P. L. KAPITSA

N. N. SEMENOV

A. I. ALIKHANOV

A. I. ALIKHANYAN

G. S. LANDSBERG

N. S. AKULOV

V. L. GRANOVSKY

K. S. VUL'FSON

STALIN LAUREATES

On March 14 and 15, 1941, decrees of the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR were published on the awarding of Stalin Prizes for outstanding works in the field of science and for outstanding inventions. These days will go down in the history of our country as days of celebration for science, a celebration of culture. The awarding of the Stalin Prizes is a review of the best results of Soviet science; it is a summing-up of its brilliant achievements over the last six or seven years; it is vivid proof of the exceptional care with which the Party and the government surround scientific work in our country.

Great are the gains of Soviet scientists in all fields of scientific thought, but for us, Soviet physicists, the achievements in our own science—physics—are, of course, closest of all. We all know what an enormous path Soviet physics has traversed during the years of the Revolution. From a few small and, in most cases, poor university laboratories and isolated scholars working in tsarist Russia—to powerful scientific-research institutes equipped according to the latest word in technology, to hundreds of higher educational institutions and thousands of scientific workers in the USSR. This grandiose expansion of the scientific-research base, this unprecedented scope in the organization of scientific work, this creation of exceptionally favorable conditions for it could not fail to bear rich fruit. And indeed, more than a thousand scientific works and inventions were submitted to the Committee on Stalin Prizes, and among them a large number of works either directly relating to physics or connected with it in one way or another. Many of these works represent a major contribution to science and deserve high appraisal. But not all of them, of course, could be marked with Stalin Prizes. This highest award is conferred only for the most outstanding discoveries and achievements—in particular those directly connected with the great cause of the entire Soviet people: the cause of building communism. And indeed, the majority of the works submitted for the prize—and, first of all, the prize-winning works—are not only major contributions to science, but either have already yielded concrete practical results for our socialist construction, or contain the possibility of such results.

A vivid illustration of this is provided by the works of P. L. Kapitsa, awarded the prize of the first degree in the physical and mathematical sciences.

P. L. Kapitsa is, undoubtedly, one of the most outstanding physicists of our time. His works, devoted to the creation of the strongest magnetic fields and to the study of the properties of matter in these fields, have long since received worldwide recognition. In their development, these works required the creation of such conditions under which a substance placed in the strongest magnetic field would be at the lowest possible temperature. And so P. L. Kapitsa builds his completely original helium machine, which could arise only as the result of combining the constructor’s remarkable ingenuity with a profound knowledge of the physical properties of matter. This machine enables Kapitsa to obtain liquid helium by a cheap and effective method, thanks to which, in his Institute of Physical Problems, liquid helium is available to the experimenter in quantities in which it is unavailable anywhere else in the world. Having built a machine for obtaining liquid helium, Kapitsa begins to study its properties and quickly discovers the “superfluidity” of helium II—a property that makes liquid helium the most interesting of liquids and raises the helium problem to the rank of the deepest problems of modern physics, making it no less fascinating and absorbing than the problem of the atomic nucleus and cosmic rays. But Kapitsa does not confine himself to these most interesting, purely physical investigations, and seeks ways to apply his constructive talent, knowledge, and experience in work with low temperatures—to apply his work to practice. As a result, he builds a machine for obtaining liquid air, no less remarkable than the helium machine.

This machine breaks all the norms and standards that had become established in this field. Instead of the usual initial pressure of 200 atm it requires only 4–6 atm; instead of a second compressor weighing several tons, it uses a small turbine with a diameter of 8 cm and a weight of 250 g. But this small turbine makes 40,000 revolutions per minute; the gap between its edge and the casing does not exceed 0.15 mm, and liquid air pours from the machine in a continuous stream, since the machine produces up to 30 kg of liquid air per hour. The obtaining of cheap liquid air, and, following it, cheap oxygen as well, opens enormous prospects for the most diverse branches of technology.

N. N. Semenov, in the course of his work, was led to the necessity of studying the mechanism of chemical reactions. These investigations served as the basis for his creation of an unusually fruitful theory of chain reactions and as the starting point for extensive work on chemical kinetics and on the mechanism of ignition and explosions. This complex phenomenon, in which chemical and physical processes are closely intertwined, has such great importance for all technology that there is no need to speak of it here.

G. S. Landsberg, from his widely known investigations in the field of optics, came to the development of methods of spectral analysis of alloys. Spectroscopy, which has long served as one of the most powerful and subtle methods for investigating the properties and structure of matter in the laboratory of the physicist-researcher, thanks to this found its way into production. The methods of spectral—

...analysis bring the state enormous savings, make it possible to improve the quality of products and to reduce the percentage of rejects.

N. S. Akulov, who developed the theory of ferromagnetism, has successfully applied the results of his theoretical investigations to magnetic flaw detection, which is of great practical importance.

Stalin Prizes in the physico-mathematical sciences have also been awarded for the work of the outstanding young physicists A. I. Alikhanov and A. I. Alikhanyan. The magnetic spectrograph for \(\beta\)-rays designed and built by them has greatly expanded the possibilities of the experimenter investigating the atomic nucleus. With the aid of this instrument they succeeded in obtaining a number of highly interesting and most important results that have become firmly established in world science.

In the present international situation, the thoughts of the scientist-inventor are naturally drawn to defense technology. Stalin Prizes have been awarded to a considerable number of inventions in this field. Physicists note with satisfaction among the inventors whose work was directed toward strengthening the might of our Red Army a group of two engineers—N. D. Smirnov and V. G. Rodionov—and two physicists—V. L. Granovsky and K. S. Vul'fson—who succeeded in applying the results of their physical investigations to military technology.

Great and extensive are the achievements of Soviet science and technology. And there is nothing more natural than that the encouragement of the most outstanding scientists should be associated with the name of the greatest leader of the peoples, the one whose name inspires Soviet science—Comrade Stalin.

1. Uspekhi fizicheskikh nauk, Vol. XXV, issue 2. ↩