Academician P. L.

Kapitsa P.L. Life for science. Lomonosov, Franklin, Rutherford, Lanzhen. - M.: Knowledge, 1965. - 63 p. 53-K.202. K / Kh

Kapitsa P.L. Strong magnetic fields: scientific. Tr. - M.: Science, 1988. - 461 p. B33-K.20 BUT

Up to high indicators that are needed for the synthesis of atomic nuclei - such is the range of many years of activity of Academician Kapitsa. He twice became a hero of socialist labor, and also received the Stalinist and Nobel Prize.

Childhood

Peter Leonidovich Kapitsa, whose biography will be presented in this article, was born in Kronstadt in 1894. His father Leonid Petrovich was a military engineer and was engaged in the construction of Kronstadd fortifications. Mom - Olga Ieronimovna - was a specialist in folklore and children's literature.

In 1905, Petya is given to learn to the gymnasium, but because of failure to fail (Latin is bad), the boy leaves it in a year. Study The future academician continues in the Kronstadsky School. He finishes him with honors in 1912.

Studying at the University

Initially, Peter Kapitsa (see the photo below) planned to study at the physico-mathematical department of the University of St. Petersburg, but he did not take it there. The young man decided to try his happiness in the "Polytech", and good luck smiled. Peter was enrolled on the electromechanical faculty. Already in the first year on a talented young man, Professor A. F. Ioffe also drew attention and attracted young people to research in his own laboratory.

Army and wedding

In 1914, Peter Leonidovich Kapitsa went to Scotland on there he planned to practic in English. But the first world began, and the young man could not return home in August. He fell into Petrograd only in November.

In early 1915, Peter volunteered to the West Front. He was appointed to the position of driver of a sanitary car. He also transported on his truck wounded.

In 1916 he was demobilized, and Peter returned to the institute. Ioffe immediately uploaded a young man with experimental work in a physical laboratory and attracted to participate in his own physical seminar (first in Russia). In the same year, Kapitsa published his first article. He also married the hope of a mannevita, who had a daughter one of the members of the Cadets Party.

Work in a new physical institution

In 1918, A. F. Ioffe organized the first research physical institute in Russia. Peter Kapitsa, whose quotes can be read below, graduated from this year the polytechnic and immediately settled the teacher there.

A difficult post-revolutionary situation did not promise anything good science. Ioffe helped keep the seminars with his own students, among whom Peter was. He convinced her Kapitsa to leave Russia, but the government did not give permissions to it. Helped Maxim Gorky, who was considered the most influential writer. Peter was allowed to leave to England. Shortly before the departure, Kapitsa in St. Petersburg broke out the flu epidemic. For the month, young scientist lost his wife, a newborn daughter, son and father.

Work in England

In May 1921, Peter arrived in England as part of the Russian Commission from the Academy of Sciences. The main goal of scientists was the restoration of scientific relations broken by the war and revolution. In two months, Physicist Peter Kapitsa settled in the Cavendish laboratory headed by Rutherford. He accepted a young man for short-term internship. Over time, the engineering grip and research skills of the Russian scientist made a strong impression on Rutherford.

In 1922, Kapitsa defended his doctoral dissertation at the University of Cambridge. His scientific authority grew in 1923 he was presented with Maxwell scholarship. A year later, scientist became deputy director of the laboratory.

New marriage

In 1925, Peter Leonidovich Kapitsa Gostila in Paris at Academician A. N. Krylov, who introduced him to his daughter Anna. Two years later, she became a scientist wife. After the wedding, Peter bought a plot of land on Huntington Road and built a house. Soon his sons will appear here - Andrei and Sergey.

Magnetic world champion

Peter Leonidovich Kapitsa, whose biography is known to all physicists, actively continues the study of the processes of transformation of the nuclei and it comes up with a new installation for generating stronger magnetic fields and receives record results, 6-7 thousand times larger than previous ones. Then Landau dubbed his "magnetic champion of the world."

Return to the USSR

Exploring the properties of metals in magnetic fields, Peter Leonidovich Kapitsa realized the need to change the experimental conditions. Required lower (gel) temperatures. It is in the field of physics of low temperatures, the scientist achieved the greatest success. But research on this topic Peter Leonidovich spent already in his homeland.

Officials of the Soviet government regularly offered him a permanent residence in the USSR. A scientist has been interested in such proposals, but he always put a number of conditions, the main thing from which are visiting west at will. The government did not meet.

In the summer of 1934, Kapitsa and his wife visited the USSR, but when they gathered to leave to England, it turned out that their visas were canceled. Later, Anna was allowed to return to children and take them to Moscow. Rutherford and friends of Peter Alekseevich asked the Soviet government to resolve the capital to return to England to continue work. Everything was in vain.

In 1935, Peter Kapitsa, a brief biography of which is known to all scientists, headed the Institute of Physical Problems at the Academy of Sciences. But before agreeing to this position, he demanded to redeem the equipment on which he worked abroad. By that time, Rutherford had already resigned with the loss of a valuable employee and sold equipment from the laboratory.

Letters to the Government

Kapitsa Peter Leonidovich (photos attached to the article) returned to his homeland with the beginning of Stalinist cleansing. Even in this difficult time, he trooped his views. Knowing that everything in the country solves the highest leadership, he regularly wrote letters, thereby trying to lead a frank and direct conversation. From 1934 to 1983, the scientist sent more than 300 letters to the Kremlin. Thanks to the intervention of Peter Leonidovich, many scientists were informed from prisons and camps.

Further work and opening

Whatever happens around, the physicist always found time for scientific work. On the installation delivered from England, it continued research in the sphere of strong magnetic fields. Employees from Cambridge took part in the experiments. These experiments lasted for several years and were extremely important.

