Pavel Alekseyevich Cherenkov ( ; 28 July 1904 – 6 January 1990) was a Soviet physicist who shared the 1958 Nobel Prize in Physics with Ilya Frank and Igor Tamm "for the discovery and interpretation of the Cherenkov effect".
Biography
Cherenkov was born into a
Russians family on July 28, 1904, to Alexey Cherenkov and Mariya Cherenkova in the small village of
Novaya Chigla. This town is in present-day
Voronezh Oblast,
Russia.
In 1928, he graduated from the Department of Physics and Mathematics of Voronezh State University. In 1930, he took a post as a senior researcher in the Lebedev Physical Institute. That same year he married Maria Putintseva, daughter of A.M. Putintsev, a Professor of Russian Literature. They had a son, Alexey, and a daughter, Yelena.
Cherenkov was promoted to section leader, and in 1940 was awarded the degree of Doctor of Physico-Mathematical Sciences. In 1953, he was confirmed as Professor of Experimental Physics. Starting in 1959, he headed the institute's photo-meson processes laboratory. He remained a professor for fourteen years. In 1970, he became Academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
Cherenkov died in Moscow on 6 January 1990 and was buried in Novodevichy Cemetery.
Discoveries in physics
In 1934, while working under S. I. Vavilov, Cherenkov observed the emission of blue light from a bottle of water subjected to radioactive bombardment. This phenomenon, associated with charged subatomic particles moving at
velocities greater than the
phase velocity of light, proved to be of great importance in subsequent experimental work in
nuclear physics, and for the study of
. Eponymously, it was dubbed the Cherenkov effect, as was the Cherenkov detector, which has become a standard piece of equipment in particle-physics research for observing the existence and velocity of high-speed particles. Such a device was installed in Sputnik 3.
Pavel Cherenkov also shared in the development and construction of electron accelerators and in the investigation of photo-nuclear and photo-meson reactions.
Awards and honours
Cherenkov was awarded two Stalin Prizes, the first in 1946, sharing the honor with Vavilov,
Ilya Frank and Tamm, and another in 1952. He was also awarded the USSR State Prize in 1977. In 1958, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of the Cherenkov effect.
He was also awarded the Soviet Union's Hero of Socialist Labour title in 1984. Cherenkov was a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union since 1946.
In popular culture
The novel
Ghost Fleet makes the claim that many believe the
Star Trek character
Pavel Chekov is named after Pavel Cherenkov.
In Starship Troopers, spaceships travel faster than light using Cherenkov Drive.
External links
-
Cherenkov's photo – from the Russian Academy of Sciences
-
including his Nobel Lecture, 11 December 1958 Radiation of Particles Moving at a Velocity Exceeding That of Light, and Some of the Possibilities for Their Use in Experimental Physics
