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Biographical Notes Appendix Biographical Notes Bursian, Viktor Robertovich (1886–1945), a Russian and Soviet theoretical physi- cist. He worked on a range of physical problems, firstly using classical, then later quantum physics from 1918 to 1932 under Joffe at the Physico-Technical Insti- tute in Leningrad (LFTI). From 1932 until his arrest in 1936 “for participation in a fascist-Trotskyite-Zinovievite organization” he was professor then director of the Scientific-Research Institute of Physics at Leningrad University. He carried out work in mineral prospecting in the 1920s, one of the founders of the technique of electrical geo-exploration. For more details see Bursian (1988). Bursian was sentenced in 1937 by the Supreme Military Court to 10 years in a labor camp, which he spent in the technical special office of the NKVD carrying out thermal calculations. Egorshin, Vasilii Petrovich (1898–1985), born into a peasant family, joined the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party in 1915. After the revolution in 1921 he taught courses at Moscow University and from 1924 taught physics at the Communist University. Like Hessen he then studied at the IKP. He also joined the Deborin group, but turned against them in the late 1920s. Fock, Vladimir Aleksandrovich (1898–1974), a major Soviet theoretical physicist, known internationally for his foundational work in quantum mechanics and QED, where he introduced key mathematical concepts such as Fock space. Graduating from Petrograd University where he was a postgraduate, becoming a professor there in 1932. He collaborated with the Physico-Technical Institute in Leningrad (LFTI) from 1924 to 1936 and had periods of collaboration with the Vavilov State Optical Institute in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg) and with the Lebedev Physics Institute in Moscow. He wrote the first Soviet textbook on quantum mechanics in 1931. Like Joffe, Tamm, Frenkel and all the main physicists in the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 30s, Fock did not question the standard “Copenhagen” interpretation of quantum mechanics. In the purges of 1936–7 Fock was briefly arrested but refused to condemn other physicists—for more details see Josephson (1991), pp. 312–314. By the late 1930s © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license 163 to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 C. Talbot and O. Pattison (eds.), Boris Hessen: Physics and Philosophy in the Soviet Union, 1927–1931, History of Physics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70045-4 164 Appendix: Biographical Notes Fock advanced a dialectical materialist philosophical position on quantum theory, claiming that it would support Niels Bohr’s approach, from which the “positivistic coating” could be removed. He even travelled to visit Bohr in Copenhagen in 1957 and came away convinced that he agreed with Bohr, after the latter’s “correction of his formulations.” See Graham (1971), pp. 69–110. Frenkel, Yakov Il’ich (1894–1952) was a brilliant Soviet physicist, working at the Physico-Technical Institute in Leningrad (LFTI) from 1921 until his death. He taught himself theoretical physics and mathematics while at high school in Tsarist Russia. As a student at St Petersburg university he produced work of such calibre that it was noticed by Joffe. From 1922 until his death he published a book virtually every year, many becoming textbooks, with three translated into English. Traveling in England, France and Germany in 1925, spending a year in the United States in 1930, he became widely known internationally, especially for his work in condensed matter physics. For more details on Frenkel see Kojevnikov (2002), pp. 47–69. Frenkel leaned towards a positivist philosophy of quantum mechanics and openly criticised dialectical materialism in a lecture in 1931, for which he was repeatedly denounced by Soviet philosophers until his death. Joffe, Abram Fedorovich (1880–1960), leading Russian and Soviet physicist. He was responsible for the establishment of the Physico-Technical Institute in Leningrad (LFTI) in 1918 and became its director. His work on the mechanical and electrical properties of crystals gave him a world-wide reputation, but he also worked on many other areas of physics and helped establish a number of research laboratories. He was prominent in the defence of physics against Stalinist attacks in the 1930s. Much of (Josephson (1991)) is concerned with the development of the LFTI, including Joffe’s role. Kasterin, Nikolai Petrovich (1869–1947), a prominent Russian and Soviet physicist in the 1920s, a proponent of mechanistic views, attempting to develop an alternative to relativity based on classical physics. He authored a book on aerodynamics and elec- trodynamics that was translated into English in 1937. Though opposed to Marxism he kept out of philosophical debates. Remarkably he joined with Timiryazev in the later 1930s in attacking relativity, presumably noting that Timiryazev had personal support from Stalin even though he was increasingly isolated among physicists. Lazarev, Petr Petrovich (1978–1942), a Russian and Soviet physicist, biophysicist and geophysicist, member of the Soviet Academy of Science from 1917, first chief editor of Uspekhi Fizicheskikh Nauk (Advances in Physical Sciences) journal. When Lenin was shot and wounded in 1918 he was X-rayed in Lazarev’s laboratory, one of the few still functioning. In 1931 Lazarev was arrested and interrogated because he was “not loyal enough” to the Soviet regime. Under the strain his wife committed suicide. Although Lazarev was released after six months he was removed as director of the Institute of Physics and Biophysics which he had founded, exiled for a while, then returned to Moscow in a low grade post which he held for six years. In 1938 his Appendix: Biographical Notes 165 work was investigated by a special commission, and he remained in disgrace for the final 4 years of his life. See Ivanitskii (2009). Lebedinsky, Vladimir Konstantinovich (1868–1937), a Russian and Soviet physi- cist and radio-engineer, first chairman of the Russian Radio-Engineering Society (1918), co-editor of the first Soviet Encyclopaedia (from 1926), best known for work on electrical, magnetic and radio physics. Mach, Ernst Waldfried Josef Wenzel (1838–1916) was an Austrian physicist and philosopher, noted for his contributions to physics such as the study of shock waves. Mach developed a positivist philosophy which was very influential at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century, a major influence on logical positivism and American pragmatism. His philosophy put forward the view that scientific laws merely correlated sensory perceptions, opposing the claim that such perceptions reflect actual relationships among real things, which exist independently of observation. (See Holton (1993), Chap. 1, for more on Mach’s influence.) His ideas were taken up, in a form called Empirio-criticism, by some of the leaders of the Bolshevik Party, the best known being Alexander Bogdanov. They were strongly opposed by Lenin who wrote his book Materialism and Empirio-criticism against their “Machist” views, published in 1909.1 Mandelstam, Leonid Isaakovich (1879–1944) was from a Belarusian-Jewish back- ground. His main interest was in optics and quantum mechanics. He is regarded as one of the founding fathers of Soviet physics, based at Moscow university. In 1928 he and G. Landsberg discovered the effect of the combinatorial scattering of light. Two Indian scientists C. V. Raman and K. S. Krishnan discovered the same effect, one week later than Mandelstam and Landsberg. They observed the effect in solids, liquids, and vapors, thus proving the universal nature of the effect whereas Man- delstam and Landsberg had only observed it in crystals. The Nobel Prize committee judged that Mandelstam and Landsberg were unable to provide an independent, com- plete interpretation for the discovery and had failed to cite the work of Raman and Krishnan so only the latter won the Nobel prize. The effect is now usually known as Raman scattering (although it is still referred to as “combinatorial scattering of light” in Russia) and is widely used in physics and chemistry. Maksimov, Alexander Aleksandrovich (1891–1976) graduated in physics from the University of Kazan in 1916. He joined the Bolsheviks just after the October Revolu- tion, and served as a soldier in the Red Army and as a provincial educational official. After demobilisation he obtained a post in the Commissariat of Education’s division of secondary education in Moscow. He became chairman of Moscow University’s Department of the History and Philosophy of Natural Science, which grew out of the informal study circle that he and Timiryazev organized in 1923. He joined the Deborin group of philosophers but began criticising them in 1928. He became a key 1Lenin (1977). For recent interesting research on this topic see Bakhurst (2018); Pavlov (2017). 166 Appendix: Biographical Notes opponent of Hessen and other leading physicists, accusing them of “idealism” and siding with pro-Stalin “Bolsheviser” philosophers after 1930. Miller, Dayton Clarence (1866–1941) was an American experimental physicist who opposed Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity. Timiryazev argued that Miller’s results validated his own criticisms of Einstein. Dayton Miller claimed that space was absolute and filled with an ether so that the speed of light would not be the same in all directions as it must be for Einstein to be correct. The earth moving through the ether would create an “ether drag”, altering the speed of light in the direction of the earth’s motion. Dayton Miller carried out more and more accurate experiments from the beginning of the twentieth century for more than 30 years, claiming he had discovered a tiny deviation in the speed of light. Many physicists, including Joffe apparently, were critical of his techniques and several carried out measurements that verified the original Michelson-Morley null result. Recent work suggests that the statistical techniques needed to analyse such a large amount of data collected by Miller were not available in that period.
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