The scientist managed to improve the device's turbine, and it began to more effectively lock the air. Installation was not required to pre-cool helium. It was automatically cooled at expansion in a special Datender. Similar gel installations are now used in almost all countries.

In 1937, after long research in this direction, Peter Leonidovich Kapitsa (the Nobel Prize will be awarded to a scientist after 30 years) committed a fundamental discovery. He opened the phenomenon of helium superfluidity. The main output of the study: at temperatures below 2.19 ° K there is no viscosity. In subsequent years, Peter Leonidovich discovered other abnormal phenomena taking place in helium. For example, the distribution of heat in it. Thanks to these studies, a new direction appeared in science - the physics of quantum liquids.

Refusal to create an atomic bomb

In 1945, the Soviet Union launched a program for the development of nuclear weapons. Peter Kapitsa, the books of which were popular in scientific circles, refused to take part in it. For this, he was removed from scientific activity and planted under house arrest for eight years. Also, the scientist was deprived of the possibility of communicating with their colleagues. But Peter Leonidovich did not lose and to continue research decided to organize a laboratory at home.

It is there, in the handicraft conditions, the electronics of large capacities originated, which became the first stage on the path of subordination of thermonuclear energy. But the scientist could return to full experiments only after his release in 1955. He began with the study of high-temperature plasma. The discoveries made at that time were based on a constant action scheme.

Some of his experiments gave a new impetus to the creators of the authors of science fiction. His thoughts at this point tried to express every writer. Peter Kapitsa also studied the ball lightning and hydrodynamics of thin layers of fluid at that time. But he had a burning interest in his plasma properties and microwave generators.

Departure abroad and Nobel Prize

In 1965, Peter Leonidovich Kapitsa received a government permit for departure to Denmark. There he was awarded the gold medal Niels Bora. The physicist examined local laboratories and read a lecture on high energies. In 1969, scientist together with his wife first visited the United States.

In mid-October 1978, the scientist received a telegram from the Swedish Academy of Sciences. The title was the inscription: "Peter Leonidovich Kapitsa. Nobel Prize". The physicist received it for fundamental studies in the field of low temperatures. This joyful news "overtaken" scientist during rest in Barvikhe near Moscow.

The journalists who brought him interviews asked: "Which of personal scientific achievements do you consider the most significant?" Peter Leonidovich said that his current work is for the scientist. "Personally, I am doing now thermonuclear synthesis," he added.

Lecture Kapitsa in Stockholm at the premium award was unusual. Contrary to the charter, he led the lecture on the topic of low temperatures physics, but about plasma and controlled thermonuclear reaction. Peter Leonidovich explained the cause of this liberty. Scientist said: "It was difficult for me to choose a topic for the Nobel lecture. I received a premium for research in the field of low temperatures, but I have not been engaged in them for more than 30 years. In my institute, of course, continue to explore this topic, but I myself completely switched to the study of the processes necessary for the implementation of thermonuclear reaction. I believe that at present this sphere is more interesting and relevant, as it will help in solving the problem of the impending energy crisis. "

The scientist died in 1984, a little without surviving up to the 90th anniversary. In conclusion, we give its most famous statements.

Quotes

"Freedom of man can be limited in two ways: violence or upbringing conditional reflexes."

"The man is young as long as it does nonsense."

"Talented the one who knows what he wants."

"Genius does not give birth to an era, but are born with an era."

"To become happy, a person needs to imagine himself free."

"The one who has an excerpt is defeated. Only an exposure is not for a couple of hours, but for many years. "

"Do not shine, but emphasize contradictions. They contribute to the development of science. "

"Science should be simple, exciting and cheerful. The same applies to scientists. "

"The deception is the necessary element of the democratic system, since the progressive beginning is held on a small number of people. The most desires of the majority will simply stop progress. "

"Life is like a card game in which you participate not knowing the rules."

So, we start our Nobel Marathon in length of five years. And let's start with one of the three Nobel laureates in 1978 physics. Meet: Peter Leonidovich Kapitsa.

Kapitsa Petr Leonidovich

He died on April 8, 1984 in Moscow, the USSR. Nobel Prize in 1978 Physics (1/2 Prize, the second half was divided among themselves Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson for the opening of relic microwave radiation).

The wording of the Nobel Committee: "For fundamental inventions and discoveries in the field of low temperatures (for His Basic Inventions and Discoveries in the Area of \u200b\u200bLow-Temperature Physics).

Age upon receipt of the premium - 84 years.

In the fall of 1921, a young man appeared in the workshop of the famous painter Boris Kustodiev, who asked him - is it true that he draws portraits of only famous people. And he suggested to write a portrait of those who become famous - themselves and their buddy, Chemist if Semenov. Young people paid off with the artist with a bag of millet and a rooster (perhaps it was exactly that, and not a promise to become famous became decisive in a hungry year), and as for their promise ... By the end of their life, they will have two Nobel Prizes, in physics and chemistry. , four of the highest Soviet titles of the Hero of Socialist Labor and fifteen top orders are the orders of Lenin. State, Leninsky and Stalinist premiums we will simply not be. The name of this bold young man Peter Kapitsa.

The future Nobeliate was the son of the Kronstadov Fittor Leonid Kapitsa and the daughter of the famous Topograph of Jerome St Balnitsky Olga, famous gathers of folklore. In 1914, he entered the ElectoChastic Faculty of St. Petersburg Polytechnic, where he quickly noticed Ioffe and took it to the laboratory. It is impossible to say that in the life of the capital it was easy. He managed to work a military chaffin at the first world, in 1919-1920 the Spaniard claimed his father's life, the first wife, a two-year-old son and a newborn daughter, Ioffe could not send him abroad to continue studying world-class physicists.

