Why is Igor Evgenievich Tamm awarded the Nobel Prize? Academician Tamm: “A true intellectual cannot be an anti-Semite
Igor Tamm
Nobel Prize in Physics 1958 (shared with Pavel Cherenkov and Ilya Frank). The wording of the Nobel Committee: “For the discovery and interpretation of the Cherenkov effect.”
Surprisingly, Igor Tamm received his prize far from being for the main research and discoveries in his life; moreover, his Nobel students are now much more well-known than he himself. But during his lifetime, Tamm was just as much a legend as Landau, perhaps not as shocking.
We can say that his surname was “talking.” There are three versions of its origin. The most common is from the Estonian word tamm, oak. In addition, in German it is “dam, dam”. Another variant of etymology is from short form personal name Tancmar - from words with the meanings “think” and “known”. Not bad, right?
His father was a military builder. He ended up in Vladivostok, where the future Nobel laureate was born, because he was building mills for the needs of Pacific Fleet. When Igor was six years old, the family made a long journey and moved to the territory of modern Ukraine, to Elizavetgrad (now Kirovograd). There Igor graduated from high school, and there he became addicted to the main youth fashion of the time - politics and Marxism. Parents, out of harm's way, sent the child to study at the University of Edinburgh... And the boy finally became a Marxist.
Vladivostok in 1880
Wikimedia Commons
For some time, the future scientist was more involved in politics than physics, but the war happened, and Tamm, who was already studying at Moscow University, went to the front in 1915 as a brother of mercy. However, Tamm returned a few months later and graduated from the university in 1918. By that time, our hero had already married (to the sister of his classmate Natalia Shuiskaya) and joined the Mensheviks. However, it seems he never became a member of the party.
Tamm went to teach - first to Simferopol, to the Taurida University (by the way, one of Tamm’s students at that time was a certain Igor Kurchatov), and then to Odessa. There's a lot on my mind young man has changed.
This happened thanks to Leonid Mandelstam, who taught at the Odessa Polytechnic. It was the meeting with Mandelstam that showed Tamm that politics is nothing, and physics is everything. Tamm maintained a relationship with his teacher until the latter's death in 1944.
Leonid Mandelstam
Wikimedia Commons
However, there is a story going around that just in time Civil War and the Odessa period of Tamm’s life, everything could have ended. It was published in Walter Gratzer’s book “Eurekas and Euphorias”; it was told in the words of Tamm himself by another “physicist from Odessa,” Georgy Gamow.
“During the Civil War, the future laureate Nobel Prize in physics, Igor Tamm was captured by one of Makhno’s gangs. He was taken to the ataman - “a bearded man in a tall fur hat, who had criss-cross lines on his chest machine gun belts, and a pair of hand grenades dangled from his belt."
You son of a bitch, communist agitator, why are you undermining mother Ukraine? We will kill you.
“Not at all,” Tamm replied. - I am a professor at Odessa University and came here to get at least some food.
Nonsense! - exclaimed the chieftain. - What kind of professor are you?
I teach mathematics.
Mathematics? - asked the chieftain. - Then find me an estimate for the approximation of the Maclaurin series with the first n terms. If you decide, you will be released, if not, I will shoot you.
Tamm could not believe his ears: the problem belonged to a rather narrow area of higher mathematics. With trembling hands and at gunpoint, he managed to deduce the solution and showed it to the chieftain.
Right! - said the ataman. - Now I see that you really are a professor. Well, then, go home.
Tamm never found out the ataman’s surname.”
In 1922, Tamm came to Moscow and worked at the Sverdlov Communist University (there was one, from 1918 to 1937). I managed to complete a six-month internship in Germany and Holland, became friends with, and met. By the way, one of the very first scientific works Tamm was devoted to the theory of relativity.
Gradually Tamm began teaching at Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov, but was afraid to go into “pure science” because it paid little money. My wife helped and started selling family jewelry. Very quickly Tamm began full-time work in science and already in 1930 he first put forward the idea of quanta sound waves- phonons. In 1933, Tamm already became a corresponding member (at the age of 38 - very good), in 1934 - head of a sector at the Lebedev Physical Institute (now FIAN).
Russian stamp dedicated to Tamm and phonons
Public domain
In 1934, Tamm - also for the first time - put forward the idea that the forces holding nuclear particles together (strong interaction) are of an exchange nature. True, unlike Hideki Yukawa, who a year later suggested that the particles that carry the strong interaction are mesons, and subsequently received the Nobel Prize for this, Tamm believed that the particles that carry the interaction are electrons and neutrinos.
In 1936–1937, Tamm, together with Ilya Frank, explained what caused the very strange Vavilov-Cherenkov effect, discovered by Pavel Cherenkov in the laboratory of Sergei Vavilov as the luminescence of liquids under the influence of gamma radiation.
Cherenkov radiation in a nuclear reactor
Public domain
They suggested that the glow occurs when a particle moves in a medium at a speed exceeding the speed of light in it. And they built the correct theory of this phenomenon. Now we know that, for example, the bluish glow of radioactive substances in water is caused by the fact that electrons during beta decay move at a speed exceeding 225 thousand kilometers per second - the speed of light in water.
It is amazing that this work was done at a time when trouble happened in Tamm’s family: his brother, a major engineer who worked in the Donbass, was shot. 1937...
