Alexandra Andreevna Glagoleva-Arkadieva (; 28 February 1884 – 30 October 1945) was a Russian and Soviet physicist known for her research on

medical imaging Medical imaging is the technique and process of imaging the interior of a body for clinical analysis and medical intervention, as well as visual representation of the function of some organs or tissues (physiology). Medical imaging seeks to revea ...

using

X-ray An X-ray (also known in many languages as Röntgen radiation) is a form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength shorter than those of ultraviolet rays and longer than those of gamma rays. