V. K. LEBEDINSKY
(1868—1937)

IN MEMORY OF V. K. LEBEDINSKY

B. Ostroumov, Leningrad.

On July 11, 1937, there died one of the most popular Russian physicists—Vladimir Konstantinovich Lebedinsky, Doctor of Technical Sciences, professor at the Leningrad Institute of Railway Transport Engineers and at the Military Medical Academy.

His many-sided personality and the broad scope of his literary and scientific-technical activity are inseparably connected with the development and dissemination of the exact and technical sciences in our Union and with their penetration into the very depths of the population.

A talented popularizer and an original thinker, he was able to make the very latest advances of physics accessible and understandable to all whose thought strove to embrace the contemporary progress of science. Keenly attentive to the needs, aspirations, and hopes of our student youth, he succeeded in becoming close to them and in winning among them the warmest sympathy and exceptional authority. The name of V. K. Lebedinsky became dear to many thousands of young electricians and lovers of physics and radio engineering who had the opportunity to hear his lectures or were carried away by his numerous articles and popular books. Many engineers and prominent specialists, now already well known, categorically state that both their choice of specialty and the first successes of their independent work were decisively influenced by the brilliant exposition of the foundations of modern science that was so characteristic of V. K. Lebedinsky. His apt formulations, his ability to pose a problem while distinguishing the essential from the secondary, left an indelible trace in the memory. That is why, in the most remote corners of our Union, the sudden death of Vladimir Konstantinovich evoked among thousands of people such a feeling of sincere and profound grief—not only as the death of an outstanding scholar, but also as the loss of a close, dear person.

V. K. Lebedinsky was born in the city of Petrozavodsk in 1868, into the family of a secondary-school history teacher. The high calling of teacher merged in his consciousness with the authority of his father, who imposed

From the very first days of conscious life, a distinctive imprint lay upon all his activity. From his earliest childhood Vladimir Konstantinovich displayed an exceptional thirst for knowledge, for the study of inanimate and living nature. He made use of all the means available to him to deepen and broaden his outlook, not limiting himself to the formal, mechanical memorization of facts and arguments, but literally with his whole being experiencing that gigantic creative labor, that tension of thought which had led mankind to the brilliant modern achievements of exact natural science.

The old school gave little scope to his inquisitive mind, and only at the university, in 1887, among a whole group of his talented contemporaries who later, like him, became outstanding scholars and specialists, did Vladimir Konstantinovich finally receive the opportunity to satisfy his thirst for knowledge and for independent, original scientific work.

The young physicist of that time, Ivan Ivanovich Borgman, captivated him with his thoroughly enthusiastic exposition of the works of Faraday and Maxwell and directed his attention to those astonishing technical applications of electrical energy which followed directly from them. Therefore the reports of the inventor of wireless telegraphy, Aleksandr Stepanovich Popov, on his remarkable experiments (1895) were received by V. K. with particular acuity and intense interest. They also determined the character of all his subsequent scientific work.

By that time V. K. had already graduated from the university (1891) and had succeeded in acquiring pedagogical experience in teaching physics. He was a member of the Russian Physico-Chemical Society, and around that time (in 1895) he published his first experimental work, “On Certain Experiments with a Ruhmkorff Coil” (ZhRFKhO, vol. 27). It was carried out at the Petersburg Electrotechnical Institute, where V. K. was then lecturing on “Alternating Currents” and had organized a special laboratory for this subject.

Thus began the scientific and teaching work of V. K., which then continued uninterruptedly throughout his life. It was concentrated chiefly on the study of electrical and magnetic phenomena and on questions connected with the propagation of radio waves. This work ultimately won universal recognition for V. K. as a pioneer of Russian radio engineering.

V. K.’s literary work began at the same time. From 1893 he began to take the most active part in the publication of the journal Electricity, where he placed many articles, notes, surveys, and reviews relating to the latest advances of science, drawing the attention of Russian electricians to the most striking and important discoveries in this field.

Later, in 1906, V. K. undertook the editorship of the Journal of the Russian Physico-Chemical Society (physical section). Soon he secured the founding, in connection with it, of a separate po—

...the popular journal Problems of Physics and attracted to participation in it the liveliest and most talented popularizers of that time.

In parallel with the expansion of his literary work, V. K.’s pedagogical activity in higher education also grows. From 1899 to 1913 he teaches physics at the Lesgaft and Lokhvitskaya-Skalon courses, and then at the Military Engineering School. At the Polytechnic Institute he lectures on “Electromagnetic Oscillations” (1906—1913); he also works at a number of other higher educational institutions. In 1913 the Riga Polytechnic Institute elects him professor in the department of physics.

Despite such intensive activity, V. K. does not cease his experimental work. In 1896 he takes part in an expedition to the Lena River, to the settlement of Chekurskoye, to observe a total solar eclipse. In the course of this he succeeds for the first time in obtaining a photograph of the reversal of the solar spectrum. During these years V. K. published a whole series of original works which attracted the attention of specialists and subsequently received further development in the works of V. K.’s pupils and of other scholars. Let us list some of them:

“On the action of ultraviolet light on a spark” (1900, Elektrichestvo, No. 7, No. 10—11; 1908, ZhRFKhO).

“The action of a magnetic field on positive charges” (1900, Elektrichestvo, No. 12—13).

“On the properties of the electric spark” (1901, ZhRFKhO).

“Investigation of phenomena in an induction coil with the aid of a Braun tube” (1901, ZhRFKhO).

“On the resonance of uncoupled and coupled systems” (1905, Elektrichestvo, No. 11—12).

“Resistance of the electric spark” (1906, ZhRFKhO).

“Practical methods of measuring radiation” (1906, ZhRFKhO).

“On certain cases of the separation of radiation” (1908 and 1909, ZhRFKhO).

“Electrical conductivity at corresponding temperatures” (1908, ZhRFKhO).

“Investigation of an alternating-current transformer” (1909 and 1916, ZhRFKhO).

“Results of the study of solar spectrograms of 1896” (1909, ZhRFKhO).

“On the causes of the lowering of temperature with elevation above the surface of the earth” (1911, ZhRFKhO).

“Ionization produced by moving electrified particles” (1912, ZhRFKhO).

In 1906 V. K. publishes the booklet Electromagnetic Waves and the Foundations of Wireless Telegraphy, which served as the beginning of a whole series of publications devoted to this question.

In 1911 he edits the collection of classic works Electric Oscillations and Waves, which for many years served as the principal aid in the study of radio engineering.

During this period of his activity, V. K., on the one hand, as editor of the most solid Russian physics journal, followed the progress of science with intense attention, while on the other hand he drew ever closer to the student youth.

Perceiving life as a whole, being by nature an artist and by education an encyclopedist, firmly convinced that science fulfills its purpose only when it becomes the possession of all strata of the population, V. K. experienced this awareness as the consciousness of his duty to use all his strength, all available means, in order to facilitate the penetration of exact knowledge into the broad masses of the people. He became a convinced popularizer of science and turned to the study of this distinctive art.

Thinking, like a loving father or brother, about the psychology of student youth and young scholars, about their intellectual growth, V. K. tried to feel out those difficulties, those hidden reefs that held back this growth, sometimes paralyzing the timid scientific thought just beginning to arise. He tried to indicate to them the shortest paths for attaining the goal. By drawing the broad prospects that open before a thinking person in the in-depth study of nature, by clearly outlining the goal of the separate stages of intellectual and educational work, he inspired young people to new efforts and acquainted them with the intellectual satisfaction that results from such conscious work upon oneself.

From V. K.’s pen came dozens of popular articles and reviews; he delivered popular lectures, published textbooks, spoke at meetings and congresses, and so on. This intense work for others left less and less leisure for himself, and his own investigations, always distinguished by acuity and originality, often remained unfinished and unpublished.

Not everyone could understand the motives of such distinctive activity on V. K.’s part, and many obstacles stood in his way. Only the sensitive woman’s heart of his life companion invariably supported V. K. to the end of his days in his distinctive and many-sided work. Their family hearth attracted by its warmth both young people and old, eminent scholars. It served as a center around which people of different trends of thought, of different specialties, gathered—people who, amid clashes of opinions and points of view, sought new paths toward the knowledge of nature.

The terrible world war that broke out in 1914 did not give V. K. the opportunity to carry out the works he had begun and planned. The Riga Polytechnic Institute was evacuated to Moscow, and then disintegrated altogether.

The terrible upheavals that the war caused throughout human society, the awakening of new popular forces, the victory of the proletariat and the creation of a new social order—all this whirlwind of events, which so transformed the world, seized and carried V. K. toward new

tasks, to new opportunities, to the fulfillment of new social obligations.

Sensitive and thoughtful, he keenly perceived that astonishing historical process in which he was a participant. He was among the very first to join the new power of the workers and peasants and devoted the whole remainder of his life to participation in the building of the new state. In doing so he tried to make his work as purposeful and productive as possible, giving to it, with youthful enthusiasm, all his strength and all the experience he had accumulated. In essence, only the revolution could have realized the dream of his entire life—to make science the property of the whole people. If in the 27 years of his literary activity before the revolution he had managed to produce about 100 different printed works, then in the 20 years of the existence of our Union their number proved to be twice as large.

With tireless energy V. K. undertook the solution of the new problems put forward by the young Soviet state, whose life was beating like a key. Its immense expanses, which made communication between its separate parts so difficult; the need for close unification of all forces around the new authority for resistance to external and internal enemies; the need for clear coordination of all the organs of the new Union of republics—all this, of course, compelled V. K. to turn his attention to the exceptional importance that wireless communication acquired under these conditions. Once again Popov’s works, his own youthful dreams and passions, came to mind.

However, there were no personnel for mastering this marvel of the newest technology. It was necessary quickly to train thousands of specialists in this field; it was necessary to manufacture for them tens of thousands of new instruments and tools. V. K., more clearly than anyone else, realized this acute need for specialists and did everything in his power to place in the hands of the government a new and necessary means of communication.

On his initiative and under his editorship, under the People’s Commissariat of Posts and Telegraphs, in 1918 the journal Telegraphy and Telephony Without Wires began to be published. In 1920 the editorial office of this journal was transferred to the “Nizhny Novgorod Radio Laboratory,” organized in accordance with the brilliant instructions of V. I. Lenin. Here V. K., together with the founder of the radio laboratory V. M. Leshchinsky, and after his death with the new head of the research and technical work there, his pupil Prof. M. A. Bonch-Bruevich, and with a whole series of other enthusiasts of wireless communication, developed especially intensive activity.

He joined the Council of the radio laboratory and for several years was its chairman; he organized the publication of a second journal, Radio Technician, intended for a wider circle of readers than the journal T. i t. b. p.; he gave lectures, wrote articles, taught at the university, organized the celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of A. S. Popov’s invention of the radiotelegraph, organized congresses of physicists and radio technicians, and drew into the work

in journals and to bringing the leading Russian specialists into cooperation in the radio laboratory, etc.

As a result of these strenuous efforts, a powerful wave of radio amateurism arose in our Union and rapidly grew, in a short time embracing hundreds of thousands of young people and soon becoming an inexhaustible source of excellent personnel both for the rapidly developing radio industry and for the communications service.

Such intense and many-sided work, requiring the concentration of all attention, all thoughts, all strength, requiring the continuous accumulation of new technical experience and new knowledge, left V. K. almost no opportunity to continue the original experimental investigations interrupted by the World War, although he did not give up hope of taking them up again under more favorable circumstances.

Meanwhile, Russian radio engineering had already turned into a powerful advanced branch of industry; radio broadcasting and television had developed; and V. K. was able, with a feeling of inner satisfaction, to convince himself that his efforts had been crowned with complete success, that the direction he had chosen in his work had been entirely correct and the goal set had been achieved. It was possible to turn one’s gaze to other fields of science and technology, to proceed to the solution of new problems.

Already in 1926, without breaking his closest ties with the radio laboratory and with the journal, V. K. moved to Leningrad and took chairs of physics—first at the Medical Institute, then at the Military Medical Academy, and at the Institute of Railway Transport the chair of “Physical Foundations of Electrical Engineering.” Although the years made themselves felt, V. K.’s literary activity did not cease, but became still more varied. The Higher Qualification Commission awarded him the degree of Doctor of Technical Sciences without a dissertation defense. Devoting himself, despite his shaken health, with his usual enthusiasm to teaching work in higher education, V. K. paid considerable attention to questions concerning teaching aids and methods of instruction. In 1936 he newly compiled, for the second edition, the collection Electrical Oscillations and Waves in expanded form, taking into account the latest discoveries and technical achievements.

At the request of the publishing house “Molodaya Gvardiya,” V. K. wrote a new and completely original popular book, Conversations on Electricity, where, in a form unusual for us, he attempted to sketch, in a way accessible to the broadest circle of readers, a picture of the contemporary state of the doctrine of electrical and magnetic phenomena. He managed to finish this work only a few days before his sudden death.

In the evening of his life, after 45 years of tireless and many-sided activity, despite his weakening strength, V. K. once again returned to experimental research work and undertook the study of one of the most difficult and interesting fields of physics—

in the problem of the magnetism of iron. The Barkhausen phenomenon is reproduced by him in an entirely new and original setting, making it possible to discover new details in it and, far more deeply than had been done before, to trace the mechanism of the displacement of matter during magnetization. Other works were also being planned. Inexorable death cuts short this truly laborious life, wholly devoted to public service and to the fulfillment of his social duty.

And, bowing with sorrow before the grave of this unique scholar-artist, we feel that his integral personality has become indelibly engraved in our memory as one of our brightest experiences.