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Pavel Cherenkov was born on July 28, 1904. physicist, Nobel Prize laureate in 1958.
Private bussiness
Pavel Alekseevich Cherenkov (1904—1990) born in the village of Novaya Chigla, Voronezh province, into a family of peasants. After graduating from parochial school, in the midst of Civil War, worked as a laborer and clerk. Then he completed his studies at a gymnasium school, transferred to the village from the district Bobrov.
In 1924 he entered the physics and mathematics department of Voronezh University. The scholarship was small, the future scientist earned money by giving private lessons, unloading wagons, and during the holidays, when he came home, he worked as an accountant at a mill.
After graduating from the university in 1928, he was sent as a teacher to the Kozlov school (now Michurinsk). In 1930 he met his future wife Maria Putintseva. Their daughter, physicist Elena Cherenkova, wrote about this period: “Here [in Kozlov] they met, here their future journey together began. Beautiful, smart, well-read, hardworking, cheerful, believing in the broad horizons opening up to the country and youth. In the summer, they traveled around Crimea on a tour package. After reading the advertisement in the newspaper, Pavel wrote an application for admission to graduate school at the Leningrad Institute of Physics and Mathematics of the Academy of Sciences, passed an interview and was accepted.”
After enrolling in graduate school in the fall of 1930, the scientist began to live in Leningrad. Maria was able to come to him after the end of the trial of her father, a professor-philologist at Voronezh University, who in November 1930 was arrested in the “case of local historians” and sentenced to five years in the camps. In April 1931, the Cherenkovs registered their marriage.
In 1932, the first-born Alexei was born into the family, and four years later, already in Moscow, a daughter, Elena, appeared.
In graduate school, Cherenkov’s scientific advisor was the director of the Leningrad Institute of Physics and Mathematics, Sergei Vavilov. The young scientist was given a seemingly simple and unattractive topic on studying the luminescence of uranyl salts.
The observation of this phenomenon was hampered by an additional background glow, which could not be eliminated. Cherenkov's first publication about a new type of radiation was published in 1934. In 1937, Ilya Frank and Igor Tamm, on the advice of Vavilov, who gave the radiation the primary justification, were able to describe its radiation on the basis of classical electrodynamics.
At first, Cherenkov’s article was not accepted in the journal Nature. It was published by The Physical Review. In 1938, scientists D. W. Collins and V. D. Reiling were able to repeat Cherenkov’s experiment, and they were the first to use the term Cherenkov radiation.
In the fall of 1958, Cherenkov, together with Frank and Tamm, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics. The scientist’s daughter recalled that his wife Soviet ambassador in Sweden “I told my mother in detail about the clothing requirements. For men - tailcoats, for women - dresses of a certain length, always with a neckline, only natural jewelry, no fur, even the most expensive ones. Dresses should not be repeated at any reception. She told me about the manner of behavior depending on the title of the person in question.”
Cherenkov’s wife was the only one of his relatives who was allowed to go with Soviet scientists to the award ceremony. She told the children about what she saw: “The Nobel celebrations take place in the days before Christmas. The store windows looked especially festive. Now it is difficult for many to imagine how monotonous and wretched our windows were in 1958. Mom assessed the life she saw in Sweden like this: “Everything is like ours before the revolution.”
Since 1935, Cherenkov was an employee of the Physical Institute. P. N. Lebedeva (FIAN), since 1948 - professor at the Moscow Energy Institute, since 1951 - professor at the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute (MEPhI). He created and for many years permanently headed the Department of High Energy Physics at the FIAN branch in Troitsk near Moscow.
Corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences since 1964, full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences since 1970.
What is he famous for?
He discovered the “Vavilov-Cherenkov effect” - a glow caused in a transparent medium by charged particles that move at a speed exceeding the speed of light in this medium. This radiation is widely used to detect relativistic particles and determine their velocities.
Cherenkov - Hero of Socialist Labor (1984), laureate of two Stalin Prizes (1946, 1952) and the USSR State Prize (1977). One of the few Russian scientists to receive the Nobel Prize in Physics.
