Well-known Russians

Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleyev.

Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleyev was the prominent Russian physicist, chemist, engineer, meteorologist and geologist. He was bom on January, 27 of 1834 in Tobolsk and was the 17th child in his family. This year his father became blind and soon died. His mother was very clever and energetic woman. She saw unusual talent inside the youngest son and spent last money to provide the opportunity for education. Mendeleyev saved the memory about her for the whole life. One of his works "The investigation of water solutions in its weight" was named after her.

Mendeleyev studied at The Main Pedagogical Institute in Saint Petersburg. After graduating he worked as a teacher in Simpheropol and Odessa. In 1856 he wrote the dissertation "About volumes" and was awarded degree of Master of chemistry. In 1859 Mendeleyev was sent to Heidelberg to research liquids at his own laboratory. Young Russian scientist met with Botkin, Sechenov, Borodin, and Vishnegradskiy.

In 1856 he wrote the dissertation "About combinations alcohol and water" and was awarded degree of Doctor of chemistry. The scientist was elected as professor of the department of general chemistry in Petersburg's Technological Institute. He created books: "Basses of Chemistry", "About Resilience of Gases", "The Investigation of Solutions in Its Weight"

Mendeleyev devoted a lot of his time to meteorology and in 1887 raised at air sphere for supervision of whole Sun eclipse. In 1890 he left Petersburg's Technological Institute. Sea and Military ministry charged him working out powder without smoke. He brilliantly solved the problem. Proposed by him "pirocollodiy" turned out the excellent universal type for different arms. He visited Ural's plants and wrote an article about condition of local industry.

In 1893 Mendeleyev became the head of "The Main Chamber of Measure and Scales". His works about laws of scale oscillations, elaboration of exact weigh were published in "Vremennik" and were very important. Outstanding scientist took part in composing of "Encyclopedician Dictionary" by Brock- gausen and Efron, edited "The Library of Industry". His friends said that every figure reported by Mendeleyev was being checked careful.

In professor Ticshenko's opinion, the general number of books, pamphlets, articles and notes written by him is over 350. But the main achievement is The Periodical System of Chemical Elements. According to the Periodical law, all properties of chemical elements change periodically, on growing of atomic weigh so, through definite intervals elements with similar properties appear. The Periodical system of Mendeleyev became classical and scientist foretold three new elements: gallium, scandium and germanium. Mendeleyev had a deep belief that science may be used in usual work.

A great contribution into science was admitted all over the world. Mendeleyev was considered honor member of 100 academies and scientific societies. He died on 20, January, 1907. His funeral was the national mourning. Chemical department of Russian physical and chemical society instituted two rewards for best works in chemistry.

Yuri Gagarin (1934-1968).

Yuri Gagarin's name, the name of the first cosmonaut is known to everybody. His life and work are a great example to all young people.

Yuri Alexeyevich Gagarin was bom in the village of Klushino in Smolensk region on March 9, 1934, into the family of a collective farmer.

In 1951 he finished a vocational school in the town of Lyubertsy, near Moscow, and at the same time he finished an evening school.

When he was a schoolboy, his favourite subjects were physics and mathematics. He read a lot of books.

Yuri Gagarin began to fly while he was a student of a technical secondary school in Saratov. He was a member of an aeroclub.

In 1955, he entered a flying school. Two years later he became a pilot and soon he joined the first group of Soviet cosmonauts.

On April 12, 1961, Yuri Gagarin flew into space for the first time in history. He spent 108 minutes there.

When he came back in his spaceship Vostok, he was made a Hero of the Soviet Union and awarded the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star Medal.

Yuri Gagarin visited many countries. Millions of people saw him and listened to him. They greeted him as a great patriot of our country.

Yuri Alexeyevich Gagarin was commander of the cosmonaut group, he prepared to fly in a new spaceship. Unfortunately he didn 4 go into space again, but people will always remember him as the world's first space pilot, a hero.

Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa (9 July 1894 - 8 April 1984) was an innovative Soviet/Russian physicist and Nobel Prize winner, who made important discoveries in several different areas.

Kapitsa was bom of Polish parents in the city of Kronstadt and graduated from the Petrograd Polytechnical Institute in 1918. He worked for over ten years with Ernest Rutherford in the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1929 and was the first director (1930-34) of the Mond Laboratory in Cambridge. In the 1920s he originated
techniques for creating ultrastrong magnetic fields by injecting high current for brief periods into specially constructed air-core electromagnets. In 1928 he discovered the linear dependence of resistivity on magnetic field for various metals in very strong magnetic fields.

In the 1930s he turned to low temperature research, beginning with a critical analysis of the existing methods for obtaining low temperatures. In 1934 he developed new and original apparatus (based on the adiabatic principle) for making significant quantities of liquid helium.

In 1934, on a professional visit to the Soviet Union, his passport was removed and he was not allowed to leave the country. Kapitsa was required to form the Institute for Physical Problems, which he did with equipment which the Soviet Government bought from the Mond Laboratory in Cambridge (with the assistance of Rutherford, once it was clear that Kapitsa would not be permitted to return).

In Russia, Kapitsa began a series of experiments to study liquid helium, leading to the discovery in 1937 of its super fluidity (not to be confused with superconductivity). He reported the properties of this new state of matter in a

series of papers, for which he was later awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics "for basic inventions and discoveries in the area of low-temperature physics". In 1939 he developed a new method for liquefaction of air with a low-pressure cycle using a special high-efficiency expansion turbine. Consequently, during World War II he was assigned to head the Department of Oxygen Industry attached to the USSR Council of Ministers, where he developed his low-pressure expansion techniques for industrial purposes. After the war, he turned to a quite new range of physical problems: he invented high power microwave generators (1950-1955) and discovered a new kind of continuous high pressure plasma discharge with electron temperatures over 1,000,000K.

Immediately after the war, a group of prominent Soviet scientists (including Kapitsa in particular) lobbied the government to create a new technical university, the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. Kapitsa taught there for many years and it is now a leading Russian university. From 1957, he was also a member of the presidium of the Soviet Academy of Sciences and at his death in 1984 was the only presidium member who was not also a member of the Communist Party.

Belatedly (1978), Kapitsa won the Nobel Prize in Physics for the work in low temperature physics that he did about 1937. He shared this prize with Amo Allan Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson (who won for unrelated work).

Kapitsa resistance is the thermal resistance (which causes a temperature discontinuity) at the interface between liquid helium and a solid.

Kapitsa was married in 1927 to Anna Alekseevna Krylova, daughter of applied mathematician A.N. Krylov. They had two sons, Sergei and Andrei.

A minor planet 3437 Kapitsa, discovered by Soviet astronomer Lyudmila Georgievna Karachkina in 1982, is named after him.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-04