A brilliant scientist and consummate experimenter. Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa. The pride of Soviet science: Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa Kapitsa Nobel Prize
“Kapitsa once told,” recalled the historian of science F. Kedrov, “how he once dined at Trinity College with his old colleague Lord Adrian and other scientists. In college, everything remained the same as more than 30 years ago. On the walls hung paintings well known to Pyotr Leonidovich - a portrait Henry VIII and The Boy in Blue by Reynolds. And yet Kapitsa felt a certain awkwardness. And suddenly it dawned on him: everyone around was in doctoral robes, and he was the only one without a robe. He remembered that he had once left his doctoral robe on a hook in the hallway of Trinity College. Calling the butler (waiter), Pyotr Leonidovich told him: “I left my doctoral robe in the hallway. Will you look for her there?” Butler politely asked: “When did you leave her in the hallway, sir?” Kapitsa replied: “Thirty-three years ago.” Butler expressed no surprise: "Yes, sir, of course, I'll take a look."
And imagine, Kapitsa laughed, he found my mantle.
Kapitza's scientific achievements were highly appreciated.
He is a Nobel laureate in 1978, twice Hero of Socialist Labor (1945, 1974), twice winner of the State Prize (1941, 1943). He was awarded six orders of Lenin, the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, the Lomonosov Gold Medal, the Faraday, Franklin, Bohr, and Rutherford medals.
He died in 1984, just short of his ninetieth birthday.
And in Rutherford's laboratory, and in the office of the Institute for Physical Problems, and in the "home laboratory" on Nikolina Gora - Kapitsa was always in place.
Moreover, his place was always the best.
To Apica Pyotr Leonidovich - an outstanding physicist, academician of the Academy of Sciences of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics(USSR Academy of Sciences), director of the Institute of Physical Problems of the USSR Academy of Sciences, member of the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
Born on June 26 (July 9), 1894 in the port and naval fortress of Kronstadt on the island of Kotlin in the Gulf of Finland, now - the city of Kronstadt district of St. Petersburg. Russian. From the nobility, the son of a military engineer, staff captain, future major general of the Russian Imperial Army L.P. Kapitza (1864-1919) and teacher, researcher of Russian folklore.
In 1912 he graduated from the Kronstadt real school and entered the electromechanical faculty of the St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute. There, his supervisor was the outstanding physicist A.F. Ioffe, who noted Kapitsa's abilities in physics and played an outstanding role in his development as a scientist. In 1916, the first scientific works of P. L. Kapitsa "Inertia of electrons in ampere molecular currents" and "Preparation of Wollaston filaments" were published in the "Journal of the Russian Physical and Chemical Society". In January 1915, he was mobilized into the army and spent several months on the Western Front of the First World War, being the driver of an ambulance.
Due to the turbulent revolutionary events, he graduated from the Polytechnic Institute only in 1919. From 1918 to 1921 - a teacher at the Petrograd Polytechnic Institute, at the same time worked as a researcher in the department of physics of this institute. In 1918-1921 he was also an employee of the Physics and Technology Department of the State X-ray and Radiological Institute. In 1919-1920, Kapitsa's father and wife, a son aged 1.5 years and a newborn daughter three days old, died from the Spanish flu epidemic. In the same 1920, P. L. Kapitsa and the future world-famous physicist and Nobel laureate N. N. Semenov propose a method for determining the magnetic moment of an atom, based on the interaction of an atomic beam with an inhomogeneous magnetic field. This is Kapitsa's first major work in the field of atomic physics.
In May 1921 he was sent on a scientific mission to England with a group of Russian scientists. Kapitsa secured an internship at the Cavendish Laboratory of the great physicist Ernst Rutherford in Cambridge. The researches in the field of magnetic fields made by him in this laboratory brought P. L. Kapitsa world fame. In 1923 he became a doctor at the University of Cambridge, in 1925 - assistant director for magnetic research at the Cavendish Laboratory, in 1926 - director of the Magnetic Laboratory he created as part of the Cavendish Laboratory. In 1928, he discovered the law of a linear, in magnitude magnetic field, increase in the electrical resistance of metals (Kapitsa's law).
For this and other achievements in 1929 he was elected a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and in the same year he was elected a full member of the Royal Society of London. In April 1934, for the first time in the world, he received liquid helium at a facility he created. This discovery gave a powerful impetus to research in low temperature physics.
In the same year, during one of his frequent visits to the USSR for teaching and consulting work, P. L. Kapitsa was detained in the USSR (he was denied permission to leave). The reason was the desire of the Soviet leadership to continue his scientific work at home. Kapitsa was initially against this decision, as he had an excellent scientific base and wanted to continue research there. However, in 1934, Council Decree people's commissars The Institute of Physical Problems of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR was created in the USSR and Kapitsa was temporarily appointed its first director (in 1935 he was approved in this position at a session of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR). He was asked to create a powerful science Center in the USSR, as well as with the assistance Soviet government all the equipment of his laboratory was delivered from Cavendish.
From 1936 to 1938, Kapitza developed a method of liquefying air using a low pressure cycle and a high efficiency turboexpander, which predetermined the development of modern large air separation plants worldwide for the production of oxygen, nitrogen and inert gases. In 1940, he makes a new fundamental discovery - the superfluidity of liquid helium (during the transfer of heat from solid body to liquid helium at the interface there is a temperature jump, called the Kapitsa jump; the magnitude of this jump increases very sharply with decreasing temperature). In January 1939 he was elected a full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
During the Great Patriotic War together with the Institute of Physical Problems, he was evacuated to the capital of the Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, the city of Kazan (returned to Moscow in August 1943). In 1941-1945 he was a member of the Scientific and Technical Council under the Commissioner of the USSR State Defense Committee. In 1942, he developed an installation for the production of liquid oxygen, on the basis of which, in 1943, an experimental plant was put into operation at the Institute of Physical Problems.
In May 1943, by a decree of the USSR State Defense Committee, Academician P.L. Kapitsa was appointed head of the Main Directorate of the Oxygen Industry under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR (Glavkislorod).
In January 1945, the plant for the production of liquid oxygen TK-2000 in Balashikha with a capacity of 40 tons of liquid oxygen per day (almost 20% of the entire production of liquid oxygen in the USSR) was put into operation.
Z but successful scientific development new turbine method for producing oxygen and for the creation of a powerful turbo-oxygen plant for the production of liquid oxygen by Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of April 30, 1945 Kapitsa Petr Leonidovich was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor with the Order of Lenin and the Hammer and Sickle gold medal.
Naturally, a world-famous physicist was recruited to work on the USSR atomic project. So, when in August 1945 Special Committee No. 1 was created under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR to manage all work on the use of intra-atomic uranium energy, Kapitsa was included in its composition. But he immediately came into conflict with the head of the committee - the all-powerful L.P. Beria, and already at the end of 1945, at his request, I.V. Stalin decided to withdraw P.L. Kapitsa from the committee. This conflict cost the scientist dearly: in 1946 he was removed from the post of head of the Glavkisloroda under the Council of Ministers of the USSR and from the post of director of the Institute of Physical Problems of the USSR Academy of Sciences. The only consolation was that he was not arrested.
Since Kapitsa was deprived of access to secret developments, and all scientific and research institutions of the USSR were involved in work on the creation of atomic weapons, he did not have a job for some time. He created a home laboratory at a dacha near Moscow, where he studied the problems of mechanics, hydrodynamics, high-power electronics and plasma physics. In 1941-1949 he was a professor and head of the department general physics Faculty of Physics and Technology, Moscow state university. But in January 1950, for a defiant refusal to attend solemn events in honor of the 70th anniversary of I.V. Stalin was fired from there. In the summer of 1950, he was enrolled as a senior researcher at the Institute of Crystallography of the USSR Academy of Sciences, continuing research in his laboratory.
In the summer of 1953, after the arrest of L.P. Beria, Kapitsa reported on his personal developments and the results obtained at the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences. It was decided to continue research and in August 1953 P.L. Kapitsa was appointed director of the Physical Laboratory of the USSR Academy of Sciences, which was created at the same time. In 1955, he was reappointed director of the Institute of Physical Problems of the USSR Academy of Sciences (he headed it until the end of his life), as well as the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Physics. In these positions, the academician worked until the end of his life.
At the same time, since 1956, he headed the Department of Physics and Technology of Low Temperatures and was the chairman of the Coordinating Council of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. Supervised fundamental work in the field of low-temperature physics, strong magnetic fields, high-power electronics, and plasma physics. The author of fundamental scientific works on this topic, published many times in the USSR and many countries of the world.
Z and outstanding achievements in the field of physics, many years of scientific and teaching activity by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of July 8, 1974 Kapitsa Petr Leonidovich He was awarded the second gold medal "Hammer and Sickle" with the award of the Order of Lenin.
For fundamental inventions and discoveries in the field of low temperature physics in 1978, Petr Leonidovich Kapitsa was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics.
In difficult periods in the history of the Motherland, P. L. Kapitsa always showed civic courage and adherence to principles. Yes, during the period mass repression in the late 1930s, he secured his release under the personal guarantee of future academicians and world-famous scientists V.A. Fock and L.D. Landau. In the 1950s, he actively opposed the anti-scientific policies of T.D. Lysenko, having come into conflict with N.S. Khrushchev. In the 1970s, he refused to sign a letter condemning Academician A.D. Sakharov, at the same time he also called for measures to improve the safety of nuclear power plants (10 years before the Chernobyl accident).
Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1939). Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR since 1929. Member of the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1957-1984). Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences (1928). Professor (1939).
Winner of two Stalin Prizes of the 1st degree (1941 - for the development of a turboexpander for obtaining low temperatures and its use for air liquefaction, 1943 - for the discovery and study of the phenomenon of superfluidity of liquid helium). Big Gold Medal of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR named after M.V. Lomonosov (1959).
The great scientist received worldwide recognition during his lifetime, being elected a member of many academies and scientific societies. In particular, he was elected a member of the International Academy of Astronautics (1964), the International Academy of the History of Science (1971), a foreign member of the US National Academy of Sciences (1946), the Polish Academy of Sciences (1962), the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (1966), the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences ( 1969), Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (Yugoslavia, 1971), Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences (1980), full member of the German Academy of Naturalists "Leopoldina" (GDR, 1958), Physical Society of Great Britain (1932), member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Boston (USA, 1968), an honorary member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences (1946), the New York Academy of Sciences (USA, 1946), the Irish Royal Academy of Sciences (1948), the Academy of Sciences in Allahabad, India (1948), a member of the Cambridge Philosophical Society ( Great Britain, 1923), the Royal Society of London (Great Britain, 1929), the Physical Society of France (1935), the Physical Society of the USA (1937).
Honorary Doctor of Science from the University of Algiers (1944), University of Paris (France, Sorbonne, 1945), University of Oslo (Norway, 1946), Charles (Prague) University (Czechoslovakia, 1964), Jagiellonian University in Krakow (Poland, 1964), Dresden technical university(GDR, 1964), University of Delhi (India, 1966), Columbia University (USA, 1969), Wroclaw University. B. Bierut (Poland, 1972), University of Turku (Finland, 1977).
Member of Trinity College, Cambridge University (Great Britain, 1925), Institute of Physics of Great Britain (1934), Member of the Institute fundamental research them. D. Tata (India, 1977). Honorary member of the Institute of Metals of Great Britain (1943), the B. Franklin Institute (USA, 1944), the National Institute of Sciences of India (1957).
Awarded with prestigious scientific awards, including the Faraday Medal (USA, 1943), the Franklin Medal (USA, 1944), the Niels Bohr Medal (Denmark, 1965), the Rutherford Medal (Great Britain, 1966), the Kamerling-Onnes Medal (Netherlands, 1968) .
He was awarded six Orders of Lenin (04/30/1943, 07/09/1944, 04/30/1945, 07/09/1964, 07/20/1971, 07/08/1974), the Order of the Red Banner of Labor (03/27/1954), medals, a foreign award - the Order of the "Partisan Star" (Yugoslavia, 1964).
Lived in the hero city of Moscow. Died April 8, 1984. He was buried in Moscow at the Novodevichy Cemetery (plot 10).
The great scientist, twice Hero of Socialist Labor P.L. A bronze bust was erected to Kapitsa in the Soviet park of Kronstadt (1979). In the same place, in Kronstadt, on the facade of the building of school No. 425 (the former real school) along Uritsky Street, a memorial plaque was installed. Memorial plaques are also installed in St. Petersburg on the building of the Polytechnic University at the address: Politekhnicheskaya street, house No. 29 and in Moscow on the building of the Institute for Physical Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences, where he worked. The Russian Academy of Sciences established the P.L. Kapitza (1994).
Kapitsa Peter Leonidovich Kapitsa Pyotr Leonidovich
(1894-1984), physicist, one of the founders of low temperature physics and physics of strong magnetic fields, Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1939), Hero of Socialist Labor (1945, 1974). In 1921-1934 on a scientific mission in Great Britain. Organizer and first director (1935-1946 and since 1955) of the Institute for Physical Problems of the USSR Academy of Sciences (now named after Kapitsa). Discovered the superfluidity of liquid helium (1938). He developed a method for liquefying air using a turbo expander he created, which significantly improved the technique of industrial oxygen production. built new type powerful microwave generator and received a high-temperature plasma in an RF discharge. USSR State Prize (1941, 1943), Nobel Prize (1978).
KAPITSA Petr LeonidovichKAPITSA Pyotr Leonidovich (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). Proceedings on the physics of magnetic phenomena, physics and technology of low temperatures, quantum physics of the condensed state, electronics and plasma physics. In 1922-1924 he developed a pulse method for creating superstrong magnetic fields. In 1934 he invented and built a machine for the adiabatic cooling of helium. In 1937 he discovered the superfluidity of liquid helium. In 1939 gave new method air liquefaction using a low pressure cycle and a high efficiency turboexpander. Nobel Prize (1978). USSR State Prize (1941, 1943). gold medal them. Lomonosov Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1959). Medals of Faraday (England, 1943), Franklin (USA, 1944), Niels Bohr (Denmark, 1965), Rutherford (England, 1966), Kamerling-Onnes (Netherlands, 1968).
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KAPITSA Petr Leonidovich, Russian physicist and engineer.
A family. Years of study
Father, Leonid Petrovich Kapitsa, military engineer, builder of the forts of the Kronstadt fortress. Mother, Olga Ieronimovna, philologist, specialist in children's literature and folklore. Her father, General of Infantry Ieronim Ivanovich Stebnitsky (cm. STEBNITSKY Ieronim Ivanovich)- 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, A.F. Ioffe draws attention to him (cm. IOFFE Abram Fedorovich) who taught physics at the Polytechnic. He attracts Kapitsa to research in his laboratory. In 1914, Kapitsa went on a summer vacation to Scotland to study English. Here he is caught by the first World War. He manages to return to Petrograd only in November 1914. In 1915 he voluntarily goes to Western Front driver of an ambulance as part of the sanitary detachment of the Union of Cities (January - May).
In 1916 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 shot in 1919. In the winter of 1919/1920, during an influenza epidemic (“Spanish flu”), Kapitsa loses her father within a month, son, wife and newborn daughter. In 1927 he married Anna Alekseevna Krylova, the daughter of a mechanic and shipbuilder, academician A. N. Krylov (cm. KRYLOV Alexey Nikolaevich).
First works
Kapitsa published his first scientific works in 1916, being a 3rd year student at the PPI. After defending his thesis in September 1919, he received the title of electrical engineer. But even in the autumn 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 (reformed in November 1921 into the Physico-Technical Institute). In 1920, together with N. N. Semenov (cm. SEMENOV Nikolay Nikolaevich) proposes a method for determining the magnetic moment of an atom based on the interaction of an atomic beam with an inhomogeneous magnetic field. This method was then carried out in the well-known experiments of Stern-Gerlach (cm. STERN - GERLACH EXPERIENCE).
At the Cavendish Laboratory
May 22, 1921 arrives in England as a member of the commission Russian Academy sciences, sent to the countries of Western Europe to restore scientific ties broken by war and revolution. July 22 begins working at the Cavendish Laboratory, whose head, Rutherford (cm. Rutherford Ernest) agreed to accept him for a short-term internship. The experimental skill and engineering acumen of the young Russian physicist make such a strong impression on Rutherford that he seeks a special subsidy for his work. Since January 1925 Kapitsa - 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 the funds bequeathed to the Society by the chemist and industrialist L. Mond, allocates 15,000 pounds sterling for the construction of a laboratory for Kapitza in Cambridge. Grand opening The Mond Laboratory took place on February 3, 1933.
During 13 years of successful work in England, 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. Monographs by G. A. Gamov are published in the "International Series of Monographs in Physics" by the Oxford University Press, one of the founders and chief editors of which was Kapitsa. (cm. GAMOV Georgy Antonovich), Ya. I. Frenkel (cm. Frenkel Yakov Ilyich) and N. N. Semenov. But all this did not prevent the authorities of the USSR in the autumn of 1934, when Kapitsa came to his homeland to see his relatives and give a series of lectures about his work, to cancel his return visa. He was summoned to the Kremlin and told that from now on he would have to work in the USSR.
