical Institute—extensive workshops for the manufacture of precision measuring instruments needed by the military department (calibers and templates), as well as for their verification. A. P.’s work in the field of radioactivity of waters and muds, and the ideas he developed, expressed as early as 1903 (in a speech delivered at the annual meeting of the Russian Balneological Society in Pyatigorsk, on the topic “Ionization and Radioactivity of Atmospheric Air,” Transactions of the Society, 1904) concerning the possible therapeutic significance of air ionization, served as the reason for his election in 1919—already a 65-year-old man—as professor to the newly established chair of physics at the medical faculty of the First Moscow State University, and also as professor of physics at the Higher Medical School, which opened at that time.

In 1922, having reached the age limit, A. P. left the staff of full-time professors of the medical faculty of the First Moscow State University, and in 1924 he left the professorial staff of the Higher Medical School; but as a supernumerary professor A. P. still continued to lecture on “radioactivity” for students of the chemical division of the physico-mathematical faculty of the First Moscow State University.

Beginning in 1920, every summer A. P. made trips, on assignment from the Main Resort Administration, to various mineral springs in order to measure their radioactivity and the ionization of the air. The Central Scientific Conference under the Main Resort Administration, of which the deceased was a member, always kept abreast of work on radioactivity and ionization and came to the conviction (A. P.’s works played the chief role here) of the necessity of creating a special “commission for the study of electro-meteorological factors in resort practice.” A. P. was elected chairman of this commission. As a result of the work of this commission there appeared the “Instructions for the Use of Ebert’s Aspiration Apparatus,” compiled by Prof. A. A. Speransky, with a supplement to the instructions, “Accounting for the Influence of Slow Ions on the Results of Measurements,” compiled by V. I. Barano-

With the beginning of 1927 A. P. was elected a full member of the Research Institute of Physics and Crystallography, where, at the time of his election, great attention was paid to A. P.’s work “On the Internal State of the Earth in Connection with Its Radioactivity,” printed in the Proceedings of the Physico-Technical Institute of the Society of Scientific Institutes, where the elegant mathematical solution of the problem posed was noted.

A. P. Sokolov was a member of many scientific societies, actively participating in their work and serving on the presidium of some of them. Such were the P. N. Lebedev Physical Society, the RFKhO, the Russian Association of Physicists, the Society of Lovers of Natural Science, the Ledentsov Society, the Moscow Meteorological Society, the Moscow Society of Radiologists and Roentgenologists, the Moscow Scientific Balneological Society, and many others.

In the last years of his life, on the basis of his observations of the ionization of air from various sources used in physiotherapeutic institutes, and also prompted by the well-known experiments of Dr. Piccard, which established the therapeutic significance of strongly ionized air, A. P. worked out the question of a simple and inexpensive method of obtaining intensive ionization. The project of his method received approval from the Medical Scientific Council under the People’s Commissariat of Health, as A. P. writes in his curriculum vitae, and preliminary experiments were ready to begin at the Tuberculosis Institute of the Moscow Health Department; but time and illness took their toll... As late as the summer of 1927 A. P. was making observations of air ionization in Pyatigorsk. He himself was still processing the results of the observations after returning to Moscow. In the autumn of 1927 he was still lecturing on radioactivity at the First Moscow State University, but already in November the first signs of a serious illness were noticed. A. P. appeared less and less often in his office. Finally the illness required that he be placed in a clinic, where he felt worse and worse. An operation was performed (manifestations of meningitis), but nothing helped any longer. On the night of March 26, 1928, Aleksei Petrovich passed away. The following list of the scientific works of A. P. Sokolov was compiled by him himself.

List of Works by A. P. Sokolov

1. The problem of the torsion of prismatic bodies.
   Mat. sbornik of the Moscow Mathematical Society. Moscow, 1878.

2. The elementary law of interaction of currents and magnets.
   Journal of the Russian Physico-Chemical Society. Vol. X. St. Petersburg, 1878.

3. A note on Exner’s chemical theory of the electricity of contact.
   J. R. Phys.-Chem. Soc. Vol. XIII. 1881.

4. From the theory of electricity.
   Scholarly Notes of Moscow University. Moscow, 1880.

5. From the theory of light.
   Scholarly Notes of Moscow University. Moscow, 1882.

6. On the galvanic polarization of electrodes.
   Master’s dissertation. Scholarly Notes of Moscow University. Moscow, 1881.

7. On the theory of a curved diffraction grating.
   J. R. Phys.-Chem. Soc. Vol. XV, 1883.

8. A few words concerning Bardsky’s article: “On the character of the forces of partial attraction.”
   J. R. Phys.-Chem. Soc. Vol. XVI, 1884.

9. An experimental study of electrical oscillations in electrolytes.
   Doctoral dissertation. J. R. Phys.-Chem. Soc. Vol. XIX, 1887.

10. On the theory of polarization currents.
    Proceedings of the Division of Physical Sciences of the Society of Devotees of Natural Science, Anthropology, and Ethnography. Vol. XIII, issue II. Moscow, 1890.

11. Helmholtz’s works on electricity in connection with chemistry.
    From lectures delivered by various professors of Moscow University in 1891 for the benefit of the Helmholtz Fund. Scholarly Notes of Moscow University, issue IX, 1892.

12. A critique of the Winkelmann–Sheglyaev method for determining dielectric constants.
    J. R. Phys.-Chem. Soc. Vol. XXIV, 1893.

13. Concerning the “investigations” of Prince B. Golitsyn.
    A critical article written jointly with Prof. A. G. Stoletov. Scholarly Notes of Moscow University, issue XI, 1893.

14. On the dependence of the elasticity of saturated vapor on the forces of the electric field.
    J. R. Phys.-Chem. Soc. Vol. XXVI, 1894.

15. Reviews of A. P. Gruzintsev’s master’s dissertation, “The Electromagnetic Theory of Light.”
    Scholarly Notes of Moscow University, issue XIII, 1895.

16. French translation of No. 14, 1896.

17. An experimental study of the electrolysis of water.
    J. R. Phys.-Chem. Soc. Vol. XVIII, 1896.

18. German translation of the preceding article.

19. Aleksandr Grigor’evich Stoletov. A biographical sketch.

Report and Speeches of Moscow University for 1896, and in greater detail.

1. A. G. Stoletov. Zh. R. F. Kh. O. Vol. XXIX, 1897.

2. Liquefaction of gases. Physical Review. Issues I and II. Warsaw. 1900.

3. The age of the earth. Speech read at a public meeting of the Society of Lovers of Natural Science, Anthropology and Ethnography. November 11, 1900. Russian Thought, 1901.

4. The present state of our knowledge of electrolysis. Speech read at the XI Congress of Russian Naturalists and Physicians in St. Petersburg, December 27, 1901. Zh. R. F. Kh. O. 1902, and in more abbreviated form.

5. The present state of the theory of electrolysis. Physical Review. Vol. III, 1902.

6. Ionization and radioactivity of atmospheric air. Speech delivered at the annual meeting of the Russian Balneological Society in Pyatigorsk on June 11, 1903. Proceedings of the Russian Balneological Society in Pyatigorsk, 1904, in abridged form.

7. Observation of the ionization of air in Pyatigorsk and Kislovodsk, May 27—June 9, 1903. Zh. R. F. Kh. O. 1904.

8. On the radioactivity of the gases of Narzan (Kislovodsk), the Elizabeth Spring (Pyatigorsk), and the mud of Lake Tambukan. Proceedings of the Russian Balneological Society in Pyatigorsk. 1904.

9. Radioactivity of certain Russian mineral waters, muds, and soils. Zh. R. F. Kh. O. 1905.

10. Radioactivity of the earth. Speech delivered at the XII Congress of Naturalists and Physicians, December 1909, in Moscow.

11. Determination of the radium content in the Russian mineral ferganite. Read at the Physical Institute of the Society of Scientific Institutes in Moscow in October 1918.

12. On the internal state of the earth in connection with its radioactivity. Preliminary communication.

Proceedings of the Physical Institute of the Society of Scientific Institutes, 1920.

1. Translation of the same article into French in Journal de Physique, 1924.

2. Ionization of the air in Essentuki according to observations of 1920. To be printed in Kurortnoe delo.

3. Measurements of the radioactivity of the Caucasian mineral waters. (Pyatigorsk, Zheleznovodsk, Essentuki) in the summers of 1920 and 1926. Printed in Kurortnoe delo, 1927, No. 1.

4. New tasks of Russian balneo- and climatotherapy. Speech delivered in Moscow at the balneological congress in March 1922 and printed in the Bulletin of Radiology and Roentgenology for 1922. Vol. I. Petersburg.

5. The significance of air ionization for radiotelegraphy. Speech delivered at the Electrotechnical Congress in Moscow in December 1921 and printed in the Journal of Telephony and Telegraphy. Nizhny Novgorod, 1922.

6. Ionization of air as a biological and therapeutic factor. Kurortnoe delo, 1925, No. 2.

1. Measurements of the ionization of air from various instruments used in physiotherapy institutes of the city of Moscow in 1924/25. The Labor and Life of Medical Workers of the City of Moscow, issue III, 1925.

2. Ionization of air as a means of combating tuberculosis. Journal for the Improvement of Physicians. Leningrad, September 1925, and proceedings of the Fifth Scientific-Balneological Congress in Pyatigorsk, 1925.

3. Physical Practicum, 2nd edition, 1926, revised, published under the joint editorship of A. P. Sokolov and K. P. Yakovlev.

4. Observation of the ionization of air in Anapa, Kislovodsk, and the resorts of the Sochi district in the summers of 1924 and 1925. Kurortnoe delo, 1926, No. 4.

5. Radioactivity of the Kislovodsk narzans and the question of their genetic connection, according to observations in 1922 and 1926. Kurortnoe delo, 1927, No. 7.

6. The balneological value of the radioactivity of the Pyatigorsk warm sulfur springs, according to observations in 1926. Submitted for publication in Kurortnoe delo.

Works not yet printed, but reported in learned societies:

1. Parasitic ionization when water is shaken with air, according to laboratory investigations. Reported at a meeting of the Lebedev Physical Society in 1922.

2. Electrification of air and sand when they are shaken, according to laboratory investigations in 1924/25. Reported at the Lebedev Physical Society in 1925.

3. A method for warning of hailstorms and thunderbolts. Reported at the Geophysical Congress in Moscow, 1925.

1. A. G. Stoletov (obituary). A. P. Sokolov. Zh. R. F. Kh. O. 1897. ↩↩