Kapitsa Nobel Prize for what. Nobel laureates: Pyotr Kapitsa. War and post-war years

Petr Leonidovich Kapitsa(1894-1984) - Russian physicist and engineer, member of the Royal Society of London (1929), academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1939), Hero of Socialist Labor (1945, 1974). Works on the physics of magnetic phenomena, physics and technology of low temperatures, quantum physics of condensed matter, electronics and plasma physics.

In 1922-1924, Kapitsa developed a pulsed method for creating super-strong magnetic fields. In 1934 he invented and built a machine for adiabatic cooling of helium. In 1937 he discovered the superfluidity of liquid helium. In 1939 he introduced a new method of liquefying air using a low-pressure cycle and a highly efficient turboexpander. Nobel Prize (1978). USSR State Prize (1941, 1943). Gold medal named after Lomonosov of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1959). Medals of Faraday (England, 1943), Franklin (USA, 1944), Niels Bohr (Denmark, 1965), Rutherford (England, 1966), Kamerlingh Onnes (Netherlands, 1968).

Life is like a card game that you play without knowing the rules.

Kapitsa Pyotr Leonidovich

Family and years of study

Peter's father is Leonid Petrovich Kapitsa, a military engineer and builder of forts at the Kronstadt Fortress. Mother, Olga Ieronimovna, is a philologist, specialist in the field of children's literature and folklore. Her father, Infantry General Jerome Ivanovich Stebnitsky, is a military surveyor and cartographer.

In 1912, Pyotr Kapitsa, after graduating from a real school in Kronstadt, entered the electromechanical faculty of the St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute (PPI). Already in the first courses, the physicist Abram Fedorovich Ioffe, who taught physics at the Polytechnic, drew attention to him. He involves Kapitsa in research in his laboratory. In 1914, Kapitsa went on summer vacation to Scotland to study English. Here he was overtaken by the First World War. He managed to return to Petrograd only in November 1914. In 1915, Peter voluntarily went to the Western Front as a driver of an ambulance as part of the sanitary detachment of the Union of Cities (January - May).

In 1916, Petre Kapitsa married Nadezhda Kirillovna Chernosvitova. Her father, K.K. Chernosvitov, a member of the Central Committee of the Cadet Party, a deputy from the First to the Fourth State Dumas, was arrested by the Cheka and executed in 1919. In the winter of 1919-1920, during the influenza epidemic (“Spanish flu”), Kapitsa lost his father, son, wife and newborn daughter within a month. In 1927, Peter married for the second time Anna Alekseevna Krylova, the daughter of a mechanic and shipbuilder, academician Alexei Nikolaevich Krylov.

Kapitsa Pyotr Leonidovich

First scientific works

Pyotr Kapitsa published his first works in 1916, as a 3rd year student at the PPI. After defending his thesis in September 1919, he received the title of electrical engineer. But in the fall of 1918, at the invitation of A.F. Ioffe, he became an employee of the Physico-Technical Department of the X-ray and Radiological Institute (transformed in November 1921 into the Physico-Technical Institute).

In 1920, Kapitsa, together with scientist Nikolai Nikolaevich Semenov, proposed a method for determining the magnetic moment of an atom, based on the interaction of an atomic beam with a non-uniform magnetic field. This method was then implemented in the famous Stern-Gerlach experiments.

At the Cavendish Laboratory

On May 22, 1921, Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa arrives in England as a member of the commission of the Russian Academy of Sciences, sent to the countries of Western Europe to restore scientific ties broken by war and revolution. On July 22, he began working at the Cavendish Laboratory, whose head, Rutherford, agreed to accept him for a short-term internship. Rutherford was so impressed by the experimental skill and engineering acumen of the young Russian physicist that he sought a special subsidy for his work.

Criticism, of course, can ruin any thought.

Kapitsa Pyotr Leonidovich

Since January 1925, Kapitsa has been deputy director of the Cavendish Laboratory for Magnetic Research. In 1929 he was elected a full member of the Royal Society of London. In November 1930, the Council of the Royal Society, from funds bequeathed to the Society by the chemist and industrialist L. Mond, allocated £15,000 for the construction of a laboratory for Kapitsa in Cambridge. The grand opening of the Mondov laboratory took place on February 3, 1933.

During 13 years of successful work in England, Pyotr Kapitsa remained a loyal citizen of the USSR and did everything possible to help the development of science in his country. Thanks to his assistance and influence, many young Soviet physicists had the opportunity to work for a long time at the Cavendish Laboratory. The “International Series of Monographs on Physics” of the Oxford University Press, of which Kapitsa was one of the founders and chief editors, publishes monographs by theoretical physicists Georgiy Antonovich Gamov and Yakov Ilyich Frenkel, Nikolai Nikolaevich Semenov. But all this did not prevent the USSR authorities in the fall of 1934, when Kapitsa came to his homeland to see his loved ones and give a series of lectures about his work, from canceling his return visa. He was summoned to the Kremlin and informed that from now on he would have to work in the USSR.

The main sign of talent is when a person knows what he wants.

Kapitsa Pyotr Leonidovich

Back to USSR

In December 1934, the Politburo adopted a resolution on the construction of the Institute of Physical Problems in Moscow. P. Kapitsa agrees to continue his research in the field of physics in Moscow only on the condition that his institute receives the scientific installations and instruments he created in England. Otherwise, he will be forced to change the field of his research and take up biophysics (the problem of muscle contractions), in which he has long been interested. He turns to the Russian physiologist Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, and he agrees to give him a place at his institute. In August 1935, the Politburo again considered the issue of Kapitsa at its meeting and allocated £30,000 for the purchase of equipment for his Cambridge laboratory. In December 1935, this equipment began to arrive in Moscow.

Famous Seminar

In 1937, the Kapitza Physics Seminar began to operate at the IPP - “Kapichnik”, as physicists began to call it, when it turned from an institute into a Moscow and even all-Union one.

My beliefs fully follow the provisions of the Bible and differ from it only in one thing: the Bible says that God created man, and I am sure that it is the other way around.

Kapitsa Pyotr Leonidovich

Work for defense

During the war, Kapitsa worked on introducing the oxygen plants he developed into industrial production. At his suggestion, on May 8, 1943, by resolution of the State Defense Committee, the Main Directorate for Oxygen was created under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, and Pyotr Kapitsa was appointed head of the Main Oxygen Department.

Conflict with authorities

On August 20, 1945, a Special Committee was created under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, which was entrusted with leading the work on the creation of the Soviet atomic bomb. Kapitsa is a member of this committee. However, work in the Special Committee weighs heavily on him. In particular, because we are talking about the creation of “weapons of destruction and murder” (words from his letter to Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev). Taking advantage of the conflict with Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria, who headed the atomic project, Kapitsa asks to be released from this work. The result is many years of disgrace. In August 1946, he was expelled from Glavkislorod and from the institute he created.

Nikolina Gora

At his dacha, on Nikolina Gora, Pyotr Kapitsa is setting up a small home laboratory in the lodge. In this “hut laboratory,” as he called it, Kapitsa conducted research in mechanics and hydrodynamics, and then turned to high-power electronics and plasma physics.

Leading means not stopping good people from working.

