IN MEMORY OF A. M. PAVLENKO

The family of Soviet physicists has suffered a grievous loss in the person of Avram Markovich Pavlenko, who died prematurely on September 20, 1950.

Avram Markovich was born in 1900 in the town of Zenkov, Poltava oblast. A peasant boy from tsarist Russia, he could not dream of joining the circle of scholars. Only the Great October Socialist Revolution, by destroying social and property restrictions, opened unprecedented prospects before him.

Avram Markovich completed pedagogical courses in Poltava and, with great zeal, devoted himself to pedagogical work, combining it with extensive public activity. At the same time he continued to work intensively on himself and received higher education through a correspondence institution. During this period of study his interest in physics also manifested itself. In 1931, having passed the postgraduate examinations, he entered postgraduate study at the Institute of Physics of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR.

As a postgraduate student, he investigated the problem of heat transfer in concrete and asbestos-sphere calorimeters. This topic determined the direction of his scientific path. Avram Markovich became fascinated with thermal physics; he carried out a series of investigations on heat-transfer questions, which he summarized in his candidate’s dissertation, “Heat transfer in cylindrical bodies under conditions of hydrodynamic flow,” in 1936. In fact, even before this Avram Markovich had headed the institute’s thermal-physics laboratory, which focused its main attention on questions of heat transfer from gas and vapor flows under various conditions. In its time, the laboratory’s activity received high praise from outstanding specialists. In 1940 A. M. completed a thorough study, “Heating of bodies under plastic deformation by a compressive impact,” in which he measured impact times and studied the effect of heating by impact and its dynamics for iron specimens.

At the same time, from 1933 onward, A. M. carried on substantial pedagogical work at the Kiev State University named after T. G. Shevchenko. Holding for a time the post of deputy dean, he carried out extensive organizational work in the faculty of physics and mathematics. During the years of the Great Patriotic War, A. M. actively participated in scientific-defense work in a field entirely new to him. Holding the position of scientific secretary of the institute, he carried out major work connected with the evacuation of the institute, and he devoted all his strength to the cause of its restoration and further development. While carrying on extensive scientific-organizational work, A. M. did not leave the laboratory either. Together with V. I. Lyashenko he conducted investigations to clarify the role of contact fields in the properties of semiconductor layers, in which physical phenomena directly relevant to the practical use of semiconductor–metal systems are predominantly developed. In connection with these investigations, the authors developed a useful method for measuring contact potentials.

IN MEMORY OF A. M. PAVLENKO

A fiery patriot of the Soviet Motherland, A. M., in the final period of his activity, became absorbed in the history of national science and in elucidating its true role. He wrote a small, engaging little book on the founder of Russian science, M. V. Lomonosov, prepared a number of works for the section “History of National Science and Technology” in the Bulletin of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR, and submitted for publication a large article on questions of illuminating the role of national scientists in physics courses. A. M. planned to trace in detail and analyze the development of physics at Kiev University from the time of its founding, and he had already begun this work. He left a large manuscript of 70 printed pages, prepared for publication, devoted to an analysis of work at Kiev University on thermophysics in the nineteenth century. It deals with an account of the activity of outstanding Kiev physicists: Avenarius, Nadezhdin, Schiller, and others. A number of other manuscripts remained; some of them are in completely finished form.

The energy and enthusiasm with which A. M. worked were astonishing even for a healthy person. A selfless son of the great party of Lenin—Stalin, he strove to pass on the knowledge he had acquired to his people. He himself wrote a number of popular-science booklets and articles for newspapers, gave lectures on the radio, and organized scientific-propaganda and popularizing work at the institute. He took an active part in organizing the Society for the Dissemination of Political and Scientific Knowledge of the Ukrainian SSR and subsequently was a member of its audit commission and the scientific secretary of its physics-and-mathematics section.

The memory of this inspired, selfless toiler will always be, for all who knew him, a call to deeds of labor for the glory of the Socialist Motherland, for the benefit of the Soviet people.

P. Borzyak

LIST OF WORKS BY A. M. PAVLENKO

I. Original works in physics

1. Heat transfer of concrete and asbestos calorimeters (coauthors A. G. Goldman and N. T. Boiko), Fiz. Zap., 3, no. 2, 31, 1935.

2. On the question of measuring the temperature of the human body, Medichniy zhurnal, 5, 631, 1935.

3. Heat transfer of cylindrical tubes and an attempt to determine the thickness of the boundary layer, Fiz. Zap., 5, no. 1, 57, 1936.

4. Heat transfer of a bundle of tubes in a transverse flow of liquid, Fiz. Zap., 5, no. 1, 75, 1936.

5. Measurement of the velocity of the flow of dry saturated steam and steam with slight superheating, Fiz. Zap., 5, no. 1, 91, 1936.

6. Determination of the heat-transfer coefficient by the method of comparison, Naukovi Zapiski KDU, 3, no. 1, 259, 1937.

7. Heat transfer in temperature measurement (coauthor S. I. Khitsevich), Naukovi Zapiski KDU, 3, no. 1, 265, 1937.

8. Heat transfer under conditions of free convection at reduced pressure (coauthor B. I. Dyatlovitskaya), Fiz. Zap., 7, no. 2, 159, 1938.

9. The influence of flow on the heat transfer of a bundle of cylinders, Fiz. Zap., 7, no. 3, 263, 1939.

10. Hydrodynamic resistance of flows at reduced pressures, Fiz. Zap., 8, no. 1, 73, 1939.

11. On the question of arranging heat-exchange surfaces, Sov. kotloturbostr., no. 5–6, 207, 1940.

1. Heating of bodies during plastic deformation by a compressive impact, Phys. Notes, 9, no. 3, 301, 1941.

2. The phenomenon of reversal of a semiconductor by current carriers under the influence of a contact field (with V. I. Lyashenko), ZhTF, 17, no. 10, 1037, 1947; Reports of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR, no. 2, 17, 1947.

3. A vibration meter of contact potential difference (with V. I. Lyashenko), collection Catalysis, 73, Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR, 1950.

4. Dependence of the resistance of a metal–semiconductor contact on the contact potential difference (with V. I. Lyashenko), ZhTF, 20, no. 7, 854, 1950.

II. Reviews. History of Physics

1. Questions of similarity at the June session of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR, Visti AN URSR, no. 4–5, 1937.

2. Native scientists and inventors—the creators of electric lighting, Visnyk AN URSR, no. 7, 52, 1948.

3. The leading role of the scientists of our country in the development of molecular physics, Visnyk AN URSR, no. 0, 73, 1948.

4. The development in our country of the doctrine of the structure of the solid body, Visnyk AN URSR, no. 3, 75, 1949.

5. The Kiev method for measuring critical temperatures, Visnyk AN URSR, no. 5, 63, 1949.

6. The theory of similarity, its development and application in the works of native scientists, Visnyk AN URSR, no. 2, 54, 1950.

7. The great Russian scientist M. V. Lomonosov, Visnyk AN URSR, no. 4, 54, 1950.

III. Popular-Science Publications

1. Solar energy and its use (in Ukrainian). Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR, Kiev, 1946.

2. Water and its role in nature and the national economy (in Ukrainian). Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR, Kiev, 1947.

3. Heat and cold in the service of man (in Ukrainian). Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR, Kiev, 1948.

4. The founder of Russian science, Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov (in Ukrainian), Kiev, 1948.

5. Electricity and light in agriculture (in Ukrainian). Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR, Kiev, 1948.

6. Energy and its role in nature and in human life (in Ukrainian). Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR, Kiev, 1949.