Back to USSR
In December 1934, the Politburo adopted a resolution on the construction of the Institute for Physical Problems in Moscow. Kapitsa agrees to continue his research in the field of physics in Moscow only on the condition that his institute receive 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 I.P. Pavlov (cm. PAVLOV Ivan Petrovich), and he agrees to give him a place in his institute. In August 1935, the Politburo again considers the question of Kapitsa at its meeting and allocates 30,000 pounds. Art. to purchase equipment from his Cambridge laboratory. In December 1935, this equipment began to arrive in Moscow.
famous workshop
In 1937, Kapitsa's physics seminar began to work at the Institute of Physics and Technology - "kapichnik", as physicists began to call it, when it turned from an institute seminar into a Moscow and even all-Union one.
Defense work
During the war, Kapitsa was working on the introduction into industrial production of the oxygen plants he developed. At his suggestion, on May 8, 1943, by a decree of the State Defense Committee, the Main Directorate for Oxygen under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR was created, and Kapitsa was appointed head of the Chief Oxygen.
Conflict with the authorities
On August 20, 1945, a Special Committee was created under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, which was entrusted with the leadership of work on the creation of the Soviet atomic bomb. Kapitsa is a member of this committee. However, work in the Special Committee weighs on him. In particular, because we are talking about the creation of "weapons of destruction and murder" (words from his letter to N. S. Khrushchev). Taking advantage of the conflict with L.P. Beria (cm. BERIA Lavrenty Pavlovich), who headed the atomic project, Kapitsa asks to be released from this work. As a result - many years of disgrace. In August 1946, he was expelled from Glavkislorod and from the institute he had created.
Nikolina Gora
At his dacha, on Nikolina Gora, Kapitsa equips a small home laboratory in the gatehouse. In this "hut-laboratory", as he called it, Kapitsa conducts research in mechanics and hydrodynamics, and then turns to high-power electronics and plasma physics.
When in 1947 the Faculty of Physics and Technology was created at Moscow State University, one of the founders and organizers of which was Kapitsa, he became the head of the department of general physics at the Faculty of Physics and Technology, and in September he began to read a course of lectures. (In 1951, the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology was established on the basis of this faculty). At the end of December 1949, Kapitsa avoided participating in the ceremonial meetings dedicated to Stalin's 70th birthday, 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 Academy of Sciences of the USSR adopted a resolution "On measures to help academician P. L. Kapitsa in his work." 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. January 28, 1955 Kapitsa again becomes director of the Institute for Physical Problems (since 1990 this institute has been named after him). 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 been the head of the Department of Physics and Low Temperature Engineering at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. In 1957-1984 he was a member of the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
Worldwide recognition
In 1929 Kapitsa was elected a full member of the Royal Society of London and a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 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, 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."
Contribution to science and technology
Kapitsa made a significant contribution to the development of the physics of magnetic phenomena, the physics and technology of low temperatures, quantum physics 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. (cm. ALPHA PARTICLE). This work preceded Kapitsa's extensive cycle of research on methods for creating superstrong magnetic fields and studying the behavior of metals in them. In these works, for the first time, a pulsed method for creating a magnetic field by closing a powerful alternator was developed and a number of fundamental results were obtained in the field of metal physics (linear increase in resistance in high fields, resistance saturation). The fields obtained by Kapitsa were record-breaking in magnitude and duration for decades.
The need to conduct research on the physics of metals at low temperatures led Kapitsa to create new methods for obtaining low temperatures. In 1934 he invented the liquefier 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 turbo-expander invented by him. Low-pressure air separation plants are now operating all over the world, producing more than 150 million tons of oxygen per year. The Kapitza turbo expander (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, Kapitsa discovered superfluidity. (cm. SUPERFLUIDITY) helium. He showed that the viscosity of liquid helium flowing through thin slots at a temperature 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 - the physics of condensed matter. To explain it, new quantum concepts had to be introduced - the so-called elementary excitations, or quasiparticles (cm. QUASIPARTICLES).
Kapitsa's research in applied electrodynamics, which he began in the late 1940s. on Nikolina Gora, led to the invention of new devices for generating microwave 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, a physicist, an engineer and a master of "golden hands" existed in one person. This is how he conquered Rutherford in his first year at Cambridge. His teacher A.F. Ioffe, in his submission to Kapitsa for election as a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, which was later signed by other scientists, wrote in 1929: “Peter Leonidovich, who combines a brilliant experimenter, an excellent theorist and a brilliant engineer, is one of the most bright figures in modern physics.
Fearlessness is one of the most characteristic features of Kapitza, a scientist and citizen. After the Soviet 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. With this leadership, he began to conduct a direct and frank conversation. And here he followed the testament of the equally fearless I.P. 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 have to do it, because it’s so necessary for our country ... ”(from a letter from Kapitsa to his wife dated December 4, 1934). From 1934 to 1983 Kapitsa wrote more than 300 letters "to the Kremlin". Of these, Stalin - 50, Molotov - 71, Malenkov - 63, Khrushchev - 26. Thanks to his intervention, V. A. Fok was saved from death in prisons and camps during the years of Stalinist terror (cm. FOK Vladimir Alexandrovich), L. D. Landau (cm. LANDAU Lev Davidovich) and I. V. Obreimov (cm. Obreimov Ivan Vasilievich). AT last years life, he spoke in defense of A. D. Sakharov (cm. SAKHAROV Andrey Dmitrievich) and Yu. F. Orlov.
Kapitsa was a remarkable organizer of science. The success of his organizational activity was based on a simple principle, which he formulated and wrote down on a separate sheet of paper: “To lead means not to interfere good people work".
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 international nature of science and believe that real science should be beyond all political passions and struggles, no matter how much they try to involve it there. And I believe that she scientific work, which I have been doing all my life, is the property of all mankind, wherever I create it.
Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa. Born June 26 (July 8), 1894 in Kronstadt - died April 8, 1984 in Moscow. Soviet physicist. Prominent organizer of science. Founder of the Institute for Physical Problems (IFP), whose director he remained until the last days of his life. One of the founders of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. The first head of the Department of Low Temperature Physics of the Faculty of Physics of Moscow State University. Winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics (1978) for the discovery of the phenomenon of superfluidity of liquid helium, introduced the term "superfluidity" into scientific use.
He is also known for his work in the field of low temperature physics, the study of superstrong magnetic fields and the confinement of high-temperature plasma. Developed a high-performance industrial plant for liquefying gases (turbo expander). From 1921 to 1934 he worked at Cambridge under Rutherford. In 1934, having returned for a while to the USSR, he was forcibly left in his homeland. In 1945, he was a member of the Special Committee on the Soviet atomic project, but his two-year plan for the implementation of the atomic project was not approved, in connection with which he asked for his resignation, the request was granted. From 1946 to 1955 he was dismissed from state Soviet institutions, but he was left with the opportunity to work as a professor at Moscow State University until 1950. Lomonosov.
Twice winner of the Stalin Prize (1941, 1943). He was awarded a large gold medal named after M. V. Lomonosov of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1959). Twice Hero of Socialist Labor (1945, 1974). Member of the Royal Society of London (Fellow of the Royal Society).
Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa was born on June 26 (July 8), 1894 in Kronstadt (now the administrative district of St. Petersburg), in the family of military engineer Leonid Petrovich Kapitsa and his wife Olga Ieronimovna, daughter of topographer Ieronim Stebnitsky. In 1905 he entered the gymnasium. A year later, due to poor performance in Latin, he transferred to the Kronstadt real school. After graduating from college, in 1914 he entered the electromechanical faculty of the St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute. A capable student is quickly noticed by A.F. Ioffe, attracted to his seminar and work in the laboratory.
The First World War found the young man in Scotland, which he visited during his summer vacation to learn the language. He returned to Russia in November 1914, and a year later he volunteered for the front. Kapitsa served as a driver in an ambulance and drove the wounded on the Polish front. In 1916, having been demobilized, he returned to St. Petersburg to continue his studies. Kapitsa's father dies from a Spanish flu in revolutionary Petrograd, then his first wife, two-year-old son and newborn daughter died.
Even before defending his diploma, A.F. Ioffe invites Pyotr Kapitsa to work in the Physical and Technical Department of the newly created X-ray and Radiological Institute (reformed in November 1921 into the Physical-Technical Institute). The scientist publishes his first scientific work in ZhRFHO and begins teaching.
Ioffe believed that a promising young physicist needed to continue his studies at a reputable foreign scientific school, but it took a long time 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 the supervision of Ernest Rutherford, and from July 22 Kapitsa begins to work in Cambridge. The young Soviet scientist quickly earns the respect of his colleagues and management thanks to his talent as an engineer and experimenter. Works in the field of superstrong magnetic fields bring him wide popularity 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." From January 1925, Kapitsa was 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 decides to allocate £15,000 for the construction of a special laboratory for Kapitza in Cambridge. The inauguration 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.
Kapitsa maintains ties with the USSR and promotes international scientific exchange of experience in every possible way. In the "International Series of Monographs in Physics" Oxford University Press, one of the editors of which was Kapitsa, monographs by Georgy Gamow, Yakov Frenkel, Nikolai Semyonov are published. Julius Khariton and Kirill Sinelnikov come to England at his invitation for an internship.
Back in 1922, Fyodor Shcherbatsky spoke about the possibility of electing Peter Kapitsa to the Russian Academy of Sciences. In 1929, a number of leading scientists signed a nomination for election to the USSR Academy of Sciences. On February 22, 1929, the indispensable secretary of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Oldenburg, informed Kapitsa that “the Academy of Sciences, wishing to express its deep respect for your scientific merits in the field of physical sciences, elected you at the General Meeting of the USSR Academy of Sciences on February 13 this year. to its corresponding members”.
The 17th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks appreciated the significant contribution of scientists and specialists to the success of the industrialization of the country and the implementation of the first five-year plan. However, at the same time, the rules for the departure of specialists abroad became more stringent and a special commission now monitored their implementation.
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 because they remained 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. Of particular concern to the authorities was the fact that Kapitsa provided advice to European industrialists. According to historian Vladimir Esakov, long before 1934, a plan was developed related to Kapitsa, and Stalin knew about it. From August to October 1934, a number of Politburo resolutions were adopted, signed by L. M. Kaganovich, ordering the detention of the scientist in the USSR.
Until 1934, Kapitsa and his family lived in England and regularly came to the USSR to rest and see relatives. The government of the USSR several times offered 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 an 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 for Heavy Industry recommended that the proposal to remain be carefully considered. Kapitsa refused, and he was sent to a higher authority to Mezhlauk. The chairman of the State Planning Commission informed the scientist that it was impossible to travel abroad and the visa had been cancelled. Kapitsa was forced to move in with his mother, and his wife, Anna Alekseevna, went to Cambridge to live with her children alone. The English press, commenting on what happened, wrote that Professor Kapitsa was forcibly detained in the USSR.
Pyotr Leonidovich was deeply disappointed. At first, I even wanted to leave physics and switch to biophysics, becoming Pavlov's assistant. Appealed for help and intervention to Paul Langevin, 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, in a letter to the plenipotentiary of the USSR in England, asked for clarification - why the famous physicist was denied a 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.
The first months in the USSR were difficult - there was no work and certainty with the future. I had to live in the cramped conditions of a communal apartment with the mother of Peter Leonidovich. His friends Nikolai Semyonov, Alexei Bakh, Fedor 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 Mondo laboratory, where he worked, be moved to the USSR. If Rutherford refuses to transfer or sell the equipment, 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 were allocated for the purchase of equipment.
December 23, 1934 signed a resolution on the organization within the USSR Academy of Sciences Institute for Physical Problems (IFP). On January 3, 1935, the newspapers Pravda and Izvestiya announced the appointment of Kapitsa as director of the new institute. At the beginning of 1935, Kapitsa moved from Leningrad to Moscow - to the Metropol Hotel, received Personal car. In May 1935, the construction of the institute's laboratory building began at Vorobyovy Gory. After rather difficult negotiations with Rutherford and Cockcroft (Kapitsa did not take part in them), an agreement was reached on the conditions for transferring the laboratory to the USSR. Between 1935 and 1937 equipment was gradually received from England. The case was greatly stalled due to the sluggishness of the officials involved in the supply, and it took to write letters to the top leadership of the USSR, up to Stalin. As a result, we managed to get everything that Pyotr Leonidovich demanded. Two experienced engineers arrived in Moscow to help with installation and adjustment - mechanic Pearson and laboratory assistant Lauerman.
In his letters of the late 1930s, Kapitsa admitted that the opportunities for work in the USSR were inferior to those that were abroad - this is even despite the fact that he received a scientific institution at his disposal and practically had no problems with financing. It was depressing that problems that were solved in England with a single phone call were mired in bureaucracy. The sharp statements of the scientist and the exceptional conditions created for him by the authorities did not contribute to the establishment of mutual understanding with colleagues in the academic environment.
In 1935, Kapitsa's candidacy was not even considered in the elections to real members Academy of Sciences of the USSR. 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 Academy of Sciences of the USSR, but, as he himself recalled, after two or three times he "eliminated". In organizing the work of the Institute for 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 a new institute was completed, most of the instruments were transported and installed, and Kapitsa returned to active scientific work. At the same time, at the Institute of Physical Problems, a “kapichnik” began to work - 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 in physics. At the same time, the staff of the institute, headed by Petr Leonidovich, is actively working on a purely practical task of improving the design of a new installation for the production of liquid air and oxygen - a turboexpander. The fundamentally new approach of the academician to the functioning of cryogenic installations causes heated discussions both in the USSR and abroad. However, Kapitsa's activities are approved, 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 On January 24, 1939, by a unanimous vote of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Kapitsa was accepted as a full member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.
During the years of repression, he stood up for his arrested colleagues. Below is a letter addressed to Stalin dated April 28, 1938 in connection with Landau's arrest:
"Comrade Stalin!
Arrested this morning researcher Institute L.D. Landau. Despite his 29 years, he, along with Fock, are the largest theoretical physicists in our Union. His work on magnetism and quantum theory often cited both in our and in foreign scientific literature. Only last year he published one remarkable work, where he was the first to point out new source stellar radiation energy. This work provides a possible solution: "Why the energy of the Sun and stars does not decrease appreciably with time and has not yet been depleted." The great future of these Landau ideas is recognized by Bohr and other leading scientists.
There is no doubt that the loss of Landau as a scientist for our institute, both for Soviet and world science, will not pass unnoticed and will be strongly felt. Of course, scholarship and talent, no matter how great they are, do not give a person the right to violate the laws of his country, and if Landau is guilty, he must answer. But I beg you, in view of his exceptional talent, to give appropriate instructions so that his case is treated very carefully. Also, it seems to me, one should take into account Landau's character, which, to put it simply, is bad. He is a bully and a bully, loves to look for mistakes in others, and when he finds them, especially in important elders, like our academicians, he begins to tease irreverently. This made him many enemies.
It was not easy with him at our institute, although he succumbed to persuasion and became better. I forgave him his antics because of his exceptional talent. But for all my shortcomings in character, it is very difficult for me to believe that Landau was capable of anything dishonest.
Landau is young, it seems to him that there is still much to be done in science. No one, like any other scientist, can write about all this, that's why I am writing to you.
P. Kapitsa".
During the war, the IFP was evacuated to Kazan, where the family of Pyotr Leonidovich moved from Leningrad. During the war years, the need for the production of liquid oxygen from air on an industrial scale increases dramatically (in particular, for the production of explosives). Kapitsa is working on the introduction into production of the oxygen cryogenic plant he developed. In 1942, the first copy of "Object No. 1" - the TK-200 turbo-oxygen unit with a capacity of up to 200 kg / h of liquid oxygen - was manufactured and put into operation in early 1943. In 1945, "Object No. 2" was commissioned - the TK-2000 installation with a capacity ten times greater.
At his suggestion, on May 8, 1943, by a decree of the State Defense Committee, the Main Directorate for Oxygen under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR was created, and Pyotr Kapitsa was appointed head of the Chief Oxygen. In 1945, a special institute for 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 enrolled as head of the Department of Low Temperatures at the Faculty of Physics of Moscow State University. In 1944, at the time of the change of the head of the department, he became the main author of the letter of 14 academicians, which drew the attention of the government to the situation at the Department of Theoretical Physics of the Faculty of Physics of Moscow State University. As a result, not Anatoly Vlasov, but Vladimir Fok became the head of the department after Igor Tamm. After working in this position for a short time, Fock left this post two months later. Kapitsa signed the letter of 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 the active phase. On August 20, 1945, the Atomic Special Committee was created under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, headed by Lavrenty Beria. The committee initially included only two physicists: Kurchatov was appointed scientific supervisor of all work. Kapitsa, who was not a specialist in nuclear physics, was supposed to supervise certain areas (low-temperature technology for the separation of uranium isotopes).