Kapitsa Pyotr Leonidovich

When the Faculty of Physics and Technology was created at Moscow State University in 1947, of which Kapitsa was one of the founders and organizers, he became the head of the department of general physics at the Physics Physics Faculty and in September began delivering a course of lectures. (In 1951, the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology was created on the basis of this faculty). At the end of December 1949, P. Kapitsa avoided participating in the ceremonial meetings dedicated to the 70th anniversary of Stalin, which was perceived by the authorities as a demonstrative step, and he was immediately released from work at 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 adopted a resolution “On measures to assist Academician P. L. Kapitsa in the work he is carrying out.” On the basis of the Nikologorsk home laboratory, the Physical Laboratory of the USSR Academy of Sciences was created, and Kapitsa was appointed its head.

On January 28, 1955, Kapitsa again became director of the Institute of Physical Problems (since 1990 this institute bears his name). On June 3, 1955, he was appointed editor-in-chief of the country's leading physics journal, the Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Physics. Since 1956, Kapitsa has headed the Department of Physics and Low Temperature Engineering at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. In 1957-1984 – member of the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

A person is young when he is not yet afraid to do stupid things.

Kapitsa Pyotr Leonidovich

Worldwide recognition of Peter Kapitsa

In 1929, Kapitsa was elected a full member of the Royal Society of London and a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, and in 1939 - an academician. In 1941 and 1943 he was awarded the State Prize, in 1945 he received the title of Hero of Socialist Labor, and in 1974 he was awarded the second gold medal “Hammer and Sickle”. In 1978 he received the Nobel Prize “for fundamental inventions and discoveries in the field of low temperature physics.”

Physicist's contribution to science and technology

Petr Leonidovich Kapitsa made a significant contribution to the development of the physics of magnetic phenomena, low-temperature physics and technology, quantum physics of condensed matter, electronics and plasma physics. In 1922, he first placed a cloud chamber in a strong magnetic field and observed the curvature of the trajectories of alpha particles ((a particle is the nucleus of a helium atom containing 2 protons and 2 neutrons). This work preceded Kapitsa’s extensive series of studies on methods for creating super-strong magnetic fields and studies of the behavior of metals in them. In these works, a pulsed method of creating a magnetic field by closing a powerful alternator was first developed and a number of fundamental results in the field of metal physics were obtained (linear increase in resistance in high fields, saturation of resistance).Fields obtained by Kapitsa, in magnitude and durations were record high for decades.

Do not grieve or be sad, there are no such difficult situations from which life would not find a way out - you just need to give it time for this.

Kapitsa Pyotr Leonidovich

The need to conduct research in the physics of metals at low temperatures led P. Kapitsa to the creation of new methods for obtaining low temperatures. In 1934 he invented a liquefaction machine for the adiabatic cooling of helium. This method of cooling helium now underlies all modern technology for obtaining low temperatures near absolute zero - helium temperatures. At the same time, the application of the adiabatic cooling method to air led to the development by Kapitsa in 1936-1938 of a new method of air liquefaction using a low-pressure cycle and a highly efficient turboexpander he invented. Low-pressure air separation plants are now operating throughout the world, producing more than 150 million tons of oxygen per year. The Kapitsa turboexpander with an efficiency of 86–92% is used not only in them, but also in many other cryogenic systems.

In 1937, after a series of subtle experiments, Pyotr Kapitsa discovered the superfluidity of helium. He showed that the viscosity of liquid helium flowing through thin slits at temperatures below 2.19 K is so many times less than the viscosity of any very low-viscosity liquid that it is apparently equal to zero. Therefore, Kapitsa called this state of helium superfluid. This discovery marked the beginning of the development of a completely new direction in physics - condensed matter physics. To explain it, it was necessary to introduce new quantum concepts - the so-called elementary excitations, or quasiparticles.

Freedom of creativity - freedom to make mistakes.

Kapitsa Pyotr Leonidovich

Kapitza's research on applied electrodynamics, which he began in the late 1940s. on Nikolina Gora, led to the invention of new devices for generating ultra-high-frequency oscillations of high constant power. These generators - nigotrons - were then used to create high-temperature, high-pressure plasma.

The appearance of a scientist and a person

In Kapitsa, from a young age, there was a physicist, an engineer and a master “golden hands” in one person. This is what won Rutherford over in his first year at Cambridge. His teacher A.F. Ioffe, in his submission for Kapitsa’s election to corresponding members of the USSR Academy of Sciences, which was later signed by other scientists, wrote in 1929: “Peter Leonidovich Kapitsa, combining in himself a brilliant experimenter, an excellent theorist and a brilliant engineer, - one of the most prominent figures in modern physics."

Fearlessness is one of the most characteristic features Kapitsa the scientist and citizen. After the USSR authorities did not allow him to return to Cambridge in the fall of 1934, he realized that in the totalitarian state in which he would work, everything was decided by the country's top leadership. He began to have a direct and frank conversation with this leadership. And here he followed the behest of the equally fearless Ivan Pavlov, who in December 1934 told him: “After all, I’m the only one here who says what I think, but I’m going to die, you must do this, because this is so necessary for our homeland” (from a letter Kapitsa to his wife, December 4, 1934).

The media are no less dangerous than means of mass destruction.

Kapitsa Pyotr Leonidovich

From 1934 to 1983, Petra Kapitsa wrote more than 300 letters “to the Kremlin.” Of these, Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin - 50, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov - 71, Georgy Maximilianovich Malenkov - 63, Nikita Khrushchev - 26. Thanks to his intervention, theoretical physicists Vladimir Aleksandrovich Fok, Lev Davidovich were saved from death in prisons and camps during the years of Stalin’s terror Landau and Ivan Vasilievich Obreimov. IN last years life, he spoke in defense of the physicist Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov and Yu. F. Orlov.

Kapitsa was a remarkable organizer of science. The success of his organizational activities was based on a simple principle, which he formulated and wrote down on a separate sheet of paper: “Leading means not stopping good people from working.”

Even in the darkest times of Soviet isolationism, Kapitsa always defended the principles of internationalism in science. From his letter to Molotov dated May 7, 1935: “I firmly believe in the internationality of science and believe that real science should be outside all political passions and struggles, no matter how they try to involve it there. And I believe that the scientific work that I have done all my life is the heritage of all mankind, no matter where I did it

Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa - quotes

In science, as in history, a certain stage of development requires its own genius. A certain period of development requires people of the appropriate mindset.

The basis of creative work is always a feeling of protest.

In physics, as in any science, there are a number of basic problems, the solution of which marks, as it were, milestones the path along which scientific thought develops. Few scientists manage to achieve more than one such milestone. Rutherford, like Faraday, supplied several of them.

Money must turn around. The faster you spend, the more you get.

If an academician is still remembered 10 years after his death, he is a classic of science.

Born into the family of a military engineer, Major General of the Engineering Corps Leonid Petrovich Kapitsa and his wife Olga Ieronimovna, a teacher and folklorist, the daughter of a topographer.

In 1905, Pyotr Kapitsa entered the gymnasium. A year later, due to failure in Latin, he transferred to the Kronstadt Real School, which he graduated from in 1914.

In 1914 he entered the electromechanical faculty of the St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute. During the First World War, Piotr Kapitsa volunteered to go to the front and served as an ambulance driver on the Polish front. In 1916, he was demobilized and continued his studies.

In 1918 he graduated from the Polytechnic Institute in Petrograd, where he remained to work.

In 1921 he went on a scientific trip to Great Britain, where he worked under the leadership of E. Rutherford. The relationship with him was not easy, but gradually they became close friends. Pyotr Kapitsa nicknamed Rutherford “crocodile.”

From 1924 to 1932 he became deputy director of the Cavendish Laboratory.

