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BIOGRAPHIES OF GREAT SCIENTISTS
Tamm Igor Evgenievich. Biography of a scientist
Directory / Biographies of great scientists
Igor Evgenyevich Tamm was born on June 26 (July 8), 1895 in Vladivostok in the family of Olga (née Davydova) Tamm and Evgeny Tamm, a civil engineer. Evgeny Fedorovich worked on the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway. Igor's father was not only a versatile engineer, but also an exceptionally courageous person. During the Jewish pogrom in Elizavetgrad, he alone went to the crowd of Black Hundreds with a cane and dispersed it. Returning from distant lands with three-year-old Igor, the family traveled by sea through Japan to Odessa. From 1898 until graduating from high school in 1913, Igor lived with his parents in Elizavetgrad (now Kirovograd, Ukraine). A thirteen-year-old high school student is already worried about social injustice, he is fascinated by socialism and literature, biology, history and electricity ... He then went to study at the University of Edinburgh, where he spent a year. Since then, he has retained a Scottish accent in English pronunciation. In Edinburgh and London, Tamm reads "illegalism", studies Marx and participates in political rallies ... In the early summer of 1914, Igor returned home and entered the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of Moscow University. But soon the First World War broke out. Students during the first two years were not called up for military service. But the convictions and the very nature of Igor did not allow him to stand aside. Therefore, in the spring of 1915, he volunteered as a "brother of mercy." He carried the wounded under the shells, looked after them and wrote with satisfaction in a letter that even under the bombs "it is quite possible to control oneself." However, after a few months, he still had to return to the university, where he graduated from the Physics Department of Moscow State University and received a diploma in 1918. During the February Revolution, Tamm plunged headlong into political activity. He spoke at numerous anti-war rallies and was a success as a public speaker. Printed and distributed anti-war literature. Finally, he was elected a delegate from Elizavetgrad to the First All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies in Petrograd. He belonged to the faction of the Menshevik-Internationalists and persistently continued the anti-war struggle. In September 1917, Tamm married Natalia Vasilievna Shuiskaya. Igor Tamm and Natasha Shuiskaya met in the summer of 1911, Igor studied in the same class with her brother Kirill. Shuiskaya came from a family of very wealthy and fairly enlightened landowners who owned a number of estates in the Kherson province. Natalia's father, Vasily Ivanovich, had his own stud farm, which enjoyed a good reputation. At the end of the gymnasium, Natasha left for Moscow and entered the Higher Women's Courses. “Mom was very benevolent, friendly, kind, fair and very restrained,” Irina Tamm wrote in her memoirs. “She experienced her hardships in herself, I saw her crying in my whole life only a few times, but never dad.” Tamm is torn between politics and science. But already in 1918, when the social revolution had taken place, the difference between fine slogans and Bolshevik practice was becoming ever clearer to him. Without exchanging his Menshevik party card for a Bolshevik one, Tamm completely goes into science. In 1919, Tamm began his career as a teacher of physics, first at the Crimean University in Simferopol, and later at the Odessa Polytechnic Institute. In 1921, a daughter, Irina, was born in the Tamm family, who later became a chemist, a specialist in explosions. Five years later, the son of Eugene was born, the future experimental physicist, mountaineer. After moving to Moscow in 1922, Tamm taught for three years at the Communist University. Sverdlov. Since 1923, he worked at the Faculty of Theoretical Physics of the Second Moscow University and held a professorship there from 1927 to 1929. In 1924, Tamm simultaneously began lecturing at Moscow State University. “By the winter of 1925-1926,” the scientist’s daughter Irina wrote, “dad began to be weary of teaching at Sverdlovsk University. It was difficult for him to decide to leave a tolerably paid job for “pure science” (at Moscow State University). : how to exist on a meager salary? Mom offered to sell her astrakhan sak - this money was enough for a whole year. Subsequently, mom took her family gold things one after another to a torgsin and a pawnshop (from where, of course, they were no longer redeemed) ". In the early twenties, Tamm conducted his first scientific research under the guidance of Leonid Isaakovich Mandelstam, a professor at the Odessa Polytechnic Institute, an outstanding Soviet scientist who contributed to many branches of physics. Tamm dealt with the electrodynamics of anisotropic solids (that is, those that have very different physical properties and characteristics) and the optical properties of crystals. Tamm maintained a close relationship with Mandelstam until the latter's death in 1944. Turning to quantum mechanics, in 1930 Tamm explained acoustic vibrations and the scattering of light in solid media. In his work, the idea of quanta of sound waves (later called "phonons") was first expressed, which turned out to be very fruitful in many other branches of solid state physics. In 1930, Tamm became a professor and head of the Department of Theoretical Physics at Moscow State University. In 1933 he received a doctorate in physical and mathematical sciences, at the same time he became a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences. When the academy moved