What you need to know
Cherenkov's family - both his parents and his wife's parents - were affected by Stalin's repressions. In 1932, his father-in-law, Professor Alexei Putintsev, was released from the camp. In subsequent years, he and his wife were forced to wander around the country in search of work and housing. He died in 1937. In the same year, his brother, priest Mikhail Putintsev, was arrested.
Direct speech:
About the “Cherenkov glow” (B.B. Govorkov, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences):“I was lucky enough to work in Cherenkov’s laboratory all my life. Therefore, many details of the research that led to the discovery of the Cherenkov effect became known to me from the lips of Pavel Alekseevich himself. So, to my question how he managed to see the extremely weak new radiation for the first time, he replied that he first observed the new glow while conducting background experiments. Vavilov set before him, then a graduate student, the task of studying the luminescence of solutions of uranyl salts when irradiated with gamma rays from a radioactive radium source. Carrying out measurements of the luminescence of the mentioned solutions, Cherenkov decided to see whether the walls of the glass cup and the pure solvent itself affected the luminescence. sulfuric acid. Pavel Alekseevich said that when he noticed the glow of a glass of pure solvent, he was very surprised. Then he headed to the warehouse of the Physical Institute. P. N. Lebedev (FIAN) and collected all the transparent liquids there. Returning to the laboratory, he repeated the experiments on observing the glow with others pure substances. All the liquids glowed! And all with approximately equal intensity (±15%).
Attempts to extinguish the glow using the methods developed by Vavilov and his students (using extinguishing additives, heating liquids, etc.) were unsuccessful - all the liquids glowed and that’s it! At the next meeting with his supervisor, Pavel Alekseevich spoke in detail about the unexpected result of background measurements. As a result of the discussion, new plans and ideas emerged for conducting experiments proving the non-luminescent nature of radiation, in particular, elucidating the role of electrons in producing new radiation.”
On the modesty of a scientist (same author):“During one of the meetings of the above-mentioned conference (International Conference on Instrumentation in High Energy Physics, held in 1970 in Dubna), where his name was mentioned in every report: Cherenkov counters, Cherenkov spectrometers, Vavilov-Cherenkov radiation, etc. , Pavel Alekseevich leaned towards me and quietly said in my ear:
“Boris Borisovich, you know, it always seems to me that all this does not apply to me. That somewhere, once upon a time, there lived another Cherenkov, and that’s what everyone is talking about.”
The scientist’s daughter Elena Cherenkova about her father’s activities after receiving the Nobel Prize:“In the subsequent years after 1958, his problems were scientific and scientific-organizational. From work on creating accelerators elementary particles he was distracted by numerous trips: to scientific conferences, meetings of a scientific and organizational nature, on the affairs of the Peace Committee, of an anniversary nature. Particularly interesting for the pope were the anniversary celebrations dedicated to the 350th anniversary of the publication of Galileo’s works “Dialogues on the two most important systems of the world - Ptolemaic and Copernican” and the 150th anniversary of the birth of Nobel.”
5 facts about Pavel Cherenkov:
- I conducted my first “scientific experiment” in childhood: I touched a frosty doorknob with my tongue.
- In his mature years, he was interested in art and sports. “My father’s infinitely inquisitive nature attracted him to hikes, attracted him to reading a wide variety of books, last years- to painting and music. He always preferred leisure. In winter - skiing, in summer - tennis and walking. Tennis was his great hobby. He loved to participate in competitions, loved to string rackets,” recalled his daughter Elena Cherenkova.
- He laid the foundation for Trinity tennis and built the first tennis court in this town near Moscow.
- He loved to shoot with a camera and print his own pictures. According to his daughter, “he left a huge number of photographs (unfortunately, there are few images of himself in them).”
- 1958 became one of the most fruitful years in the international recognition of the USSR. Along with Cherenkov, Frank and Tamm, who received the Nobel Prize in Physics, Boris Pasternak was awarded the same award in literature. However, the Soviet leadership forced him to refuse the award.
Materials about Pavel Cherenkov:
Pavel Alekseevich Cherenkov(-) - Soviet physicist. Hero of Socialist Labor (). Winner of two Stalin Prizes (,) and the USSR State Prize (). Winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics (). Member of the CPSU(b) since 1946.