In 1928, he discovered the relationship of certain metals in strong magnetic fields with electrical resistance and field voltage. This discovery was called Kapitsa's law.

In 1929 he became a member of the Royal Society of London.

In 1930, the Council of the Royal Society decided to build a special laboratory for Pyotr Kapitsa. On February 3, 1933, its grand opening took place - Peter Kapitsa was appointed director of the Mondov Laboratory (named after the industrialist and philanthropist Mond).

In 1934, Pyotr Kapitsa was detained during a guest visit and was forced to remain in the USSR. His visa was cancelled, and the family remained in England. During his first months in the USSR, he lived in a communal apartment with his mother.

On December 23, 1934, a decree was signed on the organization of the Institute of Physical Problems (IPP) and on January 3, 1935, Pyotr Kapitsa was appointed director of this institute. He moved from Leningrad to Moscow to the Metropol Hotel and received a personal car. In his letters, he wrote that work opportunities in the USSR were much inferior to his opportunities abroad.

In 1938 he discovered the superfluidity of liquid helium, for which he was awarded the USSR State Prize in 1943.

On January 24, 1939, Pyotr Kapitsa was accepted by unanimous vote as a full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

In 1941 he became a laureate of the Stalin Prize.

On October 1, 1943, Pyotr Kapitsa was appointed head of the Department of Low Temperatures, Faculty of Physics, Moscow State University.

In 1945, Pyotr Kapitsa was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor for his work with oxygen, and the institute he headed was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.

On August 17, 1946, he was removed from his post as director of the IFP. And he moved to a state dacha on Nikolina Gora, essentially “under house arrest,” according to Academician Feinberg. Despite this, the scientist continues scientific activity on a minimal set of equipment obtained thanks to the assistance of the President of the USSR Academy of Sciences S. Vavilov.

In 1947 he became a professor at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. During this period, he created a theory of the interaction of sea waves with wind.

In 1950-1955 he created a number of instruments that made it possible to actively develop the study of controlled thermonuclear fusion.

On June 3, 1955, Pyotr Kapitsa was returned to the post of director of the IFP after a conversation with Khrushchev. In the same year, he became editor-in-chief of the Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Physics.

In 1957 -1984 he was a member of the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

In 1965, he received permission to leave the USSR and visited Denmark to receive the Niels Bohr International Gold Medal.

In 1974 he received the title of Hero of Socialist Labor again.

In 1978, Pyotr Kapitsa received the Nobel Prize in Physics “for his fundamental inventions and discoveries in the field of low-temperature physics.”

On March 22, 1984, Pyotr Kapitsa felt unwell and was taken to the hospital, where a stroke was diagnosed. On April 8, he died and was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery in Moscow.

Russia (USSR)

Russian experimental physicist, one of the founders of low temperature physics and the physics of strong magnetic fields. Winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1978 for his discoveries in the field of low temperature physics, which he made back in the 30s of the 20th century...

In 1934 P.L. Kapitsa came on vacation to the USSR, but the authorities not allowed he returned to Cambridge and was offered to become director of the newly created Institute of Physical Problems. Ernst Rutherford, having come to terms with the loss of one of his best employees, allowed the Soviet authorities to buy the laboratory equipment and send it to the USSR.

“However, in 1934, when he once again came on vacation to the USSR, the Soviet government forbade him to return to England - by right of force. Deeply offended Kapitsa yet he did not break down and did not even part with his socialist ideals. He compared himself “to a woman who wants to give herself for love, but who they certainly want to rape.” For Soviet leaders, he used the expression “our idiots,” and here both words are equally important: “I have a sincere affection for our idiots, and they are doing wonderful things, and this will go down in history. [...] But what can you do if they don’t understand anything about science? [...] They (idiots), of course, can become smarter tomorrow, or maybe only in 5-10 years. There is no doubt that they will become wiser, since their life will force them to do this. The only question is: when?”

Gorelik G., Andrey Sakharov. Science and Freedom, M., “Vagrius”, 2004, p. 175-176.

In 1935 P.L. Kapitsa was appointed director of the Institute of Physical Problems in Moscow. In 1946, he was removed from the post of director and was engaged in research in the home laboratory he created at his dacha (in fact, it was house arrest). In 1955 P.L. Kapitsa reappointed director of the Institute of Physical Problems.

Since 1935, P.L. Kapitsa sent And V. Stalin 49 unanswered letters. But if there were no letters for a long time, Stalin’s secretary asked them to be sent by phone. “In his letters, Kapitsa continually cites historical examples. He directly points out to Stalin that since we cannot inspire a scientist with money, let alone in capitalist America, we must at least give him his due, as they give to the Patriarch. “This is also Bacon noticed in his “New Atlantis”. Therefore, it’s time for comrades like Beria start learning respect for scientists.”
In 1949, Kapitsa was removed from the head of the department at the university because he was not at meetings in honor of Stalin’s 70th birthday.
They wanted to elect him to the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences, but the Central Committee Suslov He said that we should abstain, and they abstained. They wanted to make him a member of the academic council of Moscow University, but this was prohibited.
Beria soon got his way, Kapitsa was fired from everywhere. Removed from oxygen work needed by the country. The Stalin Prize awarded by the Academy of Sciences was cancelled. Of course, Beria would have killed Kapitsa in the end. Stalin, knowing his satrap well, warned: “I’ll take it off for you, but don’t touch it.”

Granin D.A., A man not from here, St. Petersburg, Lenizdat, 2014, p. 7.

“In January 1946, academician Peter Kapitsa sent Stalin manuscript of a book by a technology historian L. I. Gumilevsky“Russian Engineers,” which was written with the support and initiative of Kapitsa. In a letter to Stalin, Kapitsa noted: “From this book it is clear:
1. A large number of major engineering undertakings originated here.
2. We ourselves hardly knew how to develop them.
3. Often the reason for not using innovation was that we usually underestimated our own and overestimated what was foreign. Now we need to strengthen our own technology... We can do this successfully only when we finally understand that the creative potential of our people is no less, but even greater than others, and we can safely rely on it.” Stalin not only read with interest the book by L.I. Gumilyovsky, but ordered its immediate publication.”

Roy Medvedev, Zhores Medvedev, Unknown Stalin, M., “Time”, 2007, p. 596.

P.L. Kapitsa repeatedly stood up to I.V. Stalin and subsequent for the oppressed scientists.

So, we begin our five-year Nobel marathon. And we'll start with one of the three Nobel laureates in physics in 1978. Meet: Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa.

Kapitsa Petr Leonidovich

Died on April 8, 1984 in Moscow, USSR. Nobel Prize in Physics 1978 (1/2 of the prize, the other half shared between Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson for the discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation).

The formulation of the Nobel Committee: “For his basic inventions and discoveries in the area of ​​low-temperature physics.”

The age at which the award is received is 84 years.

In the autumn of 1921, a young man appeared in the studio of the famous painter Boris Kustodiev, who asked him if it was true that he only painted portraits famous people. And he proposed to paint a portrait of those who would become famous - himself and his friend, chemist Kolya Semenov. The young people paid the artist with a bag of millet and a rooster (perhaps it was this, and not the promise of becoming famous, that was decisive in the hungry year), and as for their promise... By the end of their lives, they would have two Nobel Prizes between them, in physics and chemistry , four highest Soviet titles of Hero of Socialist Labor and fifteen highest orders - the Order of Lenin. We simply will not count state, Lenin and Stalin prizes. This brave young man's name was Pyotr Kapitsa.

The future Nobel laureate was the son of the Kronstadt fortifier Leonid Kapitsa and the daughter of the famous topographer Hieronymus Stebnitsky Olga, a famous collector of folklore. In 1914, he entered the electromechanical faculty of the St. Petersburg Polytechnic University, where Ioffe quickly noticed him and took him to his laboratory. It cannot be said that life was easy for Kapitsa. He managed to work as a military driver during the First World War; in 1919–1920, the Spanish flu claimed the lives of his father, first wife, two-year-old son and newborn daughter. For a long time, Ioffe could not send him abroad to continue his studies with world-class physicists.

Maxim Gorky helped and - suddenly - Rutherford, who agreed to take him in. Rutherford later recalled that he himself did not understand why he suddenly agreed to take on an unknown Russian. True, he had no regrets. Actually, Rutherford even owes his nickname (Crocodile) to Kapitsa.

At the same time, my personal life also improved. Pyotr Leonidovich's second wife, Anna Alekseevna, was the daughter of the famous mathematician and mechanic, shipbuilding theorist Academician Alexei Nikolaevich Krylov. Both sons of Pyotr Leonidovich and Anna Alekseevna were born in England, but left a noticeable mark on Russian science: Sergei Petrovich became a physicist, a professor at MIPT, and for 39 years he hosted the famous program “Obvious-Incredible.” Andrei Petrovich rose above his brother in the scientific hierarchy, became a famous geographer, explorer of Antarctica and corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Kapitsa settled in well in England. As a result, a laboratory was built specifically for him in Cambridge. The words of former British Prime Minister Baldwin, spoken at the opening of the laboratory, are well known: “We are happy that Professor Kapitsa, who so brilliantly combines both physicist and engineer, is working as our laboratory director. We are confident that, under his able leadership, the new laboratory will contribute to the knowledge of natural processes.” Kapitsa also brought “get-togethers” to the Cambridge world - seminars where anything and everything was discussed. In addition, Kapitsa was an excellent chess player and won the Cambridgeshire County Chess Championship.

Once again, in 1934, everything seemed to collapse. During his visit to Moscow, he was banned from traveling to Britain. But he stood up, was able to force the government to create an institute for himself and buy his laboratory from Rutherford. And continue the work for which he would eventually receive the Nobel Prize. It seems to me that it was precisely a certain longing for the “classical British physical tradition” that led Kapitsa to another most important act in his life - the creation of the Faculty of Physics and Technology of Moscow State University, which turned into the famous Physics and Technology (MIPT) and the “Phystech Systems” - in which students from the very beginning They are not trained by teachers, but by actual working scientists and engineers. By the way, here too, Kapitsa’s partner was his neighbor in Kustodiev’s portrait, Nikolai Semenov.

But let's return to the Nobel Prize. It is not entirely true to say that Kapitza received the Nobel Prize in Physics precisely for the discovery of helium superfluidity. The wording of the Nobel Committee states that the prize was received for discoveries and inventions in the field of ultra-low temperatures. It would be more correct to say that the award was awarded to Pyotr Leonidovich for two achievements at once.

The first is a fundamental discovery and a delicate experiment to discover the superfluidity of helium. In fact, Kapitsa discovered a new state of helium, helium II, in which, at temperatures below 2.17 K, liquid helium behaves like a quantum liquid and its viscosity becomes zero. It is said that Niels Bohr nominated Kapitsa for the prize three times, but without success, and Lev Landau received the prize for his explanation of helium superfluidity long before Kapitsa (1961). It is also worth noting that Pyotr Leonidovich received the prize exactly 40 years after his article in Nature on superfluidity. Two other researchers who discovered superfluidity independently of Landau, Allen and Meizner, who continued his work at the Mondov laboratory and published the results of their research in the same issue of the journal, simply did not live to see the prize.

The second is the invention of a turboexpander, a device for liquefying gases, which made it possible to obtain large quantities of helium (Kapitsa’s installation produced two liters of liquefied gas per hour). True, the importance of this invention is not only in the production of liquid helium, but also in the possibility of producing on an industrial scale liquid oxygen, which is much more important in the war. Thus, Kapitsa is one of the few physicists who fully embodied both parts of that fragment of Nobel’s will that concerns physics: the dynamite tycoon asked to present his prize “for discoveries or inventions” in the field of physics. Pyotr Leonidovich did both.

When I was preparing this article, I came across an article by P.E. Rubinin about Kapitsa’s “Nobel week”. It turns out that the organizers of the celebration offered to rent a traditional Nobel tailcoat (and the ceremony requires the most formal white tie dress code - that is, a tailcoat and a white bow tie) for Kapitsa and his entourage in Stockholm and asked for the sizes. However, Pyotr Leonidovich, remembering his British years, said that renting a tailcoat was disgusting and all the Moscow guests of the Swedish king had tailcoats sewn in Moscow by the famous tailor P.P. Okhlopkova. But I still had to buy a bow tie with an elastic band, which Kapitsa couldn’t stand. During the decades he spent in the USSR, Kapitsa forgot how to tie a real bow tie. However, Kapitsa went through all the other difficulties of the ceremony easily - and had a lot of fun when on the morning of the ceremony he had to take part in a “run-through” - everything was the same as in the evening, only without the king.

At the time of receiving the Nobel Prize, Kapitsa was the oldest laureate in history, which he did not fail to sarcastically note in his response. He honestly said that he published his first scientific work 65 years before the Nobel Prize. Pyotr Leonidovich also misbehaved in his Nobel lecture. According to tradition, Nobel laureates give lectures about the field of science and the discovery for which they were awarded...

But let’s give the floor to Kapitsa himself: “The choice of topic for the Nobel lecture presented some difficulty for me. Typically this lecture is related to the work for which the prize has been awarded. In my case, this award is related to my research in the field of low temperatures, near the liquefaction temperature of helium, i.e. several degrees above absolute zero. As fate would have it, it so happened that I left this work more than 30 years ago, and although the institute I headed continues to work on low temperatures, I myself began studying the phenomena occurring in plasma at those exceptionally high temperatures that are necessary for thermonuclear fusion. reactions. These works led us to interesting results that open up new perspectives, and I think that a lecture on this topic is of more interest than the work in the field of low temperatures that I had already forgotten. Besides, as the French say, les extremes se touchent (extremes meet).”

I’m not sure, but in my opinion, this is almost the only case of a lecture so far from the Nobel opening.

One can talk about Kapitsa for a long time and write multi-volume studies. Much has already been written - about his stay abroad, and about his role in the founding of MIPT, and about how he defended scientists before Stalin (and saved many), and about his Hut of Physical Problems - a dacha-laboratory on Nikolina Gora. Something was published for the first time by the author of these lines, something else will be published. But you can’t fit everything into one article. On the other hand, who said that I would write only this text about Pyotr Leonidovich?..

But for now I say goodbye to you until Monday. The next hero of our series will be Kapitsa’s “neighbor” in the portrait, colleague at the founding of MIPT and the only Russian and Soviet Nobel laureate in chemistry Nikolai Nikolaevich Semenov.

1. Kapitza P. Viscosity of liquid helium below the l-point (English) // Nature. - 1938. - Vol. 3558. - No. 141. - P. 74.

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

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

Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa(June 26 [July 8], Kronstadt - April 8, Moscow) - Soviet physicist. Academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1939).

Prominent organizer of science. Founder (IFP), whose director remained until the last days of his life. One of the founders. The first head of the Department of Low Temperature Physics, Faculty of Physics, Moscow State University.