from Leningrad to Moscow in 1934, Tamm became the head of the department of theoretical physics at the Academic Institute. P. N. Lebedev, and he held this post until the end of his life. In the late XNUMXs, relativistic quantum mechanics played an important role in the new physics. The English physicist Dirac developed the relativistic theory of the electron. In this theory, in particular, the existence of negative energy levels of the electron was predicted - a concept rejected by many physicists, since the positron (a particle identical in everything to the electron, but carrying a positive charge) has not yet been discovered experimentally. However, Tamm proved that the scattering of low-energy light quanta by free electrons occurs through intermediate states of electrons, which at the same time are in negative energy levels. As a result, he showed that the negative energy of the electron is an essential element of Dirac's theory of the electron. Tamm made two significant discoveries in the quantum theory of metals, popular in the early thirties. Together with his student S. Shubin, he was able to explain the photoelectric emission of electrons from a metal, i.e., the emission caused by light irradiation. The second discovery - he found that electrons near the crystal surface can be in special energy states, later called Tamm surface levels, and this later played an important role in the study of surface effects and contact properties of metals and semiconductors. At the same time, he began to conduct theoretical research in the field of the atomic nucleus. Having studied the experimental data, Tamm and S. Altshuller predicted that the neutron, despite its lack of charge, has a negative magnetic moment (a physical quantity associated, among other things, with charge and spin). Their hypothesis, which has now been confirmed, was at that time regarded by many theoretical physicists as erroneous. In 1934, Tamm attempted to explain, with his so-called beta theory, the nature of the forces holding the particles of the nucleus together. According to this theory, the decay of nuclei, caused by the emission of beta particles (high-speed electrons), leads to the appearance of a special kind of force between any two nucleons (protons and neutrons). Using Fermi's work on beta decay, Tamm explored what nuclear forces could arise from the exchange of electron-neutrino pairs between any two nucleons, if such an effect takes place. He discovered that beta forces do exist, but are too weak to act as "nuclear glue". A year later, the Japanese physicist Hideki Yukawa postulated the existence of particles called mesons, the process of exchange of which (and not electrons and neutrinos, as Tamm suggested) ensures the stability of the nucleus. In 1936-1937, Tamm and Ilya Frank proposed a theory explaining the nature of radiation, which Pavel Cherenkov discovered by observing refractive media exposed to gamma radiation. Although Cherenkov described this radiation and showed that it was not luminescence, he was unable to explain its origin. Tamm and Frank considered the case of an electron moving faster than light in a medium. Although this is not possible in a vacuum, this phenomenon occurs in a refractive medium. Following this model, both physicists were able to explain the Cherenkov radiation. Tamm, Cherenkov and Frank also tested other predictions of this theory, which found their experimental confirmation. Their work eventually led to the development of superluminal optics, which found practical applications in areas such as plasma physics. In the USSR, that was the time of the "big purge". There were monstrous public trials. On one of them, a prominent Donbass engineer L.E. Tamm, the beloved brother of Igor Evgenievich, appeared as a "witness". All the newspapers published his incredible confessions that, on the instructions of Pyatakov, he was preparing coke oven batteries for the explosion. He was taken to prison and shot. Igor Evgenievich held on, although his feelings were very difficult. He did not renounce either his brother or his friends caught in the flywheel of repression. The theoretical department of the institute, created and directed by Tamm, was liquidated, and all its employees were distributed to other laboratories. But the scientific seminar of theorists continued to work weekly under the leadership of Tamm, scientific contacts were fully preserved, and later, after the return of the institute from evacuation in 1943, the former theoretical department was somehow imperceptibly restored. Such a sluggish reaction of the directorate of the institute was possible, of course, only because the director was S.I. Vavilov. In 1943, Soviet work on the creation of atomic weapons began and rapidly developed. It would seem that this is where Tamm was needed with his breadth of coverage of the most diverse areas of physics, with his brilliant talent. But Zhdanov crossed his name off the list. It was only in 1946 that Tamm was called upon to consider certain questions that were more "safe" from the point of view of secrecy. So his work "On the width of the front of a shock wave of high intensity" appeared, which was allowed for publication only after twenty years. However, only two years have passed, and either because Zhdanov died, or thanks to the personal influence of Kurchatov, the situation has changed. Then the task arose of creating an even more terrible weapon - the hydrogen bomb. Igor Evgenievich was asked to organize a group in the theoretical department to study the issue, although the very possibility in principle to create such a weapon seemed still very problematic. Igor Evgenievich accepted this offer and gathered a group of young students-employees. It included, in