Both Kurchatov and Kapitsa are members of the Technical Council of the Special Committee; in addition, I. K. Kikoin, A. F. Ioffe, Yu. B. Khariton and V. G. Khlopin are invited there. Kapitsa immediately becomes dissatisfied with the methods of Beria's leadership, he speaks very impartially and sharply about the General Commissar of State Security - both personally and professionally. On October 3, 1945, Kapitsa wrote a letter to Stalin asking him to be relieved of his work in the Committee, but there was no answer. On November 25, Kapitsa writes a second letter, more detailed (on 8 pages), and on December 21, 1945, he authorizes Kapitsa's resignation. Minutes No. 9 of November 30, 1945, “minutes of the meeting of the Special Committee under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR”, were published, at which P. L. Kapitsa makes a report on the conclusions that he made based on the analysis of data on the consequences of the use of atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and did not no instructions were given, a detailed analysis of the bombardment of these cities was entrusted to be made by a commission headed by A. I. Alikhanov.
Actually, in the second letter, Kapitsa described how, in his opinion, it was necessary to carry out the atomic project, defining in detail the action plan for two years. According to the biographers of the academician, 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 fast enough in execution, was not fast enough for the current political situation around the development of the first Soviet atomic bomb. In the historical literature, it is often mentioned that Stalin handed over to Beria, who offered to arrest the independent and sharp-minded academician "I'll take it off for you, but don't touch it." 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 directness and frankness in Kapitsa. Despite the severity of the problems raised by them, Kapitsa kept his messages to the Soviet leaders secret (the content of most of the letters was disclosed after his death) and did not widely promote his ideas.
Kapitsa's letters to Stalin may have been the impetus for the campaign against groveling before the West.
January 2, 1946 P.L. Kapitsa sent a letter to Stalin which was made public only in 1989. Together with the letter, Kapitsa also sent Stalin the manuscript of the book by the writer Gumilevsky "Russian Engineers". Kapitsa pointed out that the book "Russian Engineers" was written by Gumilevsky at his, Pyotr Leonidovich's, request. And in the letter Kapitsa wrote the following:
“We have little idea what a great storehouse of creative talent has always been in our engineering thought. From the book it is clear: the first - big number the largest engineering undertakings were born with us; second, we ourselves almost never knew how to develop them; third - often the reason for not using innovation is that we usually underestimate our own and overestimate what is foreign. Organizational shortcomings usually prevented our technical pioneering work from developing and influencing world technology. Many of these shortcomings exist to this day, and one of the main ones is the underestimation of our own and the overestimation of foreign forces. It is clearly felt that now we must intensify our own original technique. We must do our own way, and the atomic bomb, and jet engine, and oxygen intensification, and much more. We can do this successfully only when we believe in the talent of our engineer and scientist and respect him, and when we finally understand that the creative potential of our people is not less, but even more than others, and we can safely rely on it. That this is so, apparently, is also proved by the fact that for all these centuries no one has managed to swallow us..
A year later, in 1947, Stalin put forward the task of combating "crooking" before the West, primarily in the natural and technical sciences. On May 13, 1947, Stalin delivered a speech at the Writers' Union, where he stated: “But there is such a topic that is very important ... If we take our average intelligentsia, scientific intelligentsia, professors ... they have an unjustified admiration for foreign culture. Everyone feels they are still minors, not one hundred percent, they are used to considering themselves in the position of eternal disciples ... Why are we worse? What's the matter? It happens like this: a person does a great deed and does not understand it himself ... We must fight the spirit of self-abasement ... ".
At the same time, in 1945-1946, the controversy around the turboexpander and the industrial production of liquid oxygen again intensified. Kapitsa enters into a discussion with leading Soviet cryogenic engineers who do not recognize him as a specialist in this field. State Commission recognizes the promise of Kapitsa's developments, but believes that the launch into an industrial series will be premature. Kapitza's installations are dismantled, and the project is frozen.
On August 17, 1946, Kapitsa was removed from the post of director of the IFP. He retires to the state dacha, to Nikolina Gora. Instead of Kapitsa, Aleksandrov was appointed director of the institute. According to Academician Feinberg, at that 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 removed. In 1950, he was fired from the Faculty of Physics and Technology of Moscow State University, where he lectured.
In his memoirs, Pyotr Leonidovich wrote about the persecution by law enforcement agencies, direct surveillance initiated by Lavrenty Beria. Nevertheless, the academician does not leave scientific activity and continues research in the field of low temperature physics, separation of uranium and hydrogen isotopes, and improves knowledge in 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 mount it in the country. 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 solemn meeting at Moscow State University dedicated to the 70th anniversary of Stalin.
The situation changed only in 1953 after the death of Stalin and the arrest of Beria. On June 3, 1955, after a meeting with Khrushchev, Kapitsa 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 the first head of 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.
Kapitsa continues active scientific and pedagogical activity. During this period, the attention of the scientist was attracted by the properties of plasma, the hydrodynamics of thin layers of liquid, and even the nature of ball lightning. He continues to lead his seminar, where the best physicists of the country were considered an honor to speak. "Kapichnik" became, in a way, a scientific club where not only physicists were invited, but also representatives of other sciences, cultural and art figures.
The persuasiveness of scientific foresight and the weight of the opinion of P.L. Kapitsa sometimes manifested itself in unexpected areas. So, in August 1955, he influenced the decision to create the first artificial satellite of the Earth.
In addition to achievements in science, Kapitsa proved himself as an administrator and organizer. Under his leadership, the Institute for Physical Problems became one of the most productive institutions of the USSR Academy of Sciences and attracted many of the country's leading experts. 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 research center of Akademgorodok near Novosibirsk, and the higher educational institution a new type - the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. After a long controversy in the late 1940s, the gas liquefaction plants built by Kapitza found wide application in industry. The use of oxygen for oxygen blasting led to a revolution in the steel industry.
In 1965, for the first time after more than thirty years, Kapitsa received permission to leave Soviet Union to Denmark to receive the Niels Bohr International Gold Medal. There he visited scientific laboratories and delivered 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 became interested in a controlled thermonuclear reaction. In 1978, Academician Petr Leonidovich Kapitsa was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics "for fundamental inventions and discoveries in the field of low temperature physics." The news of the award was received by the academician during his vacation at the Barvikha sanatorium. Kapitsa, contrary to tradition, devoted his Nobel speech not to those 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 carried away by other ideas. Nobel speech the laureate was called "Plasma and the controlled thermonuclear reaction" (Plasma and the controlled thermonuclear reaction). Sergei Petrovich Kapitsa recalled that his father completely kept the bonus for himself (put it in his name in one of the Swedish banks) and gave nothing to the state.
Until the last days of his life, Kapitsa retained his interest in scientific activity, continued to work in the laboratory and remained director of the Institute for Physical Problems.
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.
Family and personal life of Peter Leonidovich Kapitsa:
Father - Leonid Petrovich Kapitsa (1864-1919), major general of the engineering corps, who built the Kronstadt forts, a graduate of the Nikolaev Engineering Academy, descended from the Moldavian gentry family of Kapits-Milevsky (belonged to the Polish coat of arms "Yastrzhembets").
Mother - Olga Ieronimovna Kapitsa (1866-1937), nee Stebnitskaya, teacher, specialist in children's literature and folklore. Her father Ieronim Ivanovich Stebnitsky (1832-1897) - 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 from Tiflis she came to St. Petersburg and entered the Bestuzhev courses. Taught in preschool Pedagogical Institute them. Herzen.
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 shot in 1919. From the first marriage, Peter Leonidovich had children:
Jerome (June 22, 1917 - December 13, 1919, Petrograd)
Nadezhda (January 6, 1920 - January 8, 1920, Petrograd).
Died with his mother from a Spanish flu. All were buried in one grave, at the Smolensk Lutheran cemetery in St. Petersburg. Pyotr Leonidovich was very upset by the loss and, as he himself recalled, only his mother brought him back to life.
In October 1926, in Paris, Kapitsa became closely acquainted with Anna Krylova (1903-1996). In April 1927 they got married. Interestingly, Anna Krylova was the first to make a marriage proposal. Her father, Academician Alexei Nikolaevich Krylov, Pyotr Leonidovich knew for a very long time, since the commission of 1921. From the second marriage, two sons were born in the Kapitsa family:
(February 14, 1928, Cambridge - August 14, 2012, Moscow)
Andrei (July 9, 1931, Cambridge - August 2, 2011, Moscow).
They returned to the USSR in January 1936.
Together with Anna Alekseevna, Pyotr Leonidovich lived for 57 years. The wife helped Peter Leonidovich in the preparation of manuscripts. After the death of the scientist, she organized a museum in his house.
AT free time Pyotr Leonidovich was fond of chess. While working in England, he won the Cambridgeshire County Chess Championship. He liked to make household utensils and furniture in his own workshop. Repaired old clocks.
“Life is an incomprehensible thing. I think people will never be able to understand human destiny, especially one as complex as mine.