Seminar by A.F. Ioffe at the St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute (1916). Kapitsa is on the far right

Even before defending his diploma, A.F. Ioffe invites Pyotr Kapitsa to work in the Physico-Technical Department of the newly created X-ray and Radiological Institute (transformed in November 1921 into). The scientist publishes his first scientific works in ZhRFKhO and begins teaching.

Ioffe believed that a promising young physicist needed to continue his studies at a reputable foreign scientific school, but for a long time it was not possible to organize a trip abroad. Thanks to the assistance of Krylov and the intervention of Maxim Gorky, in 1921 Kapitsa, as part of a special commission, was sent to England. Thanks to Ioffe’s recommendation, he manages to get a job at the Cavendish Laboratory under Ernest Rutherford, and on July 22, Kapitsa begins working in Cambridge. The young Soviet scientist quickly earned the respect of his colleagues and management thanks to his talent as an engineer and experimenter. His work in the field of superstrong magnetic fields brought him wide fame in scientific circles. At first, the relationship between Rutherford and Kapitsa was not easy, but gradually the Soviet physicist managed to win his trust and they soon became very close friends. Kapitsa gave Rutherford the famous nickname "crocodile". Already in 1921, when the famous experimenter Robert Wood visited the Cavendish Laboratory, Rutherford instructed Peter Kapitsa to conduct a spectacular demonstration experiment in front of the famous guest.

The topic of his doctoral dissertation, which Kapitsa defended at Cambridge in 1922, was “The passage of alpha particles through matter and methods for producing magnetic fields.” Since January 1925, Kapitsa has been deputy director of the Cavendish Laboratory for Magnetic Research. In 1929, Kapitsa was elected a full member of the Royal Society of London. In November 1930, the Council of the Royal Society decided to allocate £15,000 for the construction of a special laboratory for Kapitsa in Cambridge. The grand opening of the Mond laboratory (named after the industrialist and philanthropist Mond) took place on February 3, 1933. Kapitsa is elected Messel Professor of the Royal Society. The leader of the Conservative Party of England, former Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, noted in his opening speech:

We are happy that Professor Kapitsa, who so brilliantly combines both physicist and engineer, works as our laboratory director. We are convinced that under his able leadership the new laboratory will make its contribution to the knowledge of natural processes.

Kapitsa maintains ties with the USSR and in every possible way promotes the international scientific exchange of experience. The “International Series of Monographs in Physics” of the Oxford University Press, one of the editors of which was Kapitsa, publishes monographs by Georgy Gamov, Yakov Frenkel, and Nikolai Semyonov. At his invitation, Yuli Khariton and Kirill Sinelnikov come to England for an internship.

An image of a crocodile on the wall of the Cavendish Laboratory.

Return to the USSR

Numerous cases of non-return of Soviet scientists did not go unnoticed. In 1936, V.N. Ipatiev and A.E. Chichibabin were deprived of Soviet citizenship and expelled from the Academy of Sciences for remaining abroad after a business trip. A similar story with young scientists G. A. Gamov and F. G. Dobzhansky had a wide resonance in scientific circles.

Kapitsa's activities in Cambridge did not go unnoticed. The authorities were especially concerned about the fact that Kapitsa provided consultations to European industrialists. According to historian Vladimir Yesakov, long before 1934, a plan related to Kapitsa was developed, and Stalin knew about it. From August to October 1934, a series of Politburo resolutions were adopted, signed by Kaganovich, ordering the detention of the scientist in the USSR. The final resolution read:

Based on the considerations that Kapitsa provides significant services to the British, informing them about the situation in science in the USSR, and also that he provides major services to English firms, including the military, by selling them his patents and working on their orders, to prohibit P L. Kapitsa departure from the USSR.

Until 1934, Kapitsa and his family lived in England and regularly came to the USSR on vacation and to see relatives. The USSR government several times invited him to stay in his homeland, but the scientist invariably refused. At the end of August, Pyotr Leonidovich, as in previous years, was going to visit his mother and take part in the international congress dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the birth of Dmitry Mendeleev.

After arriving in Leningrad on September 21, 1934, Kapitsa was summoned to Moscow, to the Council of People's Commissars, where he met with Pyatakov. The Deputy People's Commissar of Heavy Industry recommended that we carefully consider the offer to stay. Kapitsa refused, and he was sent to a higher authority to see Mezhlauk. The Chairman of the State Planning Committee informed the scientist that traveling abroad was impossible and the visa was cancelled. Kapitsa was forced to move in with his mother, and his wife, Anna Alekseevna, went to Cambridge to visit her children alone. The English press, commenting on what happened, wrote that Professor Kapitsa was forcibly detained in the USSR.

Kapitsa (left) and Semenov (right). In the fall of 1921, Kapitsa appeared in the studio of Boris Kustodiev and asked him why he painted portraits of celebrities and why the artist should not paint those who would become famous. The young scientists paid the artist for the painting with a sack of millet and a rooster.

Pyotr Leonidovich was deeply disappointed. At first, he even wanted to leave physics and switch to biophysics, becoming Pavlov's assistant. He asked for help and intervention from Paul Langevin, Albert Einstein and Ernest Rutherford. In a letter to Rutherford, he wrote that he had barely recovered from the shock of what had happened, and thanked the teacher for helping his family who remained in England. Rutherford wrote a letter to the USSR Plenipotentiary Representative in England for clarification as to why the famous physicist was being refused to return to Cambridge. In a response letter, he was informed that Kapitsa’s return to the USSR was dictated by the accelerated development of Soviet science and industry planned in the five-year plan.

1934-1941

The first months in the USSR were difficult - there was no work and no certainty about the future. I had to live in cramped conditions in a communal apartment with Pyotr Leonidovich’s mother. His friends Nikolai Semyonov, Alexey Bakh, Fyodor Shcherbatskoy helped him a lot at that moment. Gradually, Pyotr Leonidovich came to his senses and agreed to continue working in his specialty. As a condition, he demanded that the Mondov laboratory, in which he worked, be transported to the USSR. If Rutherford refuses to transfer or sell the equipment, then duplicates of the unique instruments will need to be purchased. By decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, 30 thousand pounds sterling was allocated for the purchase of equipment.

In his letters of the late 1930s, Kapitsa admitted that the opportunities for work in the USSR were inferior to those abroad - this was even despite the fact that he had a scientific institution at his disposal and had practically no problems with financing. It was depressing that problems that could be solved in England with one phone call were mired in bureaucracy. The scientist’s harsh statements and the exceptional conditions created for him by the authorities did not contribute to establishing mutual understanding with colleagues in the academic environment.

The situation is depressing. Interest in my work fell, and on the other hand, fellow scientists were so indignant that attempts were made, at least in words, to put my work in conditions that simply should have been considered normal, that they were indignant without hesitation: “If<бы>They did the same to us, then we’ll do the same as Kapitsa”... In addition to envy, suspicion and everything else, an atmosphere was created that was impossible and downright creepy... The scientists here are definitely unkind to my move here.

In 1935, Kapitsa's candidacy was not even considered in the elections to full membership of the USSR Academy of Sciences. He repeatedly writes notes and letters about the possibilities of reforming Soviet science and the academic system to government officials, but does not receive a clear response. Several times Kapitsa took part in meetings of the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences, but, as he himself recalled, after two or three times he “withdrew.” In organizing the work of the Institute of Physical Problems, Kapitsa did not receive any serious help and relied mainly on his own strength.