Ilya Frank
Wikimedia Commons
For some time, Tamm's sector was liquidated, but the scientist himself was not touched. He was even involved in the creation of atomic weapons, but reluctantly, and even access to the classified information he didn't have. In 1948, however, Tamm's group began work on more powerful weapon- thermonuclear. First theoretical research, then, in 1950, he left for Arzamas-16 - Sarov. With him are two of his best students, Vitaly Ginzburg and Andrei Sakharov.
At the same time, Tamm managed to work from 1947 to 1949 as a professor at the Faculty of Physics and Technology of Moscow State University, on the basis of which MIPT was subsequently created.
Tamm was in Arzamas-16 until the testing of the “product” in 1953 (he personally participated in the work), and he was not only involved in the bomb. If we don’t talk about chess and Agatha Christie (Igor Evgenievich was passionate about detective stories), then in parallel with the work on the bomb, already in 1950, he and Sakharov proposed the principle of magnetic confinement of plasma during a thermonuclear reaction, which still underlies the work thermonuclear reactors, including the currently under construction ITER.
It is necessary to mention one more important achievement of Tamm. It was thanks to him that university learning programs In physics, quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity were included.
Unfortunately, the last years of Igor Evgenievich’s life were very difficult, and not because of problems with the authorities. He fell ill and became terminally ill. In the entire history of medicine, only two people were able to not only recover, but not die from this disease. One of them - recently left us worldwide famous physicist. Alas, not every great scientist can cope with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. In 1971, Tamm, who was forced to live on a ventilator for three years, died (his illness spurred the development of domestic ventilators, and they also began to be imported into our country from abroad). They say that he tried to work to the last - this remained the only opportunity for “movement” for him and helped Tamm not to feel like a “butterfly on a pin.”
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, Nobel Prize Laureate
Igor Evgenievich Tamm- Russian theoretical physicist, founder of a scientific school, academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1953), Hero of Socialist Labor (1953). Works on quantum theory, nuclear physics(theory of exchange interactions), radiation theory, physics solid, physics elementary particles. One of the authors of the Cherenkov-Vavilov radiation theory. In 1950, he proposed (together with physicist Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov) to use heated plasma placed in a magnetic field to produce a controlled thermonuclear reaction. Author of the textbook “Fundamentals of Electricity Theory”. USSR State Prize (1946, 1953). Nobel Prize (1958, jointly with Ilya Mikhailovich Frank and Pavel Alekseevich Cherenkov). Gold medal named after Lomonosov of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1968).
Family. Years of study
Igor Tamm was born July 8 (June 26, old style) 1895, in Vladivostok. His father, Evgeniy Fedorovich, an engineer, worked in different cities Russia - in Vladivostok, where he participated in the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway (there is still a station "Evgenievka" named in his honor near Vladivostok), Odessa, Elizavetgrad (now Kirovograd, Ukraine), Kyiv.
Mother, Olga Mikhailovna, nee Davydova, came from a military family. In 1913, Tamm, after graduating from high school in Elizavetgrad, entered the University of Edinburgh. Parents, fearing their son’s excessive interest in politics and “ revolutionary ideas", wanted him to study abroad. However, in 1914, Igor Tamm transferred to the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of Moscow State University, which he graduated in 1918. His studies were interrupted by a voluntary trip to the front as a “brother of mercy” (March-September 1915) and participation in the First All-Russian Congress of Soviets in June 1917 (delegate from the Menshevik Party).
In 1917, Igor Tamm married Natalya Vasilyevna Shuiskaya.
Stages of a scientific career
After graduating from Moscow State University, I. Tamm taught physics at Tauride University (Simferopol), and then at the Odessa Polytechnic Institute (1919-22). Here, under the guidance of the Russian physicist, one of the founders of the national scientific school in radiophysics, Academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences Leonid Isaakovich Mandelstam, whom Tamm considered his teacher all his life, he carried out his first scientific research. In 1922, Tamm moved to Moscow and in 1924 he was invited to head the department of theoretical physics at Moscow State University (he taught until 1941 and in 1954-57). In 1929, he published the textbook “Fundamentals of the Theory of Electricity” (10th edition in 1989), which became widely known and translated into many languages.
Since 1934, after the Academy of Sciences moved to Moscow, Igor Evgenievich Tamm has been working at the Physical Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences. In 1935, he organized the Theoretical Department at the Institute, which he headed until the end of his life (since 1971 the department has been named after Tamm).
In 1933, Tamm was elected a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, and in 1953 - an academician. In 1946 and 1953 he was awarded the State Prize, in 1953 he received the title of Hero of Socialist Labor, and in 1958 - the Nobel Prize.
Igor Tamm's contribution to physics
The main directions of scientific creativity of Igor Evgenievich relate to quantum mechanics, solid state physics, radiation theory, nuclear physics, elementary particle physics, as well as solving a number of applied problems.
In 1930, Igor Tamm created the quantum theory of light scattering by crystals and the theory of light scattering by electrons. In 1931, he (together with theoretical physicist Semyon Petrovich Shubin) developed the quantum theory of the photoelectric effect in metals. This direction also includes works in which the possibility of special states of electrons on the surface was shown. crystalline body(the so-called Tamm levels, 1932). These works were subsequently acquired important in connection with the development of the physics of surface phenomena and microelectronics.