Maxim Gorky helped and - Suddenly - Rutherford, who agreed to take him to himself. Later, Rutherford recalled that he himself does not understand why he suddenly agreed to take to himself not known to anyone Russian. True, he did not have to regret. Actually, even his nickname (crocodile) Rutherford is obliged by the capital.

In parallel, a personal life was improved. The second wife of Peter Leonidovich - Anna Alekseevna - was a daughter of the famous mathematics and mechanics, theoretics of shipbuilding academician Alexei Nikolayevich Krylov. Both Sons of Peter Leonidovich and Anna Alekseevna were born in England, but left a noticeable footprint in Russian science: Sergey Petrovich became a physicist, professor of MFTI and 39 years old led the famous transmission "Obvious-Incredible". Andrei Petrovich rose in the scientific hierarchy above the brother, became a famous geographer, an explorer of Antarctica and a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Kapitsa was not bad in England. As a result, it was put on a laboratory specifically for him in Cambridge. The words of the ex-premier of Great British Baldwin, said at the opening of the laboratory: "We are happy that we have the director of the laboratory, Professor Kapitsa works, so brilliantly combining in his face and physics and engineer. We are convinced that under his skillful leadership, a new laboratory will contribute to the knowledge of nature processes. " And Kapitsa brought to the Cambririan world "Tusovka" - seminars, on which anything was discussed. In addition, Kapitsa was an excellent chess player and won the Cambridgeshire Championship Championship in Chess.

Once again, in 1934 everything seemed to collapse. During the visit to Moscow, he was banned from departure to Britain. But he rose, was able to force the government to make the institute and redeem his laboratory from Rutherford. And continue the work for which he will receive the Nobel Prize in the end. It seems to me that a certain melancholy in the "classic British physical tradition" led Kapitsa and to another important act in his life - the creation of the Physical and Technical Faculty of Moscow State University, which turned into the famous Fiztech (MFT) and "Fiztech Systems" - in which students from the very beginning Preparing not teachers, but really existing scientists and engineers. By the way, here the partner of Kapitsa spoke his neighbor on the portrait of Kustodiev Nikolai Semenov.

But back to the Nobel Prize. To say that the Nobel Prize in Physics Kapitsa received it for the opening of superfluidity helium not quite right. The wording of the Nobel Committee states that the premium was obtained for opening and invention in ultra-low temperatures. It is more correct to say that the award was awarded Peter Leonidovich immediately for two achievements.

The first is a fundamental discovery and a filigree experiment on the opening of helium superfluidity. In fact, Kapitsa opened a new state of helium, helium II, in which at temperatures below 2,17k liquid helium behaves like a quantum liquid and its viscosity becomes zero. They say that Niels Bohr nominated her Kapitsa for a prize three times, but unsuccessfully, and Leo Landau received a premium for explaining helium superfluidity long before Kapitsa (1961). It is also worth noting that the Peter Leonidovich Prize received exactly 40 years after the article in Nature about superfluidity. Two other researchers who opened superfluidity independently of Landau, Allen and Maizner, who continued his work in the Mondovskaya laboratory and published the results of their research in the same issue of the journal, simply did not live up to the award.

The second is the invention of the turboTender, the device for liquefying gases, which made it possible to obtain large amounts of helium (the installation of the Kapitsa gave two liters of liquefied gas per hour). True, the importance of this invention is not only in obtaining liquid helium, but also in the possibility of production on an industrial scale is much more important in the war of liquid oxygen. Thus, Kapitsa is one of the few physicists who fully embodied both of the fragment of the Nobel's will, which concerns physics: his award dynamite tycoon requested to give "for discoveries or invention" in the field of physics. Peter Leonidovich committed both.

When I was preparing this article, I got the article P.E. Rubinina about "Nobel week" Kapitsa. It turns out that the traditional Nobel Frak (and the ceremony implies the maximum solemn dress code of White Tie - that is, the trigger and white bow tie) the organizers of the celebration suggested a capital and accompanying it to rent in Stockholm and requested dimensions. However, Petr Leonidovich, remembering his British years, said that the Frak for rent is disgustingly and all the Moscow guests of the Swedish king Fraki sewed in Moscow at the famous tailor pp. Okhlopkov. But the butterfly on the elastic band, which Kapitsa could not stand, had to buy it all. For decades spent in the USSR, Kapitsa forgot how the real butterfly tie is tied. However, all the rest of the difficulties of the ceremony of the capital went easy - and he had fun from the soul, when in the morning on the day of the ceremony he had to participate in the "run" - all the same thing that in the evening, only without the king.

At the time of delivery of the Nobel Prize, the Kapitsa was the most age winner in history, which he did not fail to evoligiously notice in his response word. He honestly said that his first scientific work was published in 65 to the Nobel Prize. Pewyiganil Peter Leonidovich and in his Nobel lecture. By tradition, the nobatelists read lectures on the field of science and the opening of which they are awarded ...

But we will give the floor to the very same way: "The choice of the topic for the Nobel lecture represented some difficulty for me. Usually this lecture is associated with the works for which a premium was awarded. In my case, this premium is related to my research in the field of low temperatures, near the temperature of the helium liquefaction, i.e. Several degrees above absolute zero. According to the will, it happened so that from these works I had been departed for more than 30 years ago, and although in the institute led by me continue to engage in low temperatures, I myself began to study the phenomena occurring in the plasma with the extremely high temperatures that are necessary for the implementation of thermonuclear reactions. These works led us to interesting results that open up new perspectives, and I think that a lecture on this topic is more interest than the work already forgotten in the field of low temperatures. In addition, as the French say, Les Extremes SE Touchent (extremes converge). "

Not sure, but in my opinion, this is almost the only case as far from the Nobel opening of the lecture.

About the capital you can talk long and write multi-volume research. Much has already been written - and about his stay abroad, and about his role in the foundation of the IFTI, and how he defended scientists before Stalin (and Savior), and about his excess of physical problems - the dacha laboratory on Nicolina Mount. Something for the first time published and the author of these lines, something else will scorch. But in one article, just do not fit. On the other hand, who said I will write about Peter Leonidovich only this text? ..

But so far I say goodbye to you until Monday. The next hero of our cycle will be the "neighbor" of Kapitsa by the portrait, a colleague based on the IFTI and the only Russian and Soviet Nobel laureate in Chemistry Nikolai Nikolayevich Semenov.

1. Kapitza P. Viscosity of Liquid Helium Below The L-Point (English) // Nature. - 1938. - Vol. 3558. - № 141. - P. 74.

2. P.e. Rubinin. The main event of the Nobel week P.L. Kapitsa // Academician Peter Leonidovich Kapitsa. Digest of articles. New in life, science and technology. The "Physics" series 7/1979. M, "Knowledge", 1979.

3. P.L. Kapitsa. Plasma and controlled thermonuclear reaction // Academician Peter Leonidovich Kapitsa. Digest of articles. New in life, science and technology. The "Physics" series 7/1979. M, "Knowledge", 1979.

Peter Leonidovich Kapitsa (1894-1984) - Russian physicist and engineer, member of the Royal Society London (1929), Academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1939), Hero of Socialist Labor (1945, 1974). Proceedings in the physics of magnetic phenomena, physics and techniques of low temperatures, quantum physics of condensed state, electronics and plasma physics.

In 1922-1924, Kapitsa developed a pulse method of creating super-high magnetic fields. In 1934 invented and built a car for adiabatic cooling helium. In 1937, he opened a superfluidity of liquid helium. In 1939, he gave a new method of avoiding air with a low-pressure cycle and a highly efficient turbo-detector. Nobel Prize (1978). State Prize of the USSR (1941, 1943). Gold medal named after Lomonosov Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1959). Faraday medals (England, 1943), Franklin (USA, 1944), Niels Bora (Denmark, 1965), Rutherford (England, 1966), Chalning-Onnes (Netherlands, 1968).

Family and years of exercise

Father Peter - Leonid Petrovich Kapitsa, military engineer and builder of forts of the Kronstadt Fortress. Mother, Olga Jeronimovna - Philologist, specialist in the field of children's literature and folklore. Her father, General from infanteria, Ieronim Ivanovich Stebnitsky-Military Geodesist and Cartographer.

In 1912, Peter Kapitsa, after graduation in the Kronstadt of the real school, entered the Electromechanical Faculty of St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute (PPI). Already in the first courses, the physicist Abram Fedorovich Ioffe, who taught physics in the Polytechnic, is drawn to him. He attracts Kapitsa to research in his laboratory. In 1914, Kapitsa goes on the summer holidays in Scotland to explore English. Here he was covered by the First World War. He managed to return to Petrograd only in November 1914. In 1915, Peter voluntarily goes to the West Front by the driver of a sanitary car as part of the Sanitary Council of the Union of Cities (January - May).

In 1916, Peter Kapitsa married the hoping of Kirillovna in the hop. Her father, KK Purse, member of the Central Committee of the Cadet Party, a deputy from the first on the fourth state Dum, was arrested by the CC and Shot in 1919. In the winter of 1919-1920 during the flu epidemic ("Spaniard"), Kapitsa loses his father, son, wife and a newborn daughter for a month. In 1927, Peter the second marriage married Anna Alekseevna Krylova, the daughter of the mechanic and shipbuilder, Academician Alexei Nikolaevich Krylov.

First scientific works

Peter Kapitsa publishes the first works in 1916, being a 3rd PPT student. After the protection of the graduation work in September 1919, he receives the title of an electrician engineer. But in the autumn of 1918, at the invitation of A. F. Ioffe, becomes an employee of the Physical and Technical Department of the X-ray and Radiological Institute (transformed in November 1921 in the Physics and Technology).

In 1920, Kapitsa, together with the scientist Nikolai Nikolayevich Semenov, offers a method for determining the magnetic moment of an atom based on the interaction of an atomic beam with an inhomogeneous magnetic field. This method was then implemented in the well-known experiments of Stern-Gerlacha.

In Cavendish laboratory

On May 22, 1921, Peter Leonidovich Kapitsa arrives in England as a member of the Commission of the Russian Academy of Sciences, aimed at Western European countries to restore scientific relations disturbed by the war and revolution. July 22 begins to work in the Cavendish laboratory, the head of which, Rutherford, agreed to take it on short-term internship. Experimental skills and engineering grip of young Russian physics are producing such a strong impression on Rutherford that he achieves a special subsidy for his work.

From January 1925, Kapitsa - Deputy Director of the Cavendish Laboratory for Magnetic Studies. In 1929 he was elected a real member of the Royal Society of London. In November 1930, the Council of the Royal Society from the funds bought by the Company by the Company and Industrialist L. Monda allocates 15,000 pounds of construction for construction in Cambridge Laboratory for Kapitsa. The solemn discovery of the Mondovskaya Laboratory took place on February 3, 1933.

Within 13 years of successful work in England, Peter Kapitsa remained a loyal citizen of the USSR and did everything possible to help develop science in his country. Thanks to his promotion and influence, many young Soviet physicists have received the opportunity to work for a long time in the Cavendish laboratory. In the "International Monographs in Physics" publishing house of Oxford University, one of the founders and chief editors of which was Kapitsa, the monograph of the physicists-theoristics Georgy Antonovich Gamova and Yakova Ilyich Frenkel, Nikolai Nikolayevich Semenov. But all this did not prevent the USSR authorities in the fall of 1934, when Kapitsa arrived at home to see close and read a number of lectures on his works, cancel his reverse visa. He was called to the Kremlin and reported that henceforth he would have to work in the USSR.

Back to USSR

In December 1934, Politburo adopts a decree on the construction of the Institute of Physical Problems in Moscow. P. Kapitsa agrees to continue its research on physics in Moscow only under the condition that its institution will receive scientific installations and devices created by him in England. Otherwise, he will have to change the area of \u200b\u200bhis research and take up biophysics (the problem of muscular contractions), which he has long been interested. He addresses to the Russian physiologist Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, and he agrees to provide him with a place at his institute. In August 1935, Politburo again considers the question of the capital at his meeting and allocates 30,000 pounds sterling for the acquisition of the equipment of his Cambridge laboratory. In December 1935, this equipment began to flow to Moscow.

Famous seminar

In 1937, the Physical Seminar Kapitsa - "The Head" began to work in the IFP, as his physicists began to call, when he turns into Moscow and even the All-Union.

Work on defense

During the war, Kapitsa is working on the introduction of oxygen plants developed by them. According to his proposal, on May 8, 1943, the State Committee for Oxygen under Oxygen is created by the USSR SCC, Peter Kapitsa is prescribed by the head of the Department of Chief Sloda.

Conflict with authorities

On August 20, 1945, a special committee is being created for the SCC of the USSR, which is guided by the management of work on the creation of the Soviet atomic bomb. Kapitsa - a member of this committee. However, work in the special commuting is it. In particular, because we are talking about creating "weapons of destruction and murder" (words from his letter Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev). Taking advantage of the conflict with the Lavrentation of Pavlovich Beria, who headed the atomic project, Kapitsa asks to free it from this work. As a result - for many years of opals. In August 1946, he is expelled from the Deputy School and from the institute created by him.

Nikolina Mount

At his dacha, on Nikolina Mountain, Peter Kapitsa paint a small home laboratory in the guardhouse. In this "Hut-laboratory", as he called her, Kapitsa conducts research on mechanics and hydrodynamics, and then refers to the electronics of large capacities and plasma physics.

When in 1947, the physico-technical faculty was created in Moscow State University, one of whose founders and organizers was Kapitsa, he becomes the head of the department of general physics of the FTF and in September it starts reading the course of lectures. (In 1951, the Moscow Physico-Technical Institute was created on the basis of this faculty). At the end of December 1949, P. Kapitsa evades participation in solemn meetings dedicated to the 70th anniversary of Stalin, which was perceived by the authorities as a step demonstrative, and he immediately exempt from work in Moscow State University.

Return to work at the Academy

After the death of Stalin and the arrest of Beria, the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences adopts a resolution "On the Measures of Assistance to Academician P. L. Kapitsa in their works." The physical laboratory of the USSR Academy of Sciences of the USSR Academy of Sciences is created on the basis of the Nikogor home laboratory, and the Kapitsa is appointed by its head.

On January 28, 1955, Kapitsa again becomes director of the Institute of Physical Problems (from 1990 this institute has its name). On June 3, 1955, he was appointed chief editor of the country's leading physical journal - "Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Physics". Since 1956, Kapitsa heads the Department of Physics and Technology of Low Temperatures of MFT. In 1957-1984 - Member of the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

World Recognition Peter Kapitsa

In 1929, Kapitsa is elected by a valid member of the Royal Society London and a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, in 1939 - Academician. In 1941 and 1943, he was awarded to the State Prize, in 1945 he receives the title of the Hero of Socialist Labor, in 1974 he was awarded the second gold medal "Sickle and Hammer". In 1978, he receives the Nobel Prize "For fundamental invention and discoveries in the field of physics of low temperatures".

Contribution to physics in science and technology

Peter Leonidovich Kapitsa made a significant contribution to the development of magnetic phenomena physics, physics and technology of low temperatures, quantum physics of condensed state, electronics and plasma physics. In 1922, he first placed the Wilson Camera into a strong magnetic field and observed the curvature of the alpha particles ((A-particle - the core of the helium atom containing 2 proton and 2 neutrons). This work was preceded by an extensive cycle of studies Kapitsa according to the methods of creating super-ray magnetic fields. and research behavior in them. In these works, a pulsed method of creating a magnetic field was developed for the first time by closing a powerful alternator and a number of fundamental results were obtained in the field of metal physics (linear resistance growth in large fields, resistance saturation). Fields obtained by Kapitsa, largest And duration for decades were recorded.

The need for conducting research on metals physics at low temperatures led P. Kapitsa to the creation of new methods for producing low temperatures. In 1934, he invented an aliens for adiabatic cooling helium. This method of cooling helium now underlies the basis of all modern techniques for producing low temperatures near the absolute zero - helium temperatures. At the same time, the use of the adiabatic cooling method to the air led to the development of Kapitsa in the 1936-1938 of the new method of avoiding air using a low-pressure cycle and the highly efficient turbo-detector invented. Low pressure air separation settings are now working around the world, producing more than 150 million tons of oxygen per year. Turbowetander Kapitsa with efficiency 86-92% is used not only in them, but also in many other cryogenic systems.

In 1937, after a series of subtle experiments, Peter Kapitsa opens helium superfluidity. It showed that the viscosity of the liquid helium flowing through thin slots at temperatures below 2.19 to so many times less than the viscosity of any low-grade fluid that it seems to be zero. Therefore, Kapitsa called such a state of helium with superfluid. This discovery marked the beginning of the development of a completely new in physics of the direction - physics of a condensed state. To explain it, I had to introduce new quantum representations - the so-called elementary excitations, or quasiparticles.

Research Kapitsa on applied electrodynamics, which he began in the late 1940s. On the Nicolina Mountain, led to the invention of new devices for the generation of ultrahigh-frequency oscillations of high constant power. These generators are nigotrons - were then used to create high pressure high-temperature plasma.

