Isaak Kikoin

Isaak Kikoin
Исаак Кикоин
Bust of Isaak Kikoin in Pskov
Born
Isaak Kushelevich Kikoin

(1908-03-28)March 28, 1908
Malye Zhagory, Shavel'skii Uyezd, Kovno Governorate, Russian Empire
Present-day, Žagarė in Lithuania)
DiedDecember 28, 1984(1984-12-28) (aged 76)
Moscow, Russia in Soviet Union
Resting place
Novodevichy Cemetery
CitizenshipUSSR
Alma materLeningrad Polytechnic Institute
Known forSoviet atomic bomb project
Scientific career
FieldsPhysics
WorkplacesLaboratory No. 2
Ural Polytechnic Institute
Leningrad Polytechnic Institute
Thesis Photomagnetism  (1936)

Isaak Konstantinovich (Kushelevich) Kikoin (Russian: Исаа́к Константи́нович (Ку́шелевич) Кико́ин; 28 March 1908 – 28 December 1984) was a Soviet physicist and an author of physics textbooks in Russian language who played an important role in the Soviet nuclear weapons program.: 27 [1]

Biography

Kikoin was born in the town of Novye Zhagory (now Žagarė in Lithuania), Russian Empire,[2] in a Lithuanian Jewish family; his parents, Kushel Isaakovich and Bunya Israilevna, were school teachers.[3][4] During World War I, his family was relocated deeper into Russia, and Kikoin enrolled in a gymnazium in Pskov. Upon graduation, he went on to study physics at the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute in 1925.[3]

In 1930-31, he earned his specialist degree in physics and successfully defended his thesis on Photomagnetism for his Doktor Nauk in 1936.[3] He taught physics at the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute, and his early work investigated the electrical conductivity and magnetic attractions in metals until 1938.[3] From 1938 till 1944, he taught physics at the Ural Polytechnic Institute and found a landmine project with the Red Army that would demagnetize, and detonate the German army's tanks.: 412 [5] It was Kurchatov who brought Kikoin in Soviet program of nuclear weapons and assigned him the Uranium enrichment project at this Laboratory No. 2 using the gaseous diffusion method took place under Kikoin while Lev Artsimovich worked on electromagnetic isotope separation.: 78 [6] During the Russian Alsos, he went to Germany to locate German knowledge that would prove useful in Soviet programs.: 24 [7]

He remained associate with Soviet program of nuclear weapons, and was an academician of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union and was awarded the Stalin Prize a total of four times (1942, 1949, 1951, 1953), the Lenin Prize in 1959, and the USSR State Prize in 1967 and 1980. Kikoin was named a Hero of Socialist Labour (1951); he also won the Kurchatov Medal (1971).[8][9] Kikoin was with Igor Kurchatov as one of the founders of the Kurchatov Atomic Energy Institute, which developed the first Soviet nuclear reactor in 1946. This was the lead-in to the Soviet atomic bomb project with the first atomic bomb test taking place in 1949.

In 1970, Kikoin (jointly with Andrey Kolmogorov) started issuing Kvant magazine, a popular science magazine in physics and mathematics for school students and teachers.[9] He authored texts on molecular physics in 1978, and it has been translated in Persian language.[10]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Josephson, Paul (20 October 2022). Nuclear Russia: The Atom in Russian Politics and Culture. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-350-27257-6. Retrieved 26 November 2022.
  2. ↑ "БиблиоМ » КИКОИН Исаак Константинович (Кушеэлевич)". bibliom-ru.translate.goog. Retrieved 26 November 2022.
  3. 1 2 3 4 "Кикоин Исаак Константинович | jewmil.com". www.jewmil.com (in Russian). Retrieved 26 November 2022.
  4. ↑ "Памятные даты Пскова". Archived from the original on 2019-02-14. Retrieved 2019-02-13.
  5. ↑ Pondrom, Lee G. (25 July 2018). Soviet Atomic Project, The: How The Soviet Union Obtained The Atomic Bomb. World Scientific. ISBN 978-981-323-557-1. Retrieved 27 November 2022.
  6. ↑ Riehl, Nikolaus; Seitz, Frederick (1996). Stalin's Captive: Nikolaus Riehl and the Soviet Race for the Bomb. Chemical Heritage Foundation. ISBN 978-0-8412-3310-2.
  7. ↑ Hargittai, Istvan; Hargittai, Magdolna (20 August 2019). Science In Moscow: Memorials Of A Research Empire. World Scientific. ISBN 978-981-12-0346-6. Retrieved 27 November 2022.
  8. ↑ Kikoin Isaac K. WarHeroes Biography. Accessed 2019-08-29.
  9. 1 2 Academician I.K. Kikoin: On the Centenary of His Birth. Herald of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 2008, Vol. 78, No. 1, pp. 91–98.
  10. ↑ Física Molecular by Isaak Kikoin; Abram Kikoin: Good Hardcover (1971) 1st Edition. | Biblioteca de Babel. Retrieved 27 November 2022.
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