In 1937, together with the Russian physicist Ilya Mikhailovich Frank, Igor Tamm created the theory of Cherenkov-Vavilov radiation (Nobel Prize).
In 1934 and 1936 I. Tamm published works on nature nuclear forces, which influenced the solution of the problem of strong interactions. In the field of nuclear physics, the method of treating the interaction of nuclear elementary particles (Tamm-Dankov method, 1945) has also become widely known. In applied physics, the most famous work was carried out in 1950-53 together with A.D. Sakharov on the confinement and thermal insulation of plasma using magnetic fields (Controlled thermonuclear fusion).
In 1948, Tamm, despite questionable personal data by the standards of that time (his brother, L. E. Tamm, a chemical engineer, was shot as an “enemy of the people” in 1937), as well as a number of his employees were involved in the creation nuclear weapons(in 1950-53 Tamm lived and worked in the closed city of Arzamas-16). This was a consequence both directly of his high scientific reputation and of the reputation of Tamm's school.
Among his students are theoretical physicist, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences Semyon Petrovich Shubin; theoretical physicist, academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Vitaly Lazarevich Ginzburg; theoretical physicist, academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Leonid Veniaminovich Keldysh; theoretical physicist, academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Moisei Aleksandrovich Markov; Russian physicist and public figure Andrey Dmitrievich Sakharov.
The appearance of a scientist and a person
A characteristic feature of Tamm as a scientist is his desire to deal with the most pressing problems of physics. This desire was associated with his inherent courage - as in scientific work(choice of topics, approach to solving a problem, etc.), and in life. The work completely captivated Igor Tamm. In any conditions - at meetings, at home, in transport, on tourist trips - Igor Evgenievich thought about the problems that worried him and did calculations. With such an absorption in science, he did not worry too much about failures and quickly switched to searching for new approaches to solving the problem.
Tamm's social temperament and integrity clearly manifested themselves in the 1950s and 60s, when he took an active part in the fight against “Lysenkoism” in biology. In 1956, at his insistence, the Department of Biophysics was created at the Faculty of Physics of Moscow State University; Problems of persecuted genetics were often discussed at the all-Moscow seminar led by Tamm at the Physics Institute. During these years, Tamm repeatedly and openly made reports and statements about the disastrous role of the agronomist, academician of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine Trofim Denisovich Lysenko in biology, and about the pseudoscientific nature of his theories.
In connection with this activity, the Russian biologist, geneticist, one of the founders of population and radiation genetics Nikolai Vladimirovich Timofeev-Resovsky wrote: “... I. E. was not only a charming person, but also a full-fledged personality who inspired everyone absolute trust.... I. E. remains in my memory among individuals extraordinarily gifted with diverse abilities and temperament, but equally great scientists, such as Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Ernest Rutherford, Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac, Erwin Schrödinger.”
The significance of Igor Tamm’s personality for Russian physicists was determined by Andrei Sakharov: “People of my generation first learned the name of Igor Evgenievich Tamm as the author of a wonderful course on the theory of electricity - for many he was a revelation... At the same time, we heard the sound of battles for the theory of relativity, for quantum theory, I heard fascinating rumors about Igor Evgenievich’s mountaineering and tourist hobbies. By this time, Tamm was already the author of many outstanding original works... By the end of the 30s, the name of Igor Evgenievich Tamm (even for those who did not know him personally) was surrounded by a halo - not in the supernatural, but in simply a high human sense . In him, along with Lev Davidovich Landau, Soviet theoretical physicists saw their honored and recognized leader...”
Last years life of Igor Tamm
At the end of 1968, Tamm became seriously ill (atrophy of the areas of the spinal cord responsible for the muscular activity of the diaphragm). An operation was performed to connect the body to an artificial respiration apparatus. For the first one and a half to two years, Igor Tamm was still actively working: while remaining “connected” to the device, he sat at his desk and studied for 5-6 hours a day. At this time, he was fascinated by the problems of field theory, constantly communicated with the employees of his department, and was interested in the news of physics, biology, and politics.
In 1968 Tamm was awarded highest award USSR Academy of Sciences - gold medal named after M.V. Lomonosov. Relying on the laureate's report on general meeting Academy, written by Tamm, was read by Andrei Sakharov at his request. In the last year of his life, Tamm could no longer work at a desk, but, remaining in bed, he studied science until the end and carried out calculations.
Born June 26 (July 8), 1895 in Vladivostok.
Died on April 12, 1971 in Moscow.
Nobel Prize in Physics 1958 (together with P.A. Cherenkov and I.M. Frank).
The wording of the Nobel committee: “for the discovery and interpretation of the Cherenkov effect.”
The age for receiving the bonus is 63 years.
Today's hero of our Nobel cycle is important to me for several reasons. Firstly, he is a Russian (Soviet) nobleman. Secondly, he is one of our ten Physics and Technology laureates so far (let me remind you that eight of them are teachers, and two are graduates; I have already written about two of them). And thirdly, and this is completely personal, my own scientific vocation I found this laureate in my native Odessa, although he himself is from Vladivostok.
No, I’m not talking about Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov, we’ll talk about him later. It's about about the 1958 Nobel laureate in physics, one of the fathers hydrogen bomb, Igor Evgenievich Tamm. Surprisingly, this man did not receive his prize for the main research and discoveries in his life; moreover, his Nobel laureate students are now much more famous than he himself.
But during his lifetime he was just as much a legend as Landau, perhaps not as shocking. But there was folklore about Tamm. “Is it possible to come up with something like this - Igor Tamm in the rest system” - this is about our hero. And his last name was telling. There are three possible origins for this surname. The most common is from the Estonian word tamm, oak. In addition, in German it is “dam, dam”. And moreover, there is a variant etymology of the word from the short form of the personal name Tancmar - from words with the meanings “think” and “known”. Not bad, right?
It is curious that the second meaning of this word also suits his father, who was a military builder and ended up in Vladivostok, where the future Nobel laureate was born, because he was building mills for the needs of the Pacific Fleet. When Igor was 6 years old, his family made a long journey and moved to the territory of modern Ukraine, to Elizavetgrad (now Kirovograd). He graduated from high school in the same place where he became addicted to the main youth fashion of the time - politics and Marxism. Parents, out of harm’s way, sent the child to study at the University of Edinburgh (by the way, Peter Higgs is now teaching there), and... the boy finally became a Marxist.
For some time, Tamm was more involved in politics than in physics, for which he had a clear talent. But the war happened, and Tamm, who by that time was already studying at Moscow University, went to the front as a brother of mercy in 1915. However, he returned a few months later and graduated from the university in 1918. By that time, Tamm had already married (to the sister of his classmate Natalia Shuiskaya) and joined the Mensheviks. However, it seems that he never became a member of the party. Tamm went to teach - first to Simferopol, to the Taurida University (by the way, one of Tamm’s students at that time was a certain Igor Kurchatov), and then to Odessa, where much in the young man’s thoughts changed. This happened thanks to Odessa resident Leonid Isaakovich Mandelstam, who taught at the Odessa Polytechnic. It was the meeting with Mandelstam that showed Tamm that politics was nothing, and physics was his everything. Until his teacher’s death in 1944, Tamm maintained a relationship with him.
Leonid Mandelstam (1879-1944)
In 1922, Tamm came to Moscow and worked at the Communist University. Sverdlov (there was one, from 1918 to 1937). I managed to complete a six-month internship in Germany and Holland, became friends with Paul Dirac, and met Einstein. By the way, one of Tamm’s very first scientific works was devoted to the theory of relativity. The work was highly appreciated and accepted for publication by Einstein himself. Gradually, Tamm began teaching at Moscow State University, but was afraid to go into “pure science” - it paid little money. My wife helped and started selling family jewelry. Very quickly Tamm began full-time work in science and already in 1930 he first put forward the idea of quanta of sound waves - phonons.
In 1933, Tamm was already a corresponding member (at 38 years old - very good), in 1934 - head of the sector of the Physics Institute. Lebedev (now - FIAN). In 1934, Tamm was the first to put forward the idea that the forces holding nuclear particles together (strong interaction) are of an exchange nature. True, unlike the Japanese Hideki Yukawa, who a year later suggested that the particles that carry the strong interaction are mesons and subsequently received a “Nobel” for this, Tamm believed that the particles that carry the interaction are electrons and neutrinos. By the way, Yukawa honestly admitted that it was Tamm’s work that gave him the idea of interaction carrier mesons, and he referred to Igor Evgenievich in his work.
Hideki Yukawa
In 1936–1937 Tamm, together with Ilya Frank, explained what caused the very strange Vavilov-Cherenkov effect - a glow under the influence of radiation, discovered by Pavel Cherenkov in the laboratory of Sergei Vavilov.
Pavel Cherenkov
Tamm and Frank suggested that the glow occurs when a particle moves in a medium at a speed exceeding the speed of light in it. And they built the correct theory of this phenomenon with the correct mathematical apparatus. Now we know that, for example, the bluish glow of radioactive substances in water is caused by the fact that electrons during beta decay move at a speed exceeding 225 thousand kilometers per second - the speed of light in water.
Vavilov-Cherenkov effect in reactor cooling water
It is amazing that this work was done at a time when trouble happened in Tamm’s family - his brother, a major engineer who worked in the Donbass, was shot. 1937... For some time his sector was liquidated, but Tamm himself was not touched. He was even involved in work on creating atomic weapons, but reluctantly, and he did not have access to the most secret information. However, in 1948, Tamm's group began work on a more powerful weapon - thermonuclear weapons. First - theoretical research, then, in 1950, he left for Arzamas-16 - Sarov. With him are two best students, two future Nobel laureate(and future MIPT professors) - Vitaly Ginzburg and Andrei Sakharov.
Vitaly Ginzburg
Andrey Sakharov
At the same time, Tamm managed from 1947 to 1949. work as a professor at Faculty of Physics and Technology Moscow State University, on the basis of which MIPT was subsequently created. Tamm was in Arzamas-16 until the testing of the “product” in 1953 (he personally participated in the work), and he was not only involved in the bomb. If we don’t talk about chess and Agatha Christie (Igor Evgenievich was passionate about detective stories), then in parallel with the work on the bomb, already in 1950 he and Sakharov proposed the principle of magnetic plasma confinement during a thermonuclear reaction, which still underlies working thermonuclear reactions (including the currently under construction ITER).