The appearance of a scientist and man

In the capital from the younger years, the physicist, engineer and master "Golden Hands" existed in one person. By this, he conquered Rutherford in the first year of work in Cambridge. His teacher A. F. Ioffe In the Capita's view compiled by him to election to the Correspondent Members of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, which then signed other scientists, in 1929, wrote: "Peter Leonidovich Kapitsa combining a genius experimenter, an excellent theorist and a brilliant engineer, - One of the brightest figures in modern physics. "

Freights are one of the most characteristic traits of Kapitsa-scientist and citizen. After the autumn of 1934 the USSR authorities did not allow him to return to Cambridge, he realized that in a totalitarian state in which he had to work, everything solves the top leadership of the country. With this leadership, he began to lead a straight and frank conversation. And here he followed the covenant of the same fearless Ivan Pavlova, who in December 1934 told him: "After all, I am only one here, I think, but I will die, you should do it, because it is so necessary for our homeland" (from the letter Kapitsa Wife dated December 4, 1934).

From 1934 to 1983, Peter Kapitsa wrote more than 300 letters in the Kremlin. Of them, Iosif Visarionovich Stalin - 50, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov - 71, Georgy Maximilianovich Malenkov - 63, Nikita Khrushchev - 26. Thanks to his intervention, the physicists of the theoreticals Vladimir Alexandrovich Fock, Lev Davidovich, were rescued from death in prisons and camps during Stalin's Terror Landau and Ivan Vasilyevich Obreimov. In recent years of life, he defended the physics of Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov and Yu. F. Orlova.

Kapitsa was a wonderful organizer of science. At the heart of the success of his organizational activity lay a simple principle, which he formulated and recorded on a separate sheet of paper: "To manage - it means not to interfere with good people work."

Even at the most gloomy times of Soviet insulance, Kapitsa always defended the principles of internationalism in science. From his letter Molotov dated May 7, 1935: "I firmly believe in the international science and I believe that this science should be beyond all political passions and the struggle, no matter how it would be sought to involve it. And I believe that the scientific work that I did all my life is the property of all mankind, wherever I have created it

physicist, Academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1939). Founder and director of IFP Academy of Sciences of the USSR. In 1945, a member of the Special Committee and the Teeth Special Committee of the PSU at the CF of the USSR. Double Hero of Socialist Labor (1945, 1974). Laureate of the Nobel Prize in Physics (1978), twice the winner of the USSR State Prize (1941, 1943).

Petr Leonidovich Kapitsa was born on June 26 (July 9) of 1894 in the port and naval fortress Kronstadt in the noble family. His father - Leonid Kapitsa - Military Engineer, Major General of the Russian Army, Mother - Lecturer, Russian Folklore Researcher.

In 1905, he entered the gymnasium. A year later, due to weak progress in Latin, it goes into the Kronstadt Real School. In 1914, P.L. Kapitsa arrived at the Electromechanical Faculty of St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute. There, his supervisor became an outstanding physicist, who noted the ability of a student to physics and playing an outstanding role in its formation as a scientist. In 1916, the first scientific work P.L. were published in the "journal of Russian Physico-Chemical Society". Kapitsa "Inertia of electrons in ampere molecular currents" and "Preparation of Vollaston threads". At the beginning of 1915 P.L. Kapitsa for several months was at the front of the First World War, and, working as a driver of a sanitary car, drove off the wounded on the Polish Front.

Because of the turbulent revolutionary events of P.L. Kapitsa graduated from the Polytechnic Institute only in 1919. From 1918 to 1921 - A teacher at the Petrograd Polytechnic Institute, at the same time he worked as a researcher at the Department of Physics of this Institute. In 1919-1920 From the epidemic "Spaniard" died father and wife Kapitsa, son aged 1.5 years and a newborn daughter of three days from the family. In the same 1920, P.L. Kapitsa and the future world-famous physicist and the Nobel laureate offer a method for determining the magnetic moment of an atom based on the interaction of an atomic beam with an inhomogeneous magnetic field. This scientific work of Kapitsa became the first noticeable experience in the field of atomic physics.

It believed that promising young physics it was necessary to continue studying in an authoritative foreign scientific school, but it was not possible to organize the departure abroad for a long time. Thanks to the intervention of Maxim Gorky in 1921, Kapitsa, as part of a special commission, sent to a scientific business trip to England. Kapitsa made enrollment for internship in the Cavendish laboratory of the Great Physics of Ernst Rutherford in Cambridge. At first the relationship between Rutherford and Kapitsa was not easy, but gradually the Soviet physics managed to conquer and his trust and soon they became very close friends. The research produced by him in this laboratory was brought by P.L. Kapitsa world glory. In 1923, he became Dr. Cambridge University, in 1925 - Assistant Director for Magnetic Studies of the Cavendish Laboratory, in 1926 - Director of the magnetic laboratory created by him as part of the Cavendish laboratory. In 1928, they opened the law of linear, magnitude of the magnetic field, the increase in the electrical resistivity of metals (the law of Kapitsa).

For these and other scientific achievements in 1929 by P.L. Kapitsa was elected a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences and in the same year - a valid member of the Royal Society of London. In April 1934, they were for the first time in the world, he received liquid helium on the same installation created by him. This discovery gave a powerful impetus to research in low-temperatures physics.

Until 1934 P.L. Kapitsa with his family lived in England and regularly came to the USSR to rest and see his relatives. The Government of the USSR has several times offered him to stay in his homeland, but the scientist invariably refused. In 1934, during one of the arrival in the USSR for the teaching and advisory work P.L. Kapitsa was detained in the USSR (he was refused to leave for departure). The reason was the fear of the Soviet leadership, which he will remain abroad, and the desire to continue his scientific work in the USSR. Kapitsa was originally categorically against this decision, since he had a magnificent scientific base in England and wanted to continue research there. In 1934, the Institute of Physical Problems of the USSR Academy of Sciences was created by the decision of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, and Kapitsa was temporarily appointed by his first director (in 1935 approved in this position at the session of the USSR Academy of Sciences). He was proposed to create a powerful scientific center in the USSR, for which, with the assistance of the Soviet government, he delivered all the equipment of his laboratory from England.