In January 1936, Anna Alekseevna returned from England with her children, and the Kapitsa family moved to a cottage built on the territory of the institute. By March 1937, the construction of the new institute was completed, most of the instruments were transported and installed, and Kapitsa returned to active scientific work. At the same time, a “kapichnik” began working at the Institute of Physical Problems - the famous seminar of Pyotr Leonidovich, which soon gained all-Union fame.

In January 1938, Kapitsa published an article in the journal Nature about a fundamental discovery - the phenomenon of superfluidity of liquid helium and continued research in a new direction of physics. At the same time, the team of the institute, headed by Pyotr Leonidovich, is actively working on the purely practical task of improving the design of a new installation for the production of liquid air and oxygen - a turboexpander. The academician’s fundamentally new approach to the functioning of cryogenic installations is causing heated discussions both in the USSR and abroad. However, Kapitsa’s activities receive approval, and the institute he heads is held up as an example of the effective organization of the scientific process. At the general meeting of the Department of Mathematical and Natural Sciences of the USSR Academy of Sciences on January 24, 1939, Kapitsa was accepted as a full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences by unanimous vote.

Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa on a Russian postage stamp, 1994

War and post-war years

During the war, the IFP was evacuated to Kazan, and Pyotr Leonidovich’s family moved there from Leningrad. During war years, the need for the production of liquid oxygen from air on an industrial scale increases sharply. Kapitsa is working on introducing into production the oxygen cryogenic plant he developed. In 1942, the first copy of “Object No. 1” - the TK-200 turbo-oxygen installation with a capacity of up to 200 kg/h of liquid oxygen - was manufactured and put into operation at the beginning of 1943. In 1945, “Object No. 2” was commissioned - a TK-2000 installation with a productivity ten times greater.

At his suggestion, on May 8, 1943, by decree of the State Defense Committee, the Main Directorate for Oxygen was created under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, and Pyotr Kapitsa was appointed head of the Main Oxygen Department. In 1945, a special institute of oxygen engineering - VNIIKIMASH - was organized and a new magazine "Oxygen" began to be published. In 1945, he received the title of Hero of Socialist Labor, and the institute he headed was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.

In addition to practical activities, Kapitsa also finds time for teaching. On October 1, 1943, Kapitsa was appointed to the position of head of the Department of Low Temperatures, Faculty of Physics, Moscow State University. In 1944, at the time of the change of the head of the department, he became the main author of a letter from 14 academicians, which drew the government's attention to the situation at the Department of Theoretical Physics of the Faculty of Physics of Moscow State University. As a result, the head of the department after Igor Tamm was not Anatoly Vlasov, but Vladimir Fok. Having worked in this position for a short time, Fok left this post two months later. Kapitsa signed a letter from four academicians to Molotov, the author of which was A.F. Ioffe. This letter initiated the resolution of the confrontation between the so-called "academic" And "university" physics

Meanwhile, in the second half of 1945, immediately after the end of the war, the Soviet atomic project entered an active phase. On August 20, 1945, the Atomic Special Committee was created under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, the head of which was Lavrentiy Beria. The committee initially included only two physicists. Kurchatov was appointed scientific supervisor of all works. Kapitsa, who was not a specialist in nuclear physics, was assigned to head certain areas (low-temperature technology for separating uranium isotopes). Kapitsa immediately became dissatisfied with Beria’s leadership methods. He speaks very impartially and sharply about the General Commissioner of State Security - both personally and professionally. On October 3, 1945, Kapitsa writes a letter to Stalin asking him to be released from his work on the Committee. There was no answer. On November 25, Kapitsa writes a second letter, more detailed (8 pages). December 21, 1945 Stalin allows Kapitsa to resign.

Actually, in the second letter, Kapitsa described how necessary, in his opinion, to implement the nuclear project, defining in detail an action plan for two years. As the biographers of the academician believe, Kapitsa at that time did not know that Kurchatov and Beria at that time already had data on the American atomic program received by Soviet intelligence. The plan proposed by Kapitsa, although it was quite fast in execution, was not fast enough for the prevailing political situation around the development of the first Soviet atomic bomb. Historical literature often mentions that Stalin conveyed to Beria, who proposed to arrest the independent and sharp-minded academician: “I’ll take him off for you, but don’t touch him.” Authoritative biographers of Pyotr Leonidovich do not confirm the historical accuracy of such words of Stalin, although it is known that Kapitsa allowed himself behavior that was completely exceptional for a Soviet scientist and citizen. According to historian Lauren Graham, Stalin valued Kapitsa's frankness and frankness. Kapitsa, despite the severity of the problems they raised, kept his messages to Soviet leaders secret (the contents of most of the letters were revealed after his death) and did not widely propagate his ideas.

At the same time, in 1945-1946, the controversy surrounding the turboexpander and the industrial production of liquid oxygen intensified again. Kapitsa enters into a discussion with leading Soviet cryogenic engineers who do not recognize him as a specialist in this field. The State Commission recognizes the promise of Kapitsa’s developments, but believes that launch into an industrial series will be premature. Kapitsa's installations are dismantled, and the project is frozen.

On August 17, 1946, Kapitsa was removed from the post of director of the IPP. He retires to the state dacha, to Nikolina Mountain. Instead of Kapitsa, Alexandrov is appointed director of the institute. According to academician Feinberg, at this time Kapitsa was “in exile, under house arrest.” The dacha was the property of Pyotr Leonidovich, but the property and furniture inside were mostly state-owned and were almost completely taken away. In 1950, he was also fired from the Faculty of Physics and Technology of Moscow State University, where he lectured.

In his memoirs, Pyotr Leonidovich wrote about persecution by security forces, direct surveillance initiated by Lavrentiy Beria. Nevertheless, the academician does not abandon scientific activity and continues research in the field of low temperature physics, separation of uranium and hydrogen isotopes, and improves his knowledge of mathematics. Thanks to the assistance of the President of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Sergei Vavilov, it was possible to obtain a minimum set of laboratory equipment and install it at the dacha. In numerous letters to Molotov and Malenkov, Kapitsa writes about experiments carried out in artisanal conditions and asks for the opportunity to return to normal work. In December 1949, Kapitsa, despite the invitation, ignored the ceremonial meeting at Moscow State University dedicated to the 70th anniversary of Stalin.

Last years

The situation changed only in 1953 after the death of Stalin and the arrest of Beria. On June 3, 1955, Kapitsa, after a meeting with Khrushchev, returned to the post of director of the IFP. At the same time, he was appointed editor-in-chief of the country's leading physics journal, the Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Physics. Since 1956, Kapitsa has been one of the organizers and first head of the Department of Physics and Low Temperature Engineering at MIPT. In 1957-1984 - member of the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

Kapitsa continues active scientific and teaching activities. During this period, the scientist's attention was attracted by the properties of plasma, the hydrodynamics of thin layers of liquid, and even the nature of ball lightning. He continues to conduct his seminar, where the best physicists in the country were considered an honor to speak. “Kapichnik” became a kind of scientific club where not only physicists were invited, but also representatives of other sciences, cultural and artistic figures.

In addition to achievements in science, Kapitsa proved himself as an administrator and organizer. Under his leadership, the Institute of Physical Problems became one of the most productive institutions of the USSR Academy of Sciences, attracting many of the country's leading specialists. In 1964, the academician expressed the idea of ​​​​creating a popular scientific publication for young people. The first issue of the Kvant magazine was published in 1970. Kapitsa took part in the creation of the Akademgorodok research center near Novosibirsk, and a new type of higher education institution -. The gas liquefaction plants built by Kapitsa, after a long controversy in the late 1940s, found wide application in industry. The use of oxygen for oxygen blasting revolutionized the steel industry.

