PERSONALIA

OBITUARIES

BORIS PETROVICH WEINBERG

On May 19, 1942, in Leningrad, one of the oldest Russian physicists, Professor Boris Petrovich Weinberg, passed away.

B. P. was born in 1871 in Peterhof, into the family of the well-known writer and poet-translator P. I. Weinberg. He studied in Petersburg and completed the course of the Physico-Mathematical Faculty of the university in 1892. In the same year he completed his first scientific work.

Having passed the master’s examinations, he became a privatdozent at Novorossiysk (in Odessa) University, where his life continued until 1907. During this time he traveled abroad several times on scientific assignments, where he became acquainted with the organization of laboratory teaching and himself studied the motion of glaciers.

He defended his master’s dissertation “On the Velocity of Light”—a huge book of a critical-review character, and then his doctoral dissertation “On the Flow of Ice in Glaciers.” The latter for a long time—one might say to the end of his life—determined his interest in the physics of solids. B. P. devoted a large part of his life to Siberia, where he was a professor at the Tomsk Technological Institute and where he enthusiastically engaged in geomagnetic investigations. These geophysical works led B. P. to the post of director of the Main Physical Observatory, to work on Arctic ice at the Arctic Institute, to practical conclusions concerning the strength of ice crossings, and to other similar problems—everyone understands their significance under the conditions of Leningrad in 1941.

The deceased was the author of about 500 works of various significance and scope—from notes to large books. Many of them have a methodological and metrological character—this too was one of the deceased’s favorite subjects. Finally, mention should also be made of B. P.’s heliotechnical works—he was undoubtedly one of the serious initiators of this new branch of technology: the energy of the future.

Among the pupils of the deceased is, among others, the well-known Russian scientist V. D. Kuznetsov.

Those who knew B. P. personally recall with pleasure his always witty and lively conversation and a number of expressions and “little words” he set in circulation. Until the very end he retained both vigor and the fullness of his spiritual powers; he fell victim to the Leningrad blockade.

T. Kravets