In his letters of the late 1930s P.L. Kapitsa recognized that the possibilities for work in the USSR are inferior to the fact that they were abroad - it even despite the fact that he received a scientific institution at his disposal and practically did not experience problems with financing. The problems that were solved in England in England were mocked in Bureaucratism. The sharp statements of the scientist and the exceptional conditions created by the authorities did not contribute to the establishment of mutual understanding with colleagues in an academic environment.

From 1936 to 1938 P.L. Kapitsa developed a method of avoiding air using a low-pressure cycle and a highly efficient turbo modelder, which predetermined the development worldwide modern large air separation settings for oxygen, nitrogen and inert gases. In 1940, he performs a new fundamental scientific discovery - a superfluidity of liquid helium (when moving heat from a solid to liquid helium on the interface, a temperature leap occurs, which called the heap of the Kapitsa; the magnitude of this jump grows sharply with a decrease in temperature).

In January 1939, P.L. Kapitsa was elected a valid member of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

During the Great Patriotic War, together with the Institute of Physical Problems, P.L. Kapitsa evacuated to Kazan and returned to Moscow in August 1943. In 1941-1945 He consisted of a member of the Scientific and Technical Council under the authorized State Committee for Defense of the USSR. In 1942, P.L. Kapitsa developed a plant for the production of liquid oxygen, on the basis of which in 1943 at the Institute of Physical Problems was commissioned by an experienced factory.

In May 1943, by Resolution of the State Committee for Defense of the USSR Academician P.L. Kapitsa was appointed head of the main administration of the oxygen industry in the USSR SCC (chiefcase).

In January 1945, a plant for the production of liquid oxygen TC-2000 was commissioned in a 40 tons of liquid oxygen in the boutique (almost 20% of the total liquid oxygen production in the USSR).

For the successful scientific development of a new turbine method for obtaining oxygen and for the creation of a powerful turbo acid plant for the production of liquid oxygen by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated April 30, 1945, Peter Leonidovich Kapitsa was awarded the title Hero of Socialist Labor with the presentation of the Order of Lenin and the Gold Medal "Sickle and Hammer".

Naturally, a world-famous physicist was one of the first to be brought to work on the USSR atomic project. August 20, 1945 I.V. Stalin signs the decision to establish the management body under uranium - the Special Committee at the USSR GKO. The same resolution for the immediate management of research ... and industrial enterprises for the use of uranium intra-industrial energy and the production of atomic bombs during the Special Committee, a technical council of 10 people were created, which included P.L. Kapitsa. In the TechSet, he headed the Commission for Heavy Water.

On November 13, 1945, the technical council of the Special Committee was heard by the question: "V. On the organization of research work on the use of atomic energy for peaceful purposes (instructions of the Special Committee). At the meeting it was decided: to charge TT. Kapitsa P.L. (convocation), Kurchatov I.V., Pervukhin MG Several times to prepare and make a proposal for the organization (scope, program and participants) of research work on the use of intra-native energy for peaceful purposes ... " (Due to a number of reasons, this order was not fulfilled. According to the certificate of the progress of the instructions of the TS P.L. Kapitsa should have made proposals for the use of production waste for peaceful purposes).

However, on November 25, 1945, P.L. Kapitsa directs the letter I.V. Stalin about the organization of work on the problem of the atomic bomb and with a request for its release from work in the Special Committee and Technical Council.

"Comrade Stalin, almost four months I meet and actively take part in the work of a special committee and technical council on the atomic bomb (A.B.).

In this letter, I decided in detail you report my considerations about the organization of this work with us and also ask you to release me once again from participating in it.

In the organization of work on AB, it seems to me that there is a lot of abnormal. In any case, what is being done now is not the shortest and cheapest path to its creation.

The task is to be the following: America, spending $ 2 billion, was done by A.B., which is now the strongest weapon of war and destruction. If we use the well-known stocks of thorium and uranium, they would have enough to destroy all the globe on the dry surface of the globe.

But it is stupid and ridiculous to think that its destructive power will be the main possibility of using atomic energy. Its role in culture will undoubtedly be at least oil, coal and other sources of energy, and its energy reserves in the earth's crust is greater and it has the unusual advantage that the same energy is concentrated ten million times less weight than in ordinary flammable. Gram of uranium or thorium is equivalent, approximately 10 tons of coal. The gram of uranium is a piece of a silver griven, and 10 tons are carbon carle of almost a whole platform.

Secret AB We are unknown. The secret to key issues is very carefully guarded and is the most important state secret of America alone. While the information received is insufficient to create A.B., often give them to us undoubtedly, to knock down from the right path.

To implement AB, the Americans spent $ 2 billion, this, about 30 billion rubles on our industrial products. Almost all this should be assigned to construction and mechanical engineering. During the reconstruction and in 2-3 years it is unlikely to raise. So quickly go through the American way we can not, but if we go, it will still be lagging behind ...

Life showed that it could only make yourself obey themselves as a head-head chapter at SNK, and not as a head-scholar scientist. Our cultural education is still not enough to put Kapitsa-scientist above Kapitsa-Chief. Even such a friend like Beria, this does not understand. This is happening and now when solving the problem of A.B. Opinions of scientists are often taken with skepticism and behind their backs are made in their own way.

The special committee must teach comrades to believe scientists, and scientists, in turn, will force more to feel responsible, but this is not yet.