Biography
Cherenkov spent the last 28 years of his life in a metropolitan apartment in the area of Leninsky Prospekt, where various institutes of the Academy of Sciences are located, including the Lebedev Physical Institute.
Pavel Alekseevich Cherenkov died on January 6, 1990 from obstructive jaundice. He was buried in Moscow at the Novodevichy Cemetery (site No. 10).
Scientific activity
Cherenkov's main works are devoted to physical optics, nuclear physics, and high-energy particle physics. In 1934, he discovered a specific blue glow of transparent liquids when irradiated with fast charged particles. Showed the difference between this type of radiation and fluorescence. In 1936, he established its main property - the directionality of radiation, the formation of a light cone, the axis of which coincides with the trajectory of the particle. Theoretical basis Cherenkov radiation was developed in 1937 by I. E. Tamm and I. M. Frank.
Awards and prizes
- Hero of Socialist Labor (07/27/1984)
- three Orders of Lenin (07/28/1964; 07/26/1974; 07/27/1984);
- two Orders of the Red Banner of Labor (06/10/1945; 12/08/1951)
- Order of the Badge of Honor (03/27/1954)
- Medal "For Valiant Labor in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945" (1946);
- Medal “For Valiant Labor. In commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of V.I. Lenin" (1970);
- anniversary medal "Thirty years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945" (1975);
- Jubilee medal "Forty years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945" (1985);
- Gold medal “For services to science and to humanity” (Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, 1981).
- Stalin Prize of the first degree () - for the discovery and study of the emission of electrons when they move in matter at superluminal speed, the results of which are summarized and published in the “Proceedings of the Lebedev Physical Institute” (1944)
- USSR State Prize () - for a series of works on the study of the fission of light nuclei by high-energy γ-rays using the Wilson chamber method operating in powerful beams of electron accelerators
- Nobel Prize in Physics () - for the discovery and substantiation of the Vavilov-Cherenkov effect (together with I. M. Frank and I. E. Tamm)
Memory
- In 1994, a Russian postage stamp was issued in honor of Cherenkov.
- On November 12, 2004, the Chigol school was named Nobel laureate P. A. Cherenkova.
see also
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Notes
Literature
- Nobel Prize laureates: Encyclopedia: Trans. from English - M.: Progress, 1992
Links
Excerpt characterizing Cherenkov, Pavel Alekseevich
On the stage there were even boards in the middle, painted paintings depicting trees stood on the sides, and a canvas on boards was stretched behind. In the middle of the stage sat girls in red bodices and white skirts. One, very fat, in a white silk dress, sat separately on a low bench, to which green cardboard was glued to the back. They were all singing something. When they finished their song, the girl in white approached the prompter's booth, and a man in tight-fitting silk trousers on thick legs, with a feather and a dagger, approached her and began to sing and spread his arms.The man in tight trousers sang alone, then she sang. Then both fell silent, the music began to play, and the man began to finger the hand of the girl in a white dress, apparently again waiting for the beat to begin his part with her. They sang together, and everyone in the theater began to clap and shout, and the man and woman on stage, who were portraying lovers, began to bow, smiling and spreading their arms.
After the village and in the serious mood in which Natasha was, all this was wild and surprising to her. She could not follow the progress of the opera, could not even hear the music: she saw only painted cardboard and strangely dressed men and women, moving, speaking and singing strangely in the bright light; she knew what all this was supposed to represent, but it was all so pretentiously false and unnatural that she felt either ashamed of the actors or funny at them. She looked around her, at the faces of the spectators, looking for in them the same feeling of ridicule and bewilderment that was in her; but all the faces were attentive to what was happening on the stage and expressed feigned, as it seemed to Natasha, admiration. “This must be so necessary!” thought Natasha. She alternately looked back at those rows of pomaded heads in the stalls, then at the naked women in the boxes, especially at her neighbor Helen, who, completely undressed, with a quiet and calm smile, without taking her eyes off, looked at the stage, feeling the bright light poured throughout the hall and warm, crowd-warmed air. Natasha little by little began to reach a state of intoxication that she had not experienced for a long time. She didn’t remember what she was, where she was, or what was happening in front of her. She looked and thought, and the strangest thoughts suddenly, without connection, flashed through her head. Either the thought came to her to jump onto the ramp and sing the aria that the actress sang, then she wanted to hook the old man sitting not far from her with her fan, then she wanted to lean over to Helen and tickle her.