P. L. Kapitsa
Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa was born in Kronstadt on July 9, 1894 in a family tsarist general, military engineer Leonid Kapitsa. His mother, Olga Ieronimovna Stebnitskaya, worked as a philologist and wrote children's books, and her father, Peter's grandfather, Ieronim Ivanovich Stebnitsky, was a well-known military cartographer and surveyor, an infantry general. Also, the future scientist had a brother, named after his father Leonid.
In 1905, the eleven-year-old Kapitsa was assigned to a gymnasium, but a year later, due to problems with Latin, he left it and continued his studies at the Kronstadt real school. Peter graduated with honors in 1912, after which he wished to enter St. Petersburg University. However, "realists" were not taken there, and Kapitsa eventually got into the electromechanical faculty of the Polytechnic Institute. His teacher of physics turned out to be the outstanding Russian scientist Abram Fedorovich Ioffe. He is rightly called the "father of Soviet physics", in different time he studied: Nobel laureate Nikolai Semenov, the creator of the atomic bomb Igor Kurchatov, physicochemist Yuli Khariton, experimental physicist Alexander Leipunsky.
Already at the beginning of his studies, Ioffe drew attention to Pyotr Leonidovich and attracted him to classes in his laboratory. During the summer holidays of 1914, Kapitsa went to Scotland in order to study English language. But in August, the First World War broke out, and Kapitsa managed to return home only in the middle of autumn. At the beginning of 1915, he volunteered to go to the front, where he worked as a driver of an ambulance, which was part of the medical and sanitary detachment of the All-Russian Union of Cities. His work was by no means calm, the detachment often fell into shelling zones.
Demobilized in 1916, Pyotr Leonidovich returned to his native institute. Ioffe immediately involved him in experimental work in the physical laboratory he led, and also obliged him to participate in his seminars - the first physical seminars in Russia. In the same year, the scientist married the daughter of a member of the Cadet Party, Nadezhda Kirillovna Chernosvitova. It is known that he even had to go to China for her, where she went with her parents. From this marriage, Kapitsa had two children - a son, Jerome, and a daughter, Nadezhda.
Pyotr Leonidovich published his first works in 1916, being a third-year student. In September 1919, he successfully defended his thesis and was left at the Polytechnic Institute as a teacher in the Faculty of Physics and Mechanics. In addition, at the invitation of Ioffe, since the autumn of 1918, he was an employee of the Roentgenological and Radiological Institute, reorganized at the end of 1921 into the Physico-Technical Institute.
During this harsh time, Pyotr Leonidovich became close to his classmate Nikolai Semenov. In 1920, under the leadership of Abram Fedorovich, young scientists developed a unique technique for measuring the magnetic moments of atoms in non-uniform magnetic fields. At that time, no one knew about the works of Soviet physicists, and in 1921 the Germans Otto Stern and Walter Gerlach repeated a similar experiment. This famous and later classic experience remained in the name of Stern-Gerlach.
In 1919, Kapitsa's father-in-law was arrested by the Cheka and shot. And in the winter of 1919-1920, during the Spanish flu epidemic, the young scientist lost his wife, father, two-year-old son and newborn daughter in eighteen days. It is known that in those days Kapitsa wanted to commit suicide, but his comrades kept him from this act. Nevertheless, Pyotr Leonidovich could not become the same and return to normal life - he walked around the institute like a shadow. At the same time, Abram Fedorovich turned to the Soviet authorities with a request to allow his students to go on an internship in the leading English laboratories. The Russian writer Maxim Gorky, influential in those years, intervened in the matter, and as a result, Ioffe's letter was signed.
In 1921, Kapitsa, as a representative of the Russian Academy, went to Western Europe. For a long time, the Soviet scientist was not given permission to enter - Europe was in every possible way fenced off from the Bolshevik infection. In the end, entry was allowed, and on May 22, the young scientist arrived in England. However, here he faced another problem - they did not want to let him into the laboratory to Rutherford, where he was sent for an internship. Ernest Rutherford himself stated bluntly that his workers were engaged in science, and not in preparing the revolution, and Kapitsa had nothing to do here. All the persuasion of the Russian that he had come for the sake of science had no effect on the British physicist of New Zealand origin. Then, according to one of the versions, Peter Leonidovich asked Rutherford the following question: "What is the accuracy of your experiments?" The Englishman, surprised, said that somewhere around ten percent, and then Kapitsa uttered the following phrase: “So, with thirty people in your laboratory, you won’t notice me.” Cursing, Rutherford agreed to accept the "impudent Russian" on probation.
From a young age in Kapitsa, an engineer, a physicist and a master of "golden hands" existed in one person. The engineering acumen and experimental skill of the Russian scientist made such a strong impression on Rutherford that he personally secured special subsidies for his work. A year later, Petr Leonidovich became the favorite student of the "father" of nuclear physics, remaining such until his death. Throughout their lives, the two legendary scientists maintained close human and scientific relations with each other, as evidenced by their numerous messages to each other.
The topic of Kapitza's doctoral dissertation was "Methods for obtaining magnetic fields and the passage of alpha particles through matter." In 1923, having brilliantly defended it at Cambridge, he became a doctor of science, having achieved in passing the prestigious scholarship of James Maxwell. And in 1924, the Russian genius was appointed deputy director of the Cavendish Laboratory for magnetic research. His scientific authority grew rapidly. Not prone to praise, Rutherford called Kapitsa "an experimenter from God." The scientist was often invited to British companies to advise them.
However, Pyotr Leonidovich paid most of his attention to work at the Cavendish Laboratory. To study the processes of radioactive decay, he needed to generate powerful magnetic fields. Kapitsa's pilot plant produced record-breaking magnetic fields for those years, exceeding all previous ones by six thousand times. As Landau put it, this made the Russian scientist a "magnetic world champion." The physicist himself liked to repeat: “A good engineer should be 25 percent an artist. Machines cannot be designed, they must be drawn.”
In 1925, Peter Leonidovich became a member of the local Trinity College, where many members of the royal family, and in 1929 was elected a full member of the Royal Society of London. His teacher Ioffe in 1929 nominated Kapitsa as a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, which was later supported by other Soviet scientists. Also in 1931, Kapitsa was elected a member of the French Physical Society. By this time, Petr Leonidovich had developed warm and trusting relationships with many outstanding scientists.
The situation in Cambridge radically changed the state and mood of Kapitsa. At first he plunged headlong into scientific work, and then gradually fully returned to normal life. He studied English literature and history, bought a plot of land on Huntington Road and began to build a house there according to his own design. In the future, the scientist organized the so-called "Kapitsa Club" - seminars for the scientific community of the University of Cambridge, held once a week in Rutherford's laboratory. These meetings discussed the most different questions development of sciences, literature and art. These meetings quickly became wildly popular in England, attended by the most eminent English persons. And virtually all the “whales” of world science attended the discussion of physics issues - Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Wolfgang Pauli, Werner Heisenberg, Paul Dirac and many others.
In England, an unpleasant story happened to Kapitsa. The young scientist bought himself a motorcycle, which he drove at breakneck speed. Once he lost control, flew off a motorcycle, rolled into a ditch and only miraculously survived. However, he severely injured his right leg and walked with a cane for the rest of his life.
Already in the mid-twenties, the experimental facilities of the two great scientists became crowded in one laboratory, and Ernest Rutherford persuaded the British government to start building a huge new complex for conducting physics experiments at ultrahigh magnetic fields. In November 1930, the Council of the Royal Society, from money bequeathed by the industrialist and chemist Ludwig Mond, allocated fifteen thousand pounds for the construction of new research facilities in Cambridge. The opening of the laboratory, called Mondovskaya, took place on February 3, 1933. Former Prime Minister of the country, University Chancellor Stanley Baldwin said: “We are glad that Professor Kapitsa is working as the director of the laboratory. We firmly believe that, under his leadership, she will make an enormous contribution to understanding the processes of nature.”
At the same time, Kapitsa's friends tried to arrange his personal life. However, the scientist himself categorically refused any serious relationship, continuing to demonstrate amazing success in science. However, one fine day in 1926, Alexey Nikolaevich Krylov, the famous Russian shipbuilder and mathematician, arrived in Cambridge. Together with him was his daughter, Anna Alekseevna, who lived with her mother in Paris. Anna Alekseevna herself recalled: “Peter put me in a car, and we went to museums all over England. We were always on the road together and, generally speaking, I expected some personal confessions from him .... Day after day passed, but nothing changed. Without saying anything personal, Petya came to the station to see us off. However, a day later he appeared with us in Paris, again put me in the car, and the endless shows of now French sights began again. And I realized - NEVER this man will offer me to become his wife. I should have done this. And I did it…” All the people who knew Anna Alekseevna said that she was an outstanding woman. Her role in the life of Kapitsa is unique and indescribable, she never worked anywhere, and paid all her attention to the scientist. Pyotr Leonidovich almost never parted with her and idolized her until the last day of his life. They got married in the spring of 1927, they had two sons: Sergei and Andrei. Subsequently, both became famous scientists. Despite the fact that Kapitsa's children were born in Cambridge, everyone in the family circle spoke exclusively in Russian. Sergei Kapitsa later wrote: "If my mother started to speak English, then my brother and I understood that now they would start scolding."
