Alexander Sergeevich Davydov (russian: Александр Сергеевич Давы́дов, uk, Олекса́ндр Сергі́йович Дави́дов) (26 December 1912 – 19 February 1993) was a Soviet and Ukrainian physicist. Davydov graduated from

Moscow State University M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU; russian: Московский государственный университет имени М. В. Ломоносова) is a public research university in Moscow, Russia and the most prestigious ...

in 1939. In 1963-1990 he was Director of Institute for Theoretical Physics of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. His main contributions were in theory of absorption, scattering and dispersion of the light in molecular crystals. In 1948, he predicted the phenomenon that is known as ''Davydov splitting'' or ''factor-group splitting'', "the splitting of bands in the electronic or vibrational spectra of crystals due to the presence of more than one (interacting) equivalent molecular entity in the unit cell." In the period 1958–1960 he developed the theory of collective excited states in spherical and non-spherical nuclei, known as Davydov-Filippov Model and Davydov-Chaban Model. In 1973, Davydov applied the concept of molecular solitons in order to explain the mechanism of muscle contraction in animals. He studied theoretically the interaction of intramolecular excitations or excess electrons with autolocal breaking of the translational symmetry. These excitations are now known as

Davydov soliton Davydov soliton is a quantum quasiparticle representing an excitation propagating along the protein α-helix self-trapped amide I. It is a solution of the Davydov Hamiltonian. It is named for the Soviet and Ukrainian physicist Alexander Davydov ...

s. In 1979, Davydov published the first textbook on quantum biology entitled "Biology and Quantum Mechanics" in Russian, which was then translated in English three years later.

Publications

* ''Theory of Absorption of Light by Molecular Crystals'',

Naukova Dumka Naukova Dumka ( uk, Наукова Думка — literally "scientific thought") is a publishing house in Kyiv, Ukraine. It was established by the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in 1922, largely owing to the efforts of Ahatanhel Krymsk ...

, Kiev (1951) * ''Theory of Atomic Nuclei'', Nauka, Moscow (1958) * ''Theory of Molecular Excitons'',

McGraw-Hill McGraw Hill is an American educational publishing company and one of the "big three" educational publishers that publishes educational content, software, and services for pre-K through postgraduate education. The company also publishes referen ...

, New York (1962) * ''Quantum Mechanics'',

Pergamon Press Pergamon Press was an Oxford-based publishing house, founded by Paul Rosbaud and Robert Maxwell, that published scientific and medical books and journals. Originally called Butterworth-Springer, it is now an imprint of Elsevier. History The c ...

(1965) * ''Theory of Molecular Excitons'',

Plenum Press Springer Science+Business Media, commonly known as Springer, is a German multinational publishing company of books, e-books and peer-reviewed journals in science, humanities, technical and medical (STM) publishing. Originally founded in 1842 i ...

, New York (1971) * ''Theory of Solids'', Nauka, Moscow (1980) * ''Biology and Quantum Mechanics'',

(1982) * ''Solitons in Molecular Systems'', D. Reidel (1985) * ''Solitons in Bioenergetics'',

, Kiev (1986) *
The Theoretical Investigation of High-Temperature Superconductivity
', Physics Reports, vol. 190, no. 4–5, pp. 191–306 (1990) * ''High-Temperature Superconducitvity'',

, Kiev (1990).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Davydov, Alexander 1912 births 1993 deaths People from Yevpatoria People from Yevpatoriysky Uyezd 20th-century Ukrainian physicists Quantum biology Members of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine Heroes of Socialist Labour Recipients of the Order of Lenin Burials at Baikove Cemetery

Publications

See also

References