In 1965, for the first time after a break of more than thirty years, Kapitsa received permission to leave the Soviet Union for Denmark to receive the Niels Bohr International Gold Medal. There he visited scientific laboratories and gave a lecture on high-energy physics. In 1969, the scientist and his wife visited the United States for the first time.

In recent years, Kapitsa has become interested in controlled thermonuclear reaction. In 1978, academician Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics “for fundamental inventions and discoveries in the field of low-temperature physics.” The academician received the news of the award while on vacation at the Barvikha sanatorium. Kapitsa, contrary to tradition, dedicated his Nobel speech not to the works that were awarded the prize, but to modern research. Kapitsa referred to the fact that he moved away from questions in the field of low-temperature physics about 30 years ago and is now fascinated by other ideas. The Nobel laureate's speech was entitled “Plasma and the controlled thermonuclear reaction.” Sergei Petrovich Kapitsa recalled that his father completely kept the bonus for himself (he deposited it in his name in one of the Swedish banks) and did not give anything to the state.

These observations led to the idea that ball lightning is also a phenomenon created by high-frequency oscillations that occur in thunderclouds after ordinary lightning. In this way, the energy necessary to maintain the long-lasting glow of ball lightning was supplied. This hypothesis was published in 1955. A few years later we had the opportunity to resume these experiments. In March 1958, already in a spherical resonator filled with helium at atmospheric pressure, in a resonant mode with intense continuous oscillations of the Hox type, a freely floating oval-shaped gas discharge arose. This discharge was formed in the region of maximum electric field and slowly moved in a circle coinciding with the field line.

Original text(English)

These observations led us to the suggestion that the ball lightening may be due to high frequency waves, produced by a thunderstorm cloud after the conventional lightening discharge. Thus the necessary energy is produced for sustaining the extensive luminosity, observed in a ball lightening. This hypothesis was published in 1955. After some years we were in a position to resume our experiments. In March 1958 in a spherical resonator filled with helium at atmospheric pressure under resonance conditions with intense H, oscillations we obtained a free gas discharge, oval in form. This discharge was formed in the region of the maximum of the electric field and slowly moved following the circular lines of force.

Fragment of Kapitsa's Nobel lecture.

On March 22, 1984, Pyotr Leonidovich felt unwell and was taken to the hospital, where he was diagnosed with a stroke. On April 8, without regaining consciousness, Kapitsa died. He was buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.

Scientific heritage

Works 1920-1980

Stamp of Russia, 2000. Kapitsa's experience in measuring the characteristics of liquid helium is demonstrated. We made a device like a Segner wheel with several legs emanating from a common volume, and then heated the inside of this vessel with a beam of light. This “spider” began to move. Thus, heat was transferred into movement .

One of the first significant scientific works (together with Nikolai Semenov, 1918) was devoted to the measurement of the magnetic moment of an atom in a non-uniform magnetic field, which was improved in 1922 in the so-called Stern-Gerlach experiment.

While working at Cambridge, Kapitsa became closely involved in research into superstrong magnetic fields and their influence on the trajectory of elementary particles. Kapitsa was one of the first to place a cloud chamber in a strong magnetic field in 1923 and observed the curvature of the tracks of alpha particles. In 1924, he obtained a magnetic field with an induction of 32 Tesla in a volume of 2 cm 3. In 1928, he formulated the law of linear increase in the electrical resistance of a number of metals depending on the magnetic field strength (Kapitsa’s law).

The creation of equipment for studying the effects associated with the influence of strong magnetic fields on the properties of matter, in particular magnetic resistance, led Kapitsa to the problems of low temperature physics. To carry out the experiments, first of all, it was necessary to have a significant amount of liquefied gases. The methods that existed in the 1920-1930s were ineffective. Developing fundamentally new refrigeration machines and installations, Kapitsa in 1934, using an original engineering approach, built a high-performance gas liquefaction plant. He managed to develop a process that eliminated the compression phase and highly purified air. Now there was no need to compress the air to 200 atmospheres - five was enough. Due to this, it was possible to increase the efficiency from 0.65 to 0.85-0.90, and reduce the installation price by almost ten times. In the course of work to improve the turboexpander, it was possible to overcome the interesting engineering problem of freezing of the lubricant of moving parts at low temperatures - liquid helium itself was used for lubrication. The scientist’s significant contribution was not only to the development of an experimental sample, but also to bringing the technology to mass production.

In the post-war years, Kapitsa was attracted to high-power electronics. He developed the general theory of magnetron-type electronic devices and created continuous magnetron generators. Kapitsa put forward a hypothesis about the nature of ball lightning. Experimentally discovered the formation of high-temperature plasma in a high-frequency discharge. Kapitsa expressed a number of original ideas, for example, the destruction of nuclear weapons in the air using powerful beams of electromagnetic waves. In recent years, he has worked on issues of thermonuclear fusion and the problem of confining high-temperature plasma in a magnetic field.

Discovery of superfluidity

Historians of science, talking about the events at the turn of 1937-1938, note that there are some controversial points in the competition between the priorities of Kapitza and Allen with Jones. Pyotr Leonidovich formally sent materials to Nature before his foreign competitors - the editors received them on December 3, 1937, but were in no hurry to publish, awaiting verification. Knowing that the verification could take a long time, Kapitsa clarified in a letter that the proofs could be checked by John Cockcroft, director of the Mondov laboratory. Cockroft, having read the article, informed his employees, Allen and Jones, about it, hastening them to publish it. Cockcroft, a close friend of Kapitsa, was surprised that Kapitsa only let him know about the fundamental discovery at the last moment. It is worth noting that back in June 1937, Kapitsa, in a letter to Niels Bohr, reported that he had made significant progress in the research of liquid helium.

As a result, both articles were published in the same issue of Nature dated January 8, 1938. They reported an abrupt change in the viscosity of helium at temperatures below 2.17 Kelvin. The difficulty of the problem solved by the scientists was that it was not easy to accurately measure the viscosity of the liquid that flowed freely into the half-micron hole. The resulting turbulence of the liquid introduced a significant error into the measurement. Scientists have taken different experimental approaches. Allen and Meisner looked at the behavior of helium-II in thin capillaries (the same technique was used by the discoverer of liquid helium, Kamerlingh Onnes). Kapitsa studied the behavior of a fluid between two ground disks and estimated the resulting viscosity value to be below 10 −9. Kapitsa called the new phase state helium superfluidity. The Soviet scientist did not deny that the contribution to the discovery was largely joint. For example, in his lecture, Kapitsa emphasized that the unique phenomenon of helium-II gushing was first observed and described by Alain and Meizner.

These works were followed by a theoretical substantiation of the observed phenomenon. It was given in 1939-1941 by Lev Landau, Fritz London and Laszlo Tissa, who proposed the so-called two-fluid model. Kapitsa himself continued his research on helium-II in 1938-1941, in particular confirming the speed of sound in liquid helium predicted by Landau. The study of liquid helium as a quantum liquid (Bose-Einstein Condensate) has become an important direction in physics, producing a number of remarkable scientific works. Lev Landau received the Nobel Prize in 1962 in recognition of his achievements in constructing a theoretical model of the superfluidity of liquid helium.