During thirteen years of work in England, Peter Leonidovich remained a devoted patriot of his country. Thanks to his influence and support, many young Soviet scientists got a chance to visit foreign laboratories. In 1934, Kapitsa wrote: “By constantly communicating with various scientists in Europe and England, I can assist those sent abroad to work in various places, which would otherwise be difficult for them, since my assistance is based not on official connections, but on favors. , mutual services and personal acquaintance with leading persons. Also, Petr Leonidovich in every possible way contributed to the international exchange of experience in the scientific field. He was one of the editors of the "International Monograph Series in Physics", published at the University of Oxford. It was from these monographs that the world learned about the scientific works of Soviet theoretical physicists Nikolai Semenov, Yakov Frenkel and Georgy Gamow.
Kapitsa (left) and Semyonov (right). In the autumn 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. Young scientists paid the artist for a portrait with a bag of millet and a rooster
The activity of the physicist in Cambridge did not go unnoticed. The leadership of our country was concerned about the fact that Kapitsa provided advice to European industrialists, and also often worked on their orders. Repeatedly officials appealed to the scientist with a request to stay in our country for permanent residence. Pyotr Leonidovich promised to consider such proposals, however, he put forward a number of conditions, the first of which was permission to travel abroad. Because of this, the decision of the issue was constantly postponed.
Every year Kapitsa returned to the USSR to visit his mother and comrades. At the end of the summer of 1934, the scientist once again returned to his homeland. Among other things, he was going to visit the city of Kharkov, since since May 1929 he had been a consultant to the local Ukrainian Institute of Physics and Technology, and also to take part in a major international congress dedicated to the centenary of the birth of Mendeleev. But on September 25, Pyotr Leonidovich was summoned from Leningrad to Moscow. There, Deputy People's Commissar of Heavy Industry Georgy Pyatakov recommended that he reconsider the offer to stay in the country. Kapitsa refused and was sent to a higher authority to Valery Mezhlauk, who was the chairman of the State Planning Commission. It was he who first informed the scientist that now he would be obliged to work in the USSR, and his English visa would be cancelled. Kapitsa was forced to live in a communal apartment with his mother in Leningrad, and Anna Alekseevna, who came with him, returned to the children in Cambridge.
Thus began one of the most difficult periods in the life of a brilliant scientist. He was left alone, without a favorite job, without his laboratory, without a family, without students, and even without Rutherford, to whom he became very attached and who always supported him. At one time, Kapitsa even seriously considered changing the field of his research and switching to biophysics that had long been of interest to him, namely, the problems of muscle contractions. It is known that he turned to his friend, the famous physiologist Ivan Pavlov, on this issue, and he promised to find him a job at his Institute of Physiology.
December 23, 1934 Molotov signed a decree on the establishment of the Institute of Physical Problems, which is part of the Academy of Sciences. Kapitsa was offered to become the director of the new institute. In the winter of 1935, Pyotr Leonidovich moved to Moscow and settled in the Metropol Hotel, a personal car was provided at his disposal. The construction of the first laboratory building began in May on Sparrow Hills. From the very beginning of construction, Kapitsa began to be helped by an outstanding Soviet experimental scientist, the future academician Alexander Shalnikov. It was he who had the honor of becoming the closest assistant to the legendary physicist for the rest of his life. Alexander Iosifovich said that the construction of the institute buildings took place under extremely difficult conditions, often he and Kapitsa “had to explain to the builders that there is a right angle ...” And yet, thanks to the ebullient nature of Pyotr Leonidovich, they managed to build the institute in a record two years.
The most important problem of the new institution was the critical shortage of installations and instruments for laboratories. Everything that Kapitsa did in England was unique, unfortunately, for the most part beyond the strength of our industry. In order to continue his advanced research in Moscow, Kapitsa was forced to inform the leadership of the country that he needed all the scientific instruments and installations he had developed in England. If it was impossible to transport the equipment of the Mondov laboratory to the USSR, the physicist insisted on the need to purchase duplicates of these rare devices.
By decision of the Politburo, 30,000 pounds were allocated for the purchase of Kapitsa's equipment in August 1935. After difficult negotiations with Rutherford, the parties managed to reach an agreement, and in December 1935 the first devices arrived in Moscow. The equipment of the Mond laboratory arrived until 1937. The case was constantly stalled due to the sluggishness of the officials involved in the supply, and Kapitsa needed to write more than one letter to the country's top leadership. Also, two experienced English engineers: laboratory assistant Lauerman and mechanic Pearson.
The harsh statements characteristic of a talented physicist, as well as the exceptional conditions that the authorities created for him, did not contribute to establishing contacts with colleagues from the academic environment. Kapitsa wrote: “The situation is oppressive. Interest in my work has fallen, many fellow scientists are indignant without hesitation: "If they did the same to us, we will not do the same as Kapitsa." In 1935, the candidacy of a physicist was not even raised for consideration in the elections to the members of the Academy of Sciences. A couple of times Kapitsa took part in the meetings of the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences, but then, in his own words, "eliminated." All this led to the fact that in organizing the work of the Institute of Physical Problems, the scientist mainly relied on his own strength.
In early 1936, the scientist's family received permission to return to the USSR, and soon Anna Alekseevna and her children joined him in the capital. Together with his family, Petr Leonidovich moved to live in a small cottage of several rooms, located on the territory of the institute. And in the spring of 1937, construction was finally completed. By this time, most of the scientist's apparatus had already been transported and installed. All this gave Kapitsa the opportunity to return to active scientific work.
First of all, he continued research on superstrong magnetic fields, as well as the field of ultralow temperature physics. This work took him several years. The scientist managed to find that in the temperature range of 4.2-2.19°K, liquid helium demonstrates the properties of an ordinary liquid, and when it is cooled to temperatures below 2.19°K, various anomalies appear in its characteristics, among which the main one is an amazing decrease in viscosity . The loss of viscosity allowed liquid helium to flow unhindered through the smallest holes and even climb the walls of the container, as if not falling under the influence of gravity. The scientist called this phenomenon superfluidity. In the studies of 1937-1941, Kapitsa discovered and considered other anomalous phenomena occurring in liquid helium, for example, an increase in its thermal conductivity. These experimental works of Kapitza marked the beginning of the development of a whole new field of physics - quantum liquids. It should be noted that Lev Landau, whom Pyotr Leonidovich invited from Kharkov, helped Kapitsa in his work on the study of the properties of superfluid helium.
Simultaneously with the activities mentioned above, Kapitsa was engaged in the design of installations for the liquefaction of various gases. Back in 1934, the scientist built a high-performance liquefier designed for adiabatic cooling of gases. He managed to exclude a number of key phases from the technical process, due to which the efficiency of the installation increased from 65 to 90 percent, and its price fell tenfold. In 1938, he upgraded the existing turbo-expander design, achieving extremely efficient air liquefaction. Compared to the best machines in the world of the German company Linde, Kapitsa's turbo-expanders had three times less losses. This was a fantastic breakthrough, from now on the production of liquid oxygen could be safely put on an industrial footing. In turn, this revolutionized the steel industry and it is not an exaggeration to say that during the war the production of huge numbers of tanks by the Soviet industry would not have been possible without this discovery. By the way, Kapitsa did not stop there - he personally took up the implementation of his methodology and did not give up this business until the production started working. For this, in 1944, Pyotr Leonidovich was awarded the title of Hero of Labor. His work caused heated discussions among scientists, both in our country and abroad. On January 24, 1939, Petr Leonidovich was accepted as a full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
In 1937, the famous seminars, the so-called "Kapichniks", began at the Kapitsa Institute, which soon gained all-Union fame. Pyotr Leonidovich invited not only famous physicists, but also engineers, teachers, doctors, in general, any person who has somehow proved himself. At the seminar, in addition to special physical problems, questions were discussed public thought, philosophy, genetics. After the seminar, all the main participants were invited to Kapitsa's office for tea and sandwiches. Opportunity to speak frankly, confidential atmosphere were characteristic features"club" of Kapitsa and played the most prominent role in the development of domestic physics.