One minute, when everything was quiet on stage, waiting for the start of the aria, she creaked Entrance door the stalls, on the side where the Rostovs' box was, and the steps of a belated man sounded. “Here he is Kuragin!” Shinshin whispered. Countess Bezukhova turned to the newcomer, smiling. Natasha looked in the direction of Countess Bezukhova’s eyes and saw an unusually handsome adjutant, with a self-confident and at the same time courteous appearance approaching their bed. It was Anatol Kuragin, whom she had seen for a long time and noticed at the St. Petersburg ball. He was now in an adjutant uniform with one epaulette and a bracelet. He walked with a restrained, dashing gait, which would have been funny if he had not been so handsome and if there had not been such an expression of good-natured contentment and joy on his beautiful face. Despite the fact that the action was going on, he, slowly and slightly rattling his spurs and saber, smoothly and high holding his perfumed beautiful head, walked along the carpet of the corridor. Looking at Natasha, he walked up to his sister, put his gloved hand on the edge of her box, shook her head and leaned over and asked something, pointing at Natasha.
- Mais charmante! [Very sweet!] - he said, obviously about Natasha, as she not so much heard as understood from the movement of his lips. Then he walked to the front row and sat down next to Dolokhov, giving a friendly and casual elbow to Dolokhov, whom the others were treating so ingratiatingly. He smiled at him with a cheerful wink and rested his foot on the ramp.
– How similar brother and sister are! - said the count. - And how good they are both!
Shinshin began to tell the count in a low voice some story of Kuragin's intrigue in Moscow, to which Natasha listened precisely because he said charmante about it.
The first act ended, everyone in the stalls stood up, got confused and began to walk in and out.
Boris came to the Rostovs' box, very simply accepted congratulations and, raising his eyebrows, with an absent-minded smile, conveyed to Natasha and Sonya his bride's request that they be at her wedding, and left. Natasha talked to him with a cheerful and flirtatious smile and congratulated the same Boris with whom she had been in love before on his marriage. In the state of intoxication in which she was, everything seemed simple and natural.
Naked Helen sat next to her and smiled equally at everyone; and Natasha smiled at Boris in the same way.
Helen's box was filled and surrounded from the stalls by the most distinguished and intelligent men, who seemed to be vying to show everyone that they knew her.
Throughout this intermission, Kuragin stood with Dolokhov in front of the ramp, looking at the Rostovs’ box. Natasha knew that he was talking about her, and it gave her pleasure. She even turned around so that he could see her profile, in her opinion, in the most advantageous position. Before the start of the second act, the figure of Pierre appeared in the stalls, whom the Rostovs had not seen since their arrival. His face was sad, and he had gained weight since his last time Natasha saw. Without noticing anyone, he walked into the front rows. Anatole approached him and began to say something to him, looking and pointing at the Rostovs’ box. Pierre, seeing Natasha, perked up and hurriedly, along the rows, went to their bed. Approaching them, he leaned on his elbow and, smiling, spoke to Natasha for a long time. During her conversation with Pierre, Natasha heard a man’s voice in Countess Bezukhova’s box and for some reason learned that it was Kuragin. She looked back and met his eyes. Almost smiling, he looked straight into her eyes with such an admiring, affectionate look that it seemed strange to be so close to him, to look at him like that, to be so sure that he liked you, and not be familiar with him.
In the second act there were paintings depicting monuments and there was a hole in the canvas depicting the moon, and the lampshades on the ramp were raised, and trumpets and double basses began to play, and many people in black robes came out to the right and left. People began to wave their arms, and in their hands they had something like daggers; then some other people came running and began to drag away that girl who had previously been in a white, and now in a blue dress. They didn’t drag her away right away, but sang with her for a long time, and then they dragged her away, and behind the scenes they hit something metal three times, and everyone knelt down and sang a prayer. Several times all these actions were interrupted by enthusiastic screams from the audience.
During this act, every time Natasha glanced at the stalls, she saw Anatoly Kuragin, throwing his arm over the back of the chair and looking at her. She was pleased to see that he was so captivated by her, and it did not occur to her that there was anything bad in this.