After the success of the “hydrogen project,” Tamm’s authority in the Academy of Sciences increased, and a “thaw” began. After Stalin’s death, in the same 1953, Tamm became an academician, and was even able to afford to get involved in politics again - in 1955 he signed the famous “letter of the three hundred” criticizing Trofim Lysenko (I have seen evidence that Tamm corresponded with the discoverer of the structure DNA Watson), became involved in the Pugwash movement of scientists to prevent thermonuclear war. In 1958, our hero finally received the Nobel Prize - together with Cherenkov, who discovered the effect, and Frank, the co-author of the theory. True, according to Tamm himself, he was offended that he received it for the Vavilov-Cherenkov effect, and not for the exchange theory of nuclear forces.
Ilya Frank
It is necessary to mention one more important achievement of Tamm. It was thanks to him that quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity were included in university physics curricula.
Unfortunately, the last years of Igor Evgenievich’s life were very difficult - and not because of problems with state power. He fell ill, and became terminally ill. Alas, in the entire history of medicine, only two people were able to not only recover, but not die from this disease. One of them is the world famous physicist Stephen Hawking. But alas, not every great scientist can cope with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. In 1971, Tamm, who was forced to live on a ventilator for three years, died. They say that he tried to work to the last - this remained the only opportunity for “movement” for him and helped Tamm not to feel like a “butterfly on a pin.”
Russian physicist Igor Evgenievich Tamm was born on the coast Pacific Ocean in Vladivostok in the family of Olga (nee Davydova) Tamm and Evgeniy Tamm, a civil engineer. In 1913 he graduated from high school in Elizavetgrad (now Kirovograd) in Ukraine, where the family moved in 1901. He went to study at the University of Edinburgh, where he spent a year (from then on he retained a Scottish accent in English pronunciation); then he returned to Russia, where he graduated from the physics department of Moscow State University and received his diploma in 1918. While still a senior student, he participated in the First World War as a civilian medical service and led active work in the Elizavetgrad city government.
In 1919, T. began his career as a physics teacher, first at the Crimean University in Simferopol, and later at the Odessa Polytechnic Institute. Having moved to Moscow in 1922, he taught for three years at the Communist University. Sverdlov. In 1923, he moved to the Faculty of Theoretical Physics of the 2nd Moscow University and held the position of professor there from 1927 to 1929. In 1924, he simultaneously began lecturing at Moscow State University, where from 1930 to 1937 he was a professor and head of the department of theoretical physics. There in 1933 he received the degree of Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, and then became a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences. When the Academy moved from Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) to Moscow in 1934, T. became head of the theoretical physics sector Academic Institute them. P.N. Lebedev, and he held this post until the end of his life.
Electrodynamics of anisotropic solids (i.e. those that have a wide variety of physical properties and characteristics) and optical properties crystals - these are the first areas scientific research T., which he conducted under the guidance of Leonid Isaakovich Mandelstam, a professor at the Odessa Polytechnic Institute in the early 20s, an outstanding Soviet scientist who contributed to many areas of physics, especially optics and radiophysics. T. maintained close contact with Mandelstam until the latter’s death in 1944. Turning to quantum mechanics, T. explained acoustic vibrations and light scattering in solid media. In this work, the idea of quanta of sound waves (later called “phonons”) was first proposed, which turned out to be very fruitful in many other areas of solid state physics.
At the end of the 20s. important role V new physics relativistic quantum mechanics played. English physicist P.A. M. Dirac developed the relativistic theory of the electron. This theory, in particular, predicted the existence of negative energy levels of the electron - a concept rejected by many physicists, since the positron (a particle identical in every way to the electron, but carrying a positive charge) had not yet been discovered experimentally. However, T. proved that the scattering of low-energy light quanta by free electrons occurs through intermediate states of electrons that are in negative energy levels. As a result, he showed that the negative energy of the electron is an essential element of the electron theory proposed by Dirac.
T. made two significant discoveries in the quantum theory of metals, popular in the early 30s. Together with student S. Shubin, he was able to explain the photoelectric emission of electrons from a metal, i.e. emission caused by light irradiation. The second discovery was the establishment that electrons near the surface of a crystal can be in special energy states, later called Tamm surface levels, which 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, T. 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, T. tried to explain, using his so-called beta theory, the nature of the forces that hold nuclear particles together.
According to this theory, the decay of nuclei caused by the emission of beta particles (high-speed electrons) leads to the emergence of a special kind of force between any two nucleons (protons and neutrons). Using Enrico Fermi's work on beta decay, T. investigated what nuclear forces could arise from the exchange of electron-neutrino pairs between any two nucleons, if such an effect occurs. He discovered that beta forces actually exist, but are too weak to act as "nuclear glue." A year later, Japanese physicist Hideki Yukawa postulated the existence of particles called mesons, the process of exchange of which (and not electrons and neutrinos, as T. assumed) ensures the stability of the nucleus.
In 1936...1937 T. and Ilya Frank proposed a theory that explained the nature of the radiation that 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. T. and Frank considered the case of an electron moving faster than light in a medium. Although this is impossible in a vacuum, this phenomenon also occurs in a refractive medium, since the phase speed of light in the medium is equal to 3·10 8 meters per second, divided by the refractive index of the given medium. In the case of water, whose refractive index is 1.333, the characteristic blue glow occurs when the speed of the corresponding electrons exceeds 2.25 x 10 8 meters per second (phase speed of light in water).
Following this model, both physicists were able to explain Cherenkov radiation (known in the Soviet Union as Vavilov–Cherenkov radiation in recognition of the work done by Cherenkov and T.'s supervisor, physicist S.I. Vavilov). T., Cherenkov and Frank also tested other predictions of this theory, which found experimental confirmation. Their work eventually led to the development of superluminal optics, which has found practical applications in fields such as plasma physics. For their discovery, T., Frank, Cherenkov and Vavilov received the USSR State Prize in 1946.
T., Frank and Cherenkov were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1958 “for the discovery and interpretation of the Cherenkov effect.” At the presentation of the laureates, Manne Sigbahn, a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, recalled that although Cherenkov “established the general properties of the newly discovered radiation, the mathematical description this phenomenon was missing." The work of T. and Frank, he further said, provided “an explanation... which, in addition to simplicity and clarity, also satisfied strict mathematical requirements.” Paradoxically, T. himself never considered the work for which he received the prize to be his most important achievement.
After completing his work on Cherenkov radiation, T. returned to research on nuclear forces and elementary particles. He proposed an approximate quantum mechanical method to describe the interaction of elementary particles whose speeds are close to the speed of light. Further developed by the Russian chemist P.D. Dankov and known as the Tamm–Dankov method, it is widely used in theoretical research interactions such as nucleon - nucleon and nucleon - meson. T. also developed the cascade theory of cosmic ray fluxes. In 1950, T. and Andrei Sakharov proposed a method of confining a gas discharge using powerful magnetic fields - a principle that still underlies the desired achievement of a controlled thermonuclear reaction (nuclear fusion) among Soviet physicists. In the 50s and 60s. T. continued to develop new theories in the field of elementary particles and tried to overcome some of the fundamental difficulties of existing theories.
For my long activity T. managed to turn the physics laboratory of Moscow State University into an important Research Center and introduced quantum mechanics and relativity into educational plans in physics throughout the Soviet Union. In addition, the recognized theoretical physicist took an active part in the political life of the country. He firmly opposed the government's attempts to dictate its policies to the USSR Academy of Sciences and against bureaucratic control over academic research, the consequence of which was, as a rule, the squandering of resources and human energy. Despite the frank critical statements and the fact that he was not a member of the CPSU, T. in 1958 was included in the Soviet delegation to the Geneva Conference on the ban on nuclear weapons tests. He was an active member of the Pugwash Scholars Movement.
Highly regarded by his colleagues for his warmth and humanity, T. was characterized by the Washington Post newspaper after an interview he gave on American television in 1963, not as “a well-spoken propagandist or a diplomat who knows how to stand up for himself, not as a smug philistine, but as a highly cultured scientist , whose merits allow him to have a breadth of views and freedom of expression that is inaccessible to many of his compatriots.” In this interview, T. described the mutual mistrust between the United States and Soviet Union as the main obstacle to genuine arms reduction and insisted on a "decisive change political thinking, which must proceed from the fact that no war is acceptable.”
In 1953, T. was elected a full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences. He was also a member of the Polish Academy of Sciences. American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Swedish Physical Society. He was awarded two Orders of Lenin and the Order of the Red Banner of Labor and was a Hero of Socialist Labor. In 1929, T. wrote a popular textbook, “Fundamentals of the Theory of Electricity,” which was reprinted many times.
Nobel Prize laureates: Encyclopedia: Trans. from English – M.: Progress, 1992.
© The H.W. Wilson Company, 1987.
© Translation into Russian with additions, Progress Publishing House, 1992.
Igor Evgenievich Tamm
Theoretical physicist.
From Vladivostok the Tamm family moved to Elizavetgrad, Ukraine.
In 1913, sensing the approach of revolutionary events, his father sent Tamm to the University of Edinburgh (Scotland). It probably seemed to him that this was far enough, but in 1914 Tamm transferred to Moscow University, immediately finding himself in the center of active political life. Very soon he became one of the prominent Mensheviks. In the summer of 1917, he represented the Menshevik faction at the First All-Russian Congress of Soviets and was the only one of the Menshevik delegation to speak out against Russia’s participation in the world war.
In 1918 he graduated from Moscow University.
Finding himself in the south, cut off from the capitals by the fronts of the Civil War, Tamm taught physics at Tauride University until 1920, then at the Odessa Polytechnic Institute.
In 1922 he returned to Moscow.
From this year until the very beginning of the Great Patriotic War Tamm worked at Moscow University. Since 1934 he has been the head of the theoretical department Physical Institute Academy of Sciences of the USSR. He led this department until his death.