This can only be done if it is imposed of responsibility on scientists and comrades from a special committee to the same extent. And this is possible only when the situation of science and scientist will be taken by all as the main force, and not a utility, as it is now ...

Comrades Beria, Malenkov, Voznesensky behave in a special committee, like superhighs. In particular Beria ...

I would like to com. Beria met this letter, because it is not a denunciation, but useful criticism. I myself would tell him everything, but see him very troublesome. "

I.V. Stalin decided to derive P.L. Kapitsa from the Committee, but this conflict with L.P. Beria was expensive by a scientist: in 1946 he was removed from the head of the head of the Deputy Chisselor at the Council of Ministers of the USSR and from the post of Director of the Institute of Physical Problems of the USSR Academy of Sciences. The only consolation was the fact that he was not arrested.

Since the cap was devoid of admission to secret developments, and almost all the leading scientific and research institutions of the USSR were brought to work on the creation of atomic weapons, he remained without work. In order not to sit idle, P.L. Kapitsa created a home laboratory on the cottage Moscow region, where he was engaged in the problems of mechanics, hydrodynamics, electronics of large capacities and plasma physics.

In 1941-1949 He became a professor and the head of the Department of General Physics of the Physics and Technology Faculty of Moscow State University, but in January 1950 for the demonstrative refusal to attend solemn events in honor of the 70th anniversary of I.V. Stalin fired from there. In the summer of 1950 P.L. Kapitsa enrolled the Senior Researcher at the Institute of Crystallography of the USSR Academy of Sciences, at the same time he continued research in his laboratory.

In the summer of 1953, after arrest, Kapitsa reported on his personal developments and the results obtained in the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences. It was decided to continue research and in August 1953 P.L. Kapitsa is appointed by the director created at the same physical laboratory of the USSR Academy of Sciences. In 1955, he was reappointed by the director of the Institute of Physical Problems of the USSR Academy of Sciences (headed him until the end of life), as well as the editor-in-chief of the "Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Physics". In these posts, academician worked until the end of life.

At the same time since 1956, P.L. Kapitsa headed the Department of Physics and Technology of Low Temperatures and was the Chairman of the Coordination Council of the Moscow Physics and Technology Institute. Leaded fundamental works in the field of physics of low temperatures, strong magnetic fields, electronics of large capacities, plasma physics. The author of the fundamental scientific papers on this topic, many times published in the USSR and many countries of the world.

For outstanding achievements in the field of physics, many years of scientific and teaching activities by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of July 8, 1974, Peter Leonidovich Kapitsa was awarded the second gold medal "Sickle and Hammer" with the presentation of Lenin Order.

In recent years, P.L. Kapitsa became interested in a controlled by thermonuclear reaction. In 1978, the Academician Peter Leonidovich Kapitsa was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics "For fundamental inventions and discoveries in the field of physics of low temperatures". The news of the award of the Academic Award met during the rest in the sanatorium of Barvikha. The Nobel speech of Kapitsa, contrary to tradition, dedicated not to those who were noted by the award, but to modern research. Kapitsa referred to the fact that he was departed from questions in the field of low-temperatures physics about 30 years ago and is now passionate about other ideas. The Nobel speech of the laureate was called "plasma and controlled thermonuclear reaction".

In difficult periods of the history of the birthplace of P.L. Kapitsa always showed civil courage and principle. So, during the period of mass repressions of the late 1930s, he achieved liberation under the personal guarantee of future academics and world famous scientists V.A. Fock and. In the 1950s, he actively opposed anti-scientific activities etc. Lysenko, entered into a conflict with supported by the Last N.S. Khrushchev. In the 1970s, P.L. Kapitsa refused to sign a letter with the condemnation of academician, at the same time he acted and calls to take measures to improve the safety of nuclear power plants (10 years before the Chernobyl accident).

P.L. Kapitsa - Laureate of the two Stalinist premiums I degree (1941 - for the development of a turbo-degree to obtain low temperatures and its use to avoid air, 1943 - for the opening and study of the phenomenon of superfluidity of liquid helium). Big Gold Medal of the USSR Academy of Sciences named after M.V. Lomonosov (1959).

The scientist received world recognition in life, being elected a member of many academies and scientific societies. In particular, he was elected a member of the International Academy of Astronautics (1964), the International Academy of Science History (1971), a foreign member of the US National Academy (1946), Polish Academy of Sciences (1962), the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences ( 1966), Dutch Royal Academy of Sciences (1969), Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (Yugoslavia, 1971), Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences (1980), Physical Society of Great Britain (1932), Member of the American Academy of Arts and sciences in Boston (USA, 1968), US physical society (1937) and others. P.L. Kapitsa - Honorary Dr. 10 universities, a valid member of 6 scientific institutions.

P.L. Kapitsa was awarded the six orders of Lenin (1943, 1944, 1945, 1964, 1971, 1974), the Order of the Labor Red Banner (1954), medals, the Order "Partisan Star" (Yugoslavia , 1964).

P.L. Kapitsa died on April 8, 1984. He was buried in Moscow at the Novodevichy Cemetery.

P.L. The capital is installed a bronze bust in the Kronstadt Soviet Park. In the same place, in Kronstadt, on the facade of the school building number 425 on Uritsky Street, house number 7/1, a memorial plaque from the Red Granite was established, on which: "In this building, the former real school, in 1907-1912 he studied Peter Leonidovich Kapitsa, outstanding Soviet physicist, academician, twice Hero of Socialist Labor, Nobel Prize laureate. Memorial boards are also installed in St. Petersburg on the building of the Polytechnic University and in Moscow on the building of the Institute of Physical Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences in which he worked. Russian Academy of Sciences established the Gold Medal named after P.L. Kapitsa (1994).

Literature

Kapitsa, Tamm, Semenov: in essays and letters.

M.: Vagribus, Nature, 1998. - 575 p., Il.