When the second act ended, Countess Bezukhova stood up, turned to the Rostovs' box (her chest was completely bare), beckoned the old count to her with a gloved finger, and, not paying attention to those who entered her box, began to speak kindly to him, smiling.
“Well, introduce me to your lovely daughters,” she said, “the whole city is shouting about them, but I don’t know them.”
Natasha stood up and sat down to the magnificent countess. Natasha was so pleased by the praise of this brilliant beauty that she blushed with pleasure.
“Now I also want to become a Muscovite,” said Helen. - And aren’t you ashamed to bury such pearls in the village!
Countess Bezukhaya, rightly, had a reputation as a charming woman. She could say what she did not think, and especially flatter, completely simply and naturally.
- No, dear Count, let me take care of your daughters. At least I won't be here for long now. And you too. I will try to amuse yours. “I heard a lot about you back in St. Petersburg, and I wanted to get to know you,” she told Natasha with her uniformly beautiful smile. “I heard about you from my page, Drubetsky. Did you hear he's getting married? And from my husband’s friend Bolkonsky, Prince Andrei Bolkonsky,” she said with special emphasis, thereby hinting that she knew his relationship to Natasha. “She asked, in order to get to know each other better, to allow one of the young ladies to sit in her box for the rest of the performance, and Natasha went over to her.
Russian physicist Pavel Alekseevich Cherenkov was born in Novaya Chigla near Voronezh. His parents Alexey and Maria Cherenkov were peasants. After graduating from the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of Voronezh University in 1928, he worked as a teacher for two years. In 1930, he became a graduate student at the Institute of Physics and Mathematics of the USSR Academy of Sciences in Leningrad and received his Ph.D. degree in 1935. He then became a research fellow at the Physics Institute. P.N. Lebedev in Moscow, where he later worked.
In 1932, under the leadership of Academician S.I. Vavilova Ch. began to study the light that appears when solutions absorb high-energy radiation, for example, radiation from radioactive substances. He was able to show that in almost all cases the light was caused by known causes, such as fluorescence. In fluorescence, the incident energy excites atoms or molecules to higher energy states (according to quantum mechanics, each atom or molecule has a characteristic set of discrete energy levels) from which they quickly return to lower energy levels. The difference between the energies of higher and lower states is released in the form of a unit of radiation - a quantum, the frequency of which is proportional to the energy. If the frequency belongs to the visible region, then the radiation appears as light. Since the differences in energy levels of the atoms or molecules through which the excited substance passes, returning to the lowest energy state (ground state), usually differ from the energy of the quantum of incident radiation, the emission from the absorbing substance has a different frequency than that of the radiation generating it. Typically these frequencies are lower.
However, Ch. discovered that gamma rays (which have much higher energy and, therefore, frequency than X-rays) emitted by radium give a faint blue glow in the liquid, which could not be explained satisfactorily. This glow was also noted by others. Decades before Ch., it was observed by Marie and Pierre Curie while studying radioactivity, but it was believed that this was simply one of the many manifestations of luminescence. Ch. acted very methodically. He used double distilled water to remove any impurities that could be hidden sources of fluorescence. He applied heat and added chemical substances, such as potassium iodide and silver nitrate, which reduced the brightness and changed other characteristics of normal fluorescence, always doing the same experiments with control solutions. The light in the control solutions changed as usual, but the blue glow remained unchanged.
The research was significantly complicated by the fact that Ch. did not have high-energy radiation sources and sensitive detectors, which later became the most common equipment. Instead, he had to use weak, naturally occurring radioactive materials to produce gamma rays, which produced a faint blue glow, and instead of a detector, rely on his own vision, sharpened by long periods of time in the dark. Nevertheless, he was able to convincingly show that the blue glow is something extraordinary.