Niels Bohr recommended the candidacy of Pyotr Leonidovich to the Nobel Committee three times: in 1948, 1956 and 1960. However, the award of the prize occurred only in 1978. The contradictory situation with the priority of the discovery, in the opinion of many scientific researchers, led to the fact that the Nobel Committee delayed for many years in awarding the prize to the Soviet physicist. Allen and Meisner were not awarded the prize, although the scientific community recognizes their important contributions to the discovery of the phenomenon.

civil position

Historians of science and those who knew Pyotr Leonidovich closely described him as a multifaceted and unique personality. He combined many qualities: intuition and engineering flair of an experimental physicist; pragmatism and business approach of the organizer of science; independence of judgment in dealing with authorities.

If any organizational issues needed to be resolved, Kapitsa preferred not to make phone calls, but to write a letter and clearly state the essence of the matter. This form of address required an equally clear written response. Kapitsa believed that it was more difficult to wrap up a case in a letter than in a telephone conversation. In defending his civic position, Kapitsa was consistent and persistent, writing about 300 messages to the top leaders of the USSR, touching on the most pressing topics. As Yuri Osipyan wrote, he knew how it is reasonable to combine destructive pathos with creative activity .

There are known examples of how, during the difficult times of the 1930s, Kapitsa defended his colleagues who came under the suspicion of security forces. Academicians Fock and Landau owe the liberation to Kapitsa. Landau was released from the NKVD prison under the personal guarantee of Pyotr Leonidovich. The formal pretext was the need for support from a theoretical physicist to substantiate the model of superconductivity. Meanwhile, the charges against Landau were extremely serious, since he openly opposed the authorities and actually participated in the dissemination of materials critical of the dominant ideology.

Kapitsa also defended the disgraced Andrei Sakharov. In 1968, at a meeting of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Keldysh called on members of the academy to condemn Sakharov and Kapitsa spoke in his defense, saying that one cannot speak out against a person if one has not been able to first become acquainted with what he wrote. In 1978, when Keldysh once again invited Kapitsa to sign a collective letter, he remembered how the Prussian Academy of Sciences excluded Einstein from its membership and refused to sign the letter.

On February 8, 1956 (two weeks before the 20th Congress of the CPSU), at a meeting of Kapitsa’s physical seminar, Nikolai Timofeev-Resovsky and Igor Tamm made a report on the problems of modern genetics. For the first time since 1948, an official scientific meeting was held dedicated to the problems of the disgraced science of genetics, which Lysenko’s supporters in the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences and in the Central Committee of the CPSU tried to disrupt. Kapitsa entered into a debate with Lysenko, trying to offer him an improved method of experimentally testing the perfection of the square-cluster method of tree planting. In 1973, Kapitsa wrote to Andropov with a request to release the wife of the famous dissident Vadim Delaunay. Kapitsa took an active part in the Pugwash movement, advocating the use of science exclusively for peaceful purposes.

Kapitsa always believed that the continuity of generations in science has great importance and the life of a scientist in a scientific environment takes on real meaning if he leaves behind students. He strongly encouraged work with youth and training of personnel. So in the 1930s, when liquid helium was very rare even in the best laboratories in the world, MSU students could get it in the IPP laboratory for experiments.

Family and personal life

Mother - Olga Ieronimovna Kapitsa (1866-1937), née Stebnitskaya, teacher, specialist in children's literature and folklore. Her father Jerome Ivanovich Stebnitsky (1832-1897), a cartographer, corresponding member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, was the chief cartographer and surveyor of the Caucasus, so she was born in Tiflis. Then she came from Tiflis to St. Petersburg and entered the Bestuzhev courses. She taught in the preschool department.

In 1916, Kapitsa married Nadezhda Chernosvitova. Her father, a member of the Central Committee of the Cadet Party, State Duma deputy Kirill Chernosvitov, was later, in 1919, shot. From his first marriage, Pyotr Leonidovich had children:

• Jerome (June 22, 1917 - December 13, 1919, Petrograd)
• Nadezhda (January 6, 1920 - January 8, 1920, Petrograd).

In October 1926, in Paris, Kapitsa became closely acquainted with Anna Krylova (1903-1996). In April 1927 they got married. It is interesting that Anna Krylova was the first to propose marriage. Pyotr Leonidovich knew her father, academician Alexei Nikolaevich Krylov, for a very long time, since the time of the 1921 commission. From his second marriage, two sons were born into the Kapitsa family:

• Sergei (February 14, 1928, Cambridge - August 14, 2012, Moscow)
• Andrey (July 9, 1931, Cambridge - August 2, 2011, Moscow).

They returned to the USSR in January 1936.

Pyotr Leonidovich lived with Anna Alekseevna for 57 years. His wife helped Pyotr Leonidovich in preparing manuscripts. After the death of the scientist, she organized a museum in his house.

In his free time, Pyotr Leonidovich was fond of chess. While working in England, he won the Cambridgeshire County Chess Championship. He loved making household utensils and furniture in his own workshop. Repaired antique watches.

Awards and prizes

• Hero of Socialist Labor (1945, 1974)
• Stalin Prize (1941, 1943)
• Gold medal named after. Lomonosov Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1959)
• Medals named after Faraday (England, 1943), Franklin (USA, 1944), Niels Bohr (Denmark, 1965), Rutherford (England, 1966), Kamerlingh Onnes (Netherlands, 1968)

6 Orders of Lenin, Order of the Red Banner of Labor

Bibliography

• “Everything simple is true” (To the 100th anniversary of the birth of P. L. Kapitsa). edited by P. Rubinina, M.: MIPT, 1994. ISBN 5-7417-0003-9

Books about P. L. Kapitsa

• Baldin A. M. et al.: Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa. Memories. Letters. Documentation.
• Esakov V. D., Rubinin P. E. Kapitsa, the Kremlin and science. - M.: Nauka, 2003. - T. T.1: Creation of the Institute of Physical Problems: 1934-1938. - 654 s. - ISBN 5-02-006281-2
• Dobrovolsky E. N.: Kapitsa's handwriting.
• Kedrov F. B.: Kapitsa. Life and discoveries.
• Andronikashvili E. L.: Memories of liquid helium.

Memory

• The Russian Academy of Sciences established the Gold Medal named after P. L. Kapitsa
• The A330 VQ-BMV aircraft in the Aeroflot fleet was named in honor of P. L. Kapitsa
• In the city of Kronstadt, a monument-bust was erected to a native of the city, academician Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa. The bust was unveiled during his lifetime, on June 18, 1979 (twice Heroes in the USSR were supposed to have a bust installed in their homeland). Sculptor - A. Portyanko, architects - V. Bogdanov and L. Kapitsa.

Notes

1. Pyotr Kapitsa (Russian). people.ru. Archived
2. Igor Zotikov. Three houses of Peter Kapitsa (Russian) // New world. - 1995. - No. 7. - P. 55-56. - ISSN 0032-874X.
3. S. Mussky. 100 Great Nobel Laureates. - M.: Veche, 2009. - 480 p. - ISBN 978-5-9533-3857-8
4. Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa. Documentary film from the “Historical Chronicles” series with Nikolai Svanidze // RTR channel
5. Robert Wood (Russian). First channel . Archived from the original on February 3, 2012. Retrieved November 27, 2011.
6. Pavel Rubinin A free man in an unfree country (Russian) //
7. , With. 545
8. , With. 546
9. Nobel Prize laureates. Encyclopedia. - M.: Progress, 1992. - 775 p. - ISBN 5-01-002539-6
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