particular, V. L. Ginzburg and A. D. Sakharov, who in two months put forward two most important original and elegant ideas, which made it possible to create such a bomb in less than five years. In 1950, Tamm and Sakharov moved to the top-secret city-institute now known to everyone as Arzamas-16. The work on the implementation of the main ideas was unusually intense and difficult. In Arzamas-16, Igor Evgenievich played a huge role both with his own research and as the leader of a team of theorists. He was even one of the participants in the real test of the first "product" in the summer of 1953. In Arzamas-16, the scientist not only worked. Igor Evgenievich read a lot, especially loved Agatha Christie and foreign detective stories in general. He loved to play chess, found a partner everywhere and played with an extraordinary temperament, sincerely experiencing both success and defeat. Even at the dacha, in Zhukovka, according to V. A. Kirillin (former deputy head of government and close dacha neighbor), he came to him "to play chess - but he didn’t come, but resorted to ...". He liked to "knock out" the company to play cards. But he appreciated not some ordinary game, but a high-class game - a screw. The game was preceded by a special "ritual", when it was necessary to agree with several partners at once and agree on a certain evening. Having taught this game to young people, Igor Evgenievich experienced real pleasure from a beautiful, subtly played combination. And along the way, he did not hesitate to scold his unlucky partner in the “team” for the mistakes. Success radically changed the position of Igor Evgenievich in the opinion of "those in power." His authority increased dramatically in their eyes. Igor' Evgenievich returned to Moscow, to his former place, and immediately intensively and passionately continued his work on the fundamental problems of the theory of particles and quantum fields, together with his young colleagues. He proposed an approximate quantum-mechanical method for describing the interaction of elementary particles whose velocities are close to the speed of light. Developed further by the Russian chemist P. D. Dankov and known as the Tamm-Dankov method, it is widely used in theoretical studies of the nucleon-nucleon and nucleon-meson interactions. Tamm also developed the cascade theory of cosmic ray fluxes. In 1950, Tamm and Andrei Sakharov proposed a method of confining a gas discharge using powerful magnetic fields, a principle that Soviet physicists still underlie the desired achievement of a controlled thermonuclear reaction (nuclear fusion). In the fifties and sixties, Tamm continued to develop new theories in the field of elementary particles and tried to overcome some of the fundamental difficulties of existing theories. During his long career, Tamm was able to turn the physics laboratory of Moscow State University into an important research center and introduced quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity into physics curricula throughout the Soviet Union. In addition, a recognized theoretical physicist took an active part in the political life of the country. He strongly opposed government attempts to dictate its policy to the USSR Academy of Sciences and against bureaucratic control over academic research. Despite frank criticisms and the fact that he was not a member of the CPSU, in 1958 Tamm was included in the Soviet delegation to the Geneva Conference on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons Tests. He was an active member of the Pugowsh movement of scientists. In 1958, Tamm, Frank and Cherenkov were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics "for the discovery and interpretation of the Cherenkov effect". During the presentation of the laureates, Manne Sigban, a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, recalled that although Cherenkov "established the general properties of the newly discovered radiation, there was no mathematical description of this phenomenon." Tamm and Frank's work, he went on to say, provided "an explanation ... which, in addition to being simple and clear, also met rigorous mathematical requirements." Of course, this event gave the scientist a lot of joy, the source of which was not only the very fact of the award, but also the opportunity to get completely unusual impressions. At the same time, there was also a certain element of disappointment mixed in here. As Igor Evgenievich himself admitted, it would be much more pleasant for him to receive an award for another scientific result - the exchange theory of nuclear forces. Igor Evgenievich Tamm created a large and glorious scientific school. His students, scientific grandchildren and great-grandchildren successfully work in various fields of theoretical physics, in various cities of the country, near and far abroad. The last segment of life was sad for Tamm the scientist. His work ran counter to the "general line" of science and was not recognized. In the mid-sixties, a severe incurable disease crept up on him - amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, which led to paralysis of the respiratory muscles, as a result of which he had to switch to forced breathing using a special machine. During these years, Igor Evgenievich especially needed such qualities as courage, fortitude, devotion to science, and independence of thought. It was they who allowed him to save himself during his illness both as a person and as an active scientist. For the treatment of Igor Evgenievich, all conceivable possibilities were used. However, his illness was completely irreversible. And on April 12, 1971, a tragic denouement came ... Author: Samin D.K.
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