A significant discovery was the unusual polarization of the glow. Light represents periodic oscillations of electric and magnetic fields, the intensity of which increases and decreases in absolute value and regularly changes direction in a plane perpendicular to the direction of movement. If the directions of the fields are limited to special lines in this plane, as in the case of reflection from a plane, then the light is said to be polarized, but the polarization is nevertheless perpendicular to the direction of propagation. In particular, if polarization occurs during fluorescence, then the light emitted by the excited substance is polarized at right angles to the incident beam. Ch. discovered that the blue glow is polarized parallel, and not perpendicular to the direction of the incident gamma rays. Studies carried out in 1936 also showed that the blue glow is not emitted in all directions, but spreads forward relative to the incident gamma rays and forms a light cone, the axis of which coincides with the trajectory of the gamma rays. This served key factor for his colleagues, Ilya Frank and Igor Tamm, who created the theory that provided a complete explanation for the blue glow, now known as Cherenkov radiation (Vavilov–Cherenkov in the Soviet Union).
According to this theory, a gamma ray is absorbed by an electron in a liquid, causing it to escape from the parent atom. A similar collision was described by Arthur H. Compton and is called the Compton effect. The mathematical description of this effect is very similar to the description of collisions of billiard balls. If the exciting beam has sufficiently high energy, the ejected electron is ejected at a very high speed. Frank and Tamm's remarkable idea was that Cerenkov radiation occurs when an electron travels faster than light. Others were apparently deterred from making such an assumption by the fundamental postulate of Albert Einstein's theory of relativity, according to which the speed of a particle cannot exceed the speed of light. However, such a limitation is relative and is valid only for the speed of light in vacuum. In substances like liquids or glass, light travels at a slower speed. In liquids, electrons knocked out of atoms can travel faster than light if the incident gamma rays have enough energy.
The Cherenkov cone of radiation is similar to the wave that occurs when a boat moves at a speed exceeding the speed of propagation of waves in water. It is also similar to the shock wave that occurs when an airplane crosses the sound barrier.
For this work, Ch. received the degree of Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences in 1940. Together with Vavilov, Tamm and Frank, he received the Stalin (later renamed the State) Prize of the USSR in 1946.
In 1958, together with Tamm and Frank, Ch. was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics “for the discovery and interpretation of the Cherenkov effect.” Manne Sigbahn of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences noted in his speech that “the discovery of the phenomenon now known as the Cherenkov effect represents interesting example how relatively simple physical observation during the right approach could lead to important discoveries and pave new paths for further research."
In 1928 he graduated from Voronezh University.
In 1930 he began working in Moscow - at the Physical Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Since 1948 - professor at the Moscow Energy Institute, and since 1951 - at the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute. Cherenkov's main works are devoted to physical optics, nuclear physics, cosmic ray physics, accelerator technology.
Since 1932, Cherenkov worked under the leadership of Academician S.I. Vavilov. It was he who suggested Cherenkov a research topic - the luminescence of solutions of uranium salts under the influence of gamma rays. He also proposed a method that he had used several times before. Oddly enough, Vavilov read the “quenching method” in the old memoir of the physicist F. Marie “New Discoveries Concerning Light.”
“...The method required careful training, a long stay in complete darkness,” wrote physicist V. Kartsev in his excellent book about physicists. – Every working day of Cherenkov began with him hiding in dark room and sat there in pitch darkness, getting used to this environment. Only after a long adaptation, sometimes lasting several hours, did Cherenkov approach the instruments and begin measurements. Having begun to irradiate uranium salts with a gamma source, he quickly discovered a strange phenomenon: a mysterious light. It must be said that he was not at all the first to notice this glow. It had already been observed in the Joliot-Curie laboratory and was attributed to the luminescence of impurities present in every, even very pure solution.
Cherenkov called for the leader.
Having gotten used to the darkness, Vavilov saw, as it seemed to him, a cone of weak blue light. But this glow was not at all similar to that which could be observed in solutions under the influence, for example, of ultraviolet rays. It was not the kind of glow that usually occurs due to, as Sergei Ivanovich put it, “dead bacteria,” that is, traces of luminescent substances. P. A. Cherenkov recalled: “Without dwelling on the details of this discovery, I would like to say that it could only be realized in such a scientific school as the school of S. I. Vavilov, where the main signs of luminescence were studied and determined and where they were developed strict criteria distinguishing luminescence from other types of radiation. It is no coincidence, therefore, that even such a major school of physicists as the Parisian one passed by this phenomenon, mistaking it for ordinary luminescence. I specifically emphasize this circumstance because it more fully and, it seems to me, more correctly defines the outstanding role played by S.I. Vavilov in the discovery of the new effect.”