The specific features of Kapitza as a citizen and scientist are absolute honesty, combined with a complete lack of fear and a character as hard as a stone. The return of Peter Leonidovich to his homeland coincided with the ongoing repressions in the country. Kapitsa at that time already had a high enough authority to dare to defend his views. During the period from 1934 to 1983, the physicist, who was never a member of the Communist Party, wrote over three hundred letters “to the Kremlin”, of which fifty were addressed personally to Joseph Stalin, seventy-one to Vyacheslav Molotov, sixty-three to Georgy Malenkov, twenty-six to Nikita Khrushchev. In his letters and reports, Pyotr Leonidovich openly criticized decisions that he considered wrong, offered his own versions of academic systems and reforms of Soviet science. He lived in full accordance with his own established rule: “In any circumstances, you can learn to be happy. Unfortunate is only the one who entered into a deal with his conscience. Thanks to his activities, outstanding physicists Vladimir Fok and Ivan Obreimov were saved from death in camps and prisons. When Lev Landau was arrested in 1938 on charges of espionage, Petr Leonidovich managed to secure his release, although for this the scientist had to be threatened with resigning from the post of director of the institute. In the autumn of 1941, the scientist attracted the attention of the public by making a warning statement about the likelihood of creating a nuclear one in the future. And in 1972, when the authorities of our country initiated the question of expelling Andrei Sakharov from the Academy of Sciences, only Kapitsa opposed this. He said: “There was a similar shameful precedent once. In 1933, the Nazis expelled Albert Einstein from the Berlin Academy of Sciences. In addition, Kapitsa always fiercely defended the position of scientific internationalism. In his letter to Molotov on May 7, 1935, he said: “I firmly believe that real science must be outside political passions and struggles, no matter how much they try to lure it there. I believe that the scientific work that I have been doing all my life is the property of all mankind.”
After the war began, the Kapitsa Institute was evacuated to the city of Kazan. Sergei Kapitsa wrote: "During the evacuation, my mother and father and I spent two nights in the tunnels of the Kursk railway station - the very ones from which passengers now exit onto the platforms." Upon arrival, the Institute for Physical Problems was placed in the buildings of Kazan University. During the war years, the physicist worked on the introduction of oxygen plants he created into industrial production. On May 8, 1943, by decree of the State Defense Committee, the Main Directorate for Oxygen was established, with Kapitsa appointed as its head.
In August 1945, a Special Atomic Committee was created under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, which was entrusted with directing the development of the atomic bomb. Petr Leonidovich was a member of this committee, but this activity weighed on him. This was largely due to the fact that it was about the manufacture of "weapons of destruction and murder." Taking advantage of the conflict with Lavrenty Beria, who headed the atomic project, the eminent scientist asked Stalin to release him from work on the committee. The result was years of disgrace. In August 1946, he was dismissed from the post of head of Glavkislorod, and also expelled from the institute he had created. For eight years, Kapitsa was deprived of the opportunity to communicate with friends and colleagues, and was under house arrest. He turned his dacha on Nikolina Gora into a small laboratory, where he continued to study research work. He called it "hut-laboratory" and conducted many unique experiments there in hydrodynamics, mechanics and plasma physics. Here, for the first time, he turned to high-power electronics - a new direction of his activity, which became the first step towards the taming of thermonuclear energy.
In 1947, the Faculty of Physics and Technology began work at Moscow State University (which became the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology in 1951), one of the organizers and founders of which was Kapitsa. At the same time, he himself was appointed head of the department of general physics and began to lecture to students. However, at the end of 1949, the famous physicist refused to participate in the ceremonial meetings in honor of Stalin's seventieth birthday. Such behavior did not go unnoticed, Kapitsa was immediately fired.
The rehabilitation of the scientist began after the death of the leader. The Presidium of the Academy of Sciences adopted a resolution "On assistance to academician Kapitsa in the ongoing work." Petr Leonidovich was appointed head of the Physical Laboratory of the Academy of Sciences, editor-in-chief of the Journal of Theoretical and Experimental Physics, and in 1955 he was reinstated as director of the Institute for Physical Problems. From 1956 he also became the head of the Department of Low Temperature Engineering and Physics at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, and from 1957 he was elected a member of the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences.
After Kapitsa returned to his institute, he was finally able to continue his research in full. The scientific activity of the physicist in the 50-60s covered a wide variety of areas, including the nature of ball lightning and the hydrodynamics of the thinnest layers of liquid. However, his main interests were focused on the study of plasma properties and the design of high-power microwave generators. Later, his discoveries formed the basis of a program to develop fusion reactor with constant plasma heating.
In addition to achievements in the scientific field, Petr Leonidovich proved to be a wonderful administrator and teacher. The Institute for Physical Problems, under his strict guidance, has become one of the most prestigious and most productive institutions of the Academy of Sciences, attracting many famous Russian physicists to its walls. The success of Kapitsa's organizational activity was based on one simple principle: "To lead means not to interfere with the work of good people." By the way, Kapitsa had no direct students, but the entire scientific atmosphere he created at the institute was of great educational importance in the preparation of new generations of physicists. In this regard, all the employees of this institution could safely be called his students. All the time that Pyotr Leonidovich was in charge of the institute, not a single experimental work done in it was sent to print without its careful study. Kapitsa liked to repeat to his colleagues: "True patriotism lies not in praising the motherland, but in working for its benefit, in correcting one's mistakes."
In 1965, after a thirty-year break, Kapitsa was given permission to travel abroad. He traveled to Denmark, where he visited leading scientific laboratories and gave a series of lectures. Here he was awarded the prestigious award of the Danish Engineering Society - the N. Bohr medal. In 1966, Peter Leonidovich visited England and delivered a speech to the members of the Royal Society of London dedicated to the memory of Rutherford. And in 1969 Kapitsa, together with Anna Alekseevna, visited the United States for the first time.
On October 17, 1978, the Swedish Academy of Sciences sent Petr Leonidovich a telegram informing him of the award of the Nobel Prize to the physicist for research in the field of low temperatures. It took the Nobel Committee almost half a century to recognize the merits of the Russian scientist. Kapitsa shared his award with the Americans Robert Wilson and Arno Penzias, who jointly made the discovery of cosmic background microwave radiation. In general, during his life, Pyotr Leonidovich was awarded the honor high awards and titles. It is only worth noting that he was an honorary doctor of 11 universities located on four continents, as well as the owner of six orders of Lenin. He himself took this calmly, saying: “Why do we need fame and glory? Only in order to create conditions for work, so that it would be better to work, so that orders would be fulfilled faster. And the rest of the fame only gets in the way.
In everyday life, the great scientist was unpretentious, he liked to wear tweed suits and smoke a pipe. Tobacco and clothes were brought to him from England. In his spare time, Kapitsa repaired old clocks and played excellent chess. According to contemporaries, he put a lot of emotions into the game and did not like to lose at all. However, he did not like to lose in any case. The decision to take on or abandon any task - social or scientific - was not an outburst of emotions for him, but the result of the deepest analysis. If the physicist was sure that the matter was hopeless, nothing could force him to take it up. The character of the great scientist, again according to the memoirs of his contemporaries, is best characterized by the Russian word "cool". He stated: "Excessive modesty is an even greater disadvantage than excess self-confidence." Talking to him was far from always easy, Kapitsa "always knew exactly what he wanted, he could immediately and bluntly say no, but if he said yes, you could be sure that he would do it." Kapitsa directed the Institute as he himself considered necessary. Ignoring the schemes imposed from above, he independently and quite freely disposed of the institution's budget. There is a well-known story when, seeing garbage on the territory, Pyotr Leonidovich fired two of the three institute janitors, and the remaining one began to pay a triple salary. Even in times political repression in the country, Kapitsa maintained correspondence with leading foreign scientists. Several times they even came to the capital of Russia to visit his institute.
Being already in advanced years, the physicist, using his own authority, fiercely criticized the tendency, in his opinion, in our country to make decisions on scientific problems from non-scientific positions. He also opposed the construction of a pulp and paper enterprise that threatened to pollute Lake Baikal, condemned the attempt to rehabilitate Joseph Stalin, begun in the mid-60s. Kapitsa participated in the Pugwash movement of scientists for disarmament, peace and international security, and made proposals on ways to overcome the alienation between American and Soviet sciences.
The day of March 22, 1984, as usual, Peter Leonidovich spent in his laboratory. At night, he had a stroke, he was taken to the hospital, where he died on April 8 without regaining consciousness. Quite a bit Kapitsa did not live up to his ninetieth birthday. The legendary scientist was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery.
Based on the materials of the book by V.V. Cheparukhin "Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa: the orbits of life" and the site http://biopeoples.ru.