Tamm's scientific works are devoted to quantum mechanics and its applications, solid state theory, physical optics, nuclear physics, theory of elementary particles, the problem of thermonuclear fusion, and applied physics. In 1930, he developed a complete quantum theory of light scattering in crystals, for which he quantized not only light, but also elastic waves in a solid, introducing the previously non-existent concept of sound quanta - phonons. In the same year, he gave a consistent derivation of the Klein-Nishina formula for the scattering of light by an electron, which was important for the approval of the relativistic Dirac wave equation for the electron. In 1931, together with physicist S.P. Shubin, while developing the quantum theory of metals, he built a theory of the photoelectric effect on metals and theoretically indicated the possibility of special states of electrons on metal surfaces - the so-called “Tamm levels”. In 1934, he proposed and mathematically developed a quantitative theory of nuclear forces, in which he for the first time showed the possibility of transfer of interactions - by electrons and neutrinos. In 1934 (together with S.A. Altshuler) he expressed the idea that the neutron has a magnetic moment, and in collaboration with L.I. Mandelstam gave general interpretation Heisenberg uncertainty relation in terms of “energy – time”.
An amazing fact: no matter who wrote about Tamm - writers, or physicists, or historians of science, everyone wrote about him with admiration. His courage and deep integrity were noted by all who knew him. In 1936, for example, at a session of the USSR Academy of Sciences, answering a question from Professor V.F. Mitkevich, who sharply rejected the theory of relativity, Tamm noted that in fact there really are questions to which it is impossible to give a reasonable answer. For example, the following question: what color is the meridian passing through Pulkovo: red or green? The enraged Mitkevich shouted to the whole hall with an open threat: “So I ask my ideological opponents: what color is their meridian? The color of my meridian is quite well known to everyone here! But I think it is just as well known to those present what color Professor Tamm’s meridian is. However, what is not yet clear is the color of the Ioffe or Vavilov meridian: is it red or green?”
There are many memories of Tamm.
“...What we saw,” wrote one of his former students, “was not at all like everything I had seen before and what my imagination had built. A man ran or, more precisely, even flew into the audience short stature. Behind him, sparks flew out of the door from a cigarette thrown outside the door. He ran to the opposite wall, quickly returned, reached the middle of the classroom again, and only then turned to face the students. We saw a kind, lively, smiling face.
...During his speeches, he quickly moved around the audience and spoke about physics with such fiery enthusiasm and enthusiasm that no one could remain indifferent. When the board turned out to be covered with writing and only the top remained, which he could not reach, Tamm jumped up to write a letter on the fly or provide it with a stroke.”
"…IN scientific community Issues of priority play a significant role,” recalled Academician V.L. Ginzburg. – But I don’t remember that I. E. Tamm and the department he created, where I have been working since 1940, ever had any significant disputes, much less squabbles related to priority. I don’t remember that I.E. ever even mentioned his priority; I think that he considered it beneath his dignity.”
At the same time, Tamm opposed any injustice that became known to him. For example, he vehemently protested against the unfair decision of the Nobel Committee, which awarded the prize for the discovery of Raman scattering of light to the Indian physicist Chandrasekhar Raman, and not to the Soviet physicists L. I. Mandelstam and G. S. Landsberg, in whose works this phenomenon was described much more fully , and more correctly physically interpreted. By the way, this influenced the resignation of the famous physicist Max Born from the Nobel Committee, as well as Tamm, who was outraged by the unfair decision.
In Kazan, during the evacuation, Tamm's laboratory was located in the premises of the ethnographic museum. Huge showroom separated by plywood partitions, in some places not even reaching the ceiling. Much to their delight, physicists quickly discovered that many historical exhibits had not lost any of their former real value. For example, handfuls of rye, sometimes issued in meager military rations, were ground by physicists on primitive millstones taken directly from the exhibition. Tamm later recalled this with a smile more than once.
“...A passionate man,” physicist V. Kartsev wrote about him, “he argued with friends that “by the fall” they would find Bigfoot, developed frantic energy to obtain permission to excavate several mounds located five kilometers from his dacha in Zhukovka, organized (almost at his own expense) an expedition to explore a difficult-to-reach cave, where, as he believed, there could be innumerable treasures (large ones were actually discovered there) archaeological values). The man who thought, “What would it be like without mountaineering,” was a big fan of practical jokes, puzzles, chess, puzzles, charades, and the works of Khayyam and Pasternak.
...Tamm was distinguished by selfless kindness - having received the State Prize, he called one of his closest employees and said: “I don’t need this money at all. Do you know any young people who need help to get into science?” Among those who received Tamm’s anonymous “scholarship” was the daughter of a janitor who was caring for her blind sister. Thanks to Tamm’s help, she managed to graduate from college, but she never found out who helped her.”
Even before the war, in 1937, Tamm developed (together with I.M. Frank) the theory of radiation from an electron rapidly moving in a medium, the so-called “Cherenkov-Vavilov effect.” For this work, together with Frank and Cherenkov, he was awarded the State Prize in 1946, and in 1958 the Nobel Prize.
“As far as I know,” recalled Professor Feinberg, “this award was completely unexpected for Igor Evgenievich. Having heard about the decision of the Nobel Committee, I rushed to Igor Evgenievich’s office and began to excitedly congratulate him. Calmly and even somewhat slower than usual, walking around the room with his hands clasped behind his back, he seriously replied: “Yes, of course, this is very pleasant... I’m glad... Very happy... But, you know, there’s also some grief mixed in with this...” Guess It was not difficult: “Because the prize was not awarded for the work that you yourself consider to be your best work - not for beta forces?”
Tamm nodded."