Vavilov rejected the luminescent nature of the glow.
Firstly, it turned out that it is directed in a cone along the axis of gamma radiation. Secondly, it did not fit into the definitions of luminescence that had been formulated by Vavilov by that time. Ampoules with radium caused a new, unknown type of glow in a solution of uranium salt. The most interesting thing was that it continued even when the salt concentration was reduced to completely homeopathic doses. Moreover, pure distilled water glowed. At the same time, the intensity of the unusual glow was not affected by those substances that usually strongly quenched normal luminescence, such as potassium iodide and aniline. The spectral composition of the glow did not depend in any way on the composition of the liquid.
Rumors about the newly discovered glow spread throughout Moscow and Leningrad. I.M. Frank wrote that he remembers very well the caustic remarks about the fact that at FIAN they are studying the useless glow of who knows what, who knows where. “Have you tried studying with a hat?” - unfamiliar and familiar physicists asked Cherenkov sarcastically.
The message about the new discovery was published in the “Reports of the USSR Academy of Sciences” in 1934.
There were, in fact, two messages.
The first - about the discovery of the phenomenon - was signed by P. A. Cherenkov; Vavilov refused to sign so as not to complicate Cherenkov’s defense of his Ph.D. thesis. The second is signed by Vavilov - it describes the effect and definitely states that it is in no way related to luminescence, but is caused by free fast electrons formed when gamma rays act on the medium. It is interesting that Vavilov writes about the “blue” glow. This is proof of his rich physical intuition; the color of the radiation was impossible to detect under those conditions.
The effect was fully explained only in 1937, when two Soviet physicists I.M. Frank and I.E. Tamm developed its theory. The explanation was completely unusual: indeed, as Vavilov claimed, this glow is caused by electrons. But not simple ones, but ones that move at speeds exceeding the speed of light. Of course, we are talking about the speed of light propagation in a given medium. Moving faster than this speed, electrons emit electromagnetic waves. The Vavilov–Cherenkov glow appears. Subsequently, after the war (in 1958), both the discoverers and explainers of this phenomenon were awarded the Nobel Prize. The Nobel Prize was awarded to P. A. Cherenkov, I. E. Tamm and I. M. Frank. Vavilov had died by that time, and the Nobel Prize, as is known, is awarded only to the living.
Cherenkov defended his doctoral dissertation on the same phenomenon. One of his opponents was Academician L.I. Mandelstam. Professor S. M. Raisky later recalled: “I was sitting in the Mandelstam dining room when Leonid Isaakovich finished writing his review and left the office. He let me read his review. After reading, I asked why S. I. Vavilov occupies such a large place in the review of P. A. Cherenkov’s dissertation? Leonid Isaakovich replied: “The role of Sergei Ivanovich in the discovery of the effect is such that it should always be indicated when we're talking about about this discovery."
In 1947, V.L. Ginzburg theoretically showed that using the Vavilov–Cherenkov phenomenon it is possible to generate ultrashort, millimeter and even submillimeter waves. Cherenkov counters, whose operating principle is based on the detection of atomic particles due to the resulting glow, have become extremely widely used. This subtle method of research has led to brilliant discoveries of our time, in particular the discovery of the antiproton and antineutron, the first antimatter particles created on Earth.
In 1970, Cherenkov was elected a full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
“The initial experimental discovery is usually accidental. That is why it cannot be foreseen and it turns out to be the result of chance. Such happy occasions are very rare in the life of even the most active scientist. Therefore, they cannot be skipped. You should never ignore unexpected and incomprehensible phenomena that you accidentally encounter in an experiment.”
These words of Academician Semenov were undoubtedly well understood by Cherenkov.
Cherenkov made a significant contribution to the creation of electronic accelerators - synchrotrons. In particular, he took an active part in the design and construction of the 250 MeV synchrotron. For this work in 1952 he received the State Prize. He studied the interaction of bremsstrahlung with nucleons and nuclei, photonuclear and photomesonic reactions. He received another state prize in 1977 for a series of works on the study of the fission of light nuclei by high-energy gamma rays. In 1984 he was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor.