“He was light, fast, always in a hurry, as if he was afraid of being late. He was fond of many sports, was an excellent climber, and played tennis,” recalled scientific journalist V. Gubarev. – Well, chess is a constant passion. Moreover, Tamm was often unpredictable. For example, I was walking along the shore of Lake Geneva (there was a international Conference) and suddenly I saw them water skiing. It turns out that anyone could do this for a fee. Igor Evgenievich immediately buys himself a “tour”. The first attempt, and the venerable, world-famous scientist flops into the water - he could not stay on his skis. But the second attempt was already successful. Tamm was proud that he managed to get on water skis so quickly.”
In 1945, Tamm organized a department at the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute, where he began research on the problem of thermonuclear fusion. At the same time, he gave an approximate method for interpreting the interaction of nuclear elementary particles - the “Tamm method”. And in 1950, together with Sakharov, he proposed using an electric discharge in a plasma placed in a magnetic field to obtain a controlled thermonuclear reaction.
From 1954 to 1957 Tamm was a professor at Moscow University.
Tamm's textbook “Fundamentals of the Theory of Electricity” went through many editions. Among Tamm’s students are V. L. Ginzburg, M. A. Markov, S. A. Altshuller, D. I. Blokhintsev, A. S. Davydov, S. I. Pekar, L. V. Keldysh, E. S. Fradkin, S. Z. Belenky, A. D. Galanin, D. A. Kirzhnits, V. Ya. Fainberg, V. P. Silin, E. L. Feinberg.
It is curious that, like Academician Landau, Tamm felt extremely uncomfortable at the sight of a pen and a blank sheet of paper. He could verbally express any most complex thought, but it was always extremely difficult for him to put the same thought on paper. Overnight he could write formulas on a pile of paper sheets, but to express it in words on paper was almost too much work for him.
Academician since 1953.
All his life Tamm was extremely healthy person, I have never been seriously ill. And this one active person, due to degeneration of the nerve that controls the diaphragm, was subjected to severe surgery and transferred to artificial respiration. A metal tube was inserted into the trachea, perpendicular to the neck, from the outside, which evenly, in the rhythm of natural breathing, blew air into the lungs.
“...I often visited Igor Evgenievich,” recalled the famous science historian B. G. Kuznetsov. “He lay on a special bed, sometimes moved to a chair (an airplane chair with an adjustable tilt, donated, if I’m not mistaken, by A.N. Tupolev) and less and less often to the desk. Nurses were on duty in the room around the clock. From time to time the conversation with Igor Evgenievich was interrupted, the nurses turned the bed so that the patient’s body assumed an almost vertical position: the operation of artificial lungs required such extremely painful operations.
Tamm knew about the inevitable end of the disease. Waiting to die is a “cruel experiment.” But sometimes such a “cruel experiment” reveals not the contradictions of being and consciousness, but their harmony. The expectation of death can devastate the soul, but it can, freeing it from everything transitory, direct it entirely to the externally personal and thereby most profoundly reveal the personality in its individual uniqueness.
The words just written “freeing from everything transitory” in relation to Igor Evgenievich did not at all mean a weakening of interest in the details of life individuals, to everyday events, to the destinies of others. All this was not “transitory” for him. He was interested not only in everything capital letters, but also to everyone with a small letter - all people, all aspects of their lives. His remarks in conversations, sometimes pronounced with difficulty, costing effort and pain, still referred not so much to what Spinoza called “creative nature” as to “created nature.” Or rather, Igor Evgenievich, again, did not so much understand as feel the unity of the Cosmos and the Microcosm - such a characteristic presumption of science.
I remember one of the conversations that took place to the accompaniment of artificial, machine breathing - a never-ending reminder of the fast-flowing and short-lived time. Igor Evgenievich talked about different things, about great scientists, but not at all about their ideas, but about the details of life and about very ordinary people.
About Niels Bohr: Igor Evgenievich traveled with him around Denmark and greeted Bohr politely and respectfully strangers. “This is because,” Bor explained, “I am known as a relative of a famous football player.” (Bora's brother was indeed a professional football player, he even played for the national team).
About Dirac: having spent the evening visiting with Igor Evgenievich, as usual, in silence, Dirac, looking at how the hostess knitted, said goodbye quietly: “It seems that I have found a finite number various methods knitting and I can prove it.”
About the granddaughter of the Swedish king: after receiving the Nobel Prize at the banquet, Igor Evgenievich sat next to the princess. She complained that you can go skiing in the north of Sweden, where they have a small castle, but it needs to be heated in advance. Igor Evgenievich told her about the corresponding advantages of his dacha in Zhukovka.”
“...I’ll tell you straight, Igor Evgenievich did not belong to such a wide circle of physicists who never had even the slightest note of patronizing towards anyone, did not feel some internal pedestal, some Gelerter conceit, awareness of the advantages of their profession, their field of study, their non-involvement in less recognized areas, their rank.
Once, when talking about some recognized achievements in physics, Igor Evgenievich said: “Probably, I could do something similar and even, it seems, I did something. The trouble is different: what I can do interests me less than what I cannot yet do.”
Tamm's scientific work has been recognized with numerous prizes and awards.
He is a Hero of Socialist Labor (1953), winner of two State Prizes (1946, 1953). He was awarded the Order of Lenin and the Order of the Red Banner of Labor. In 1958 he was awarded the world's highest scientific honor - the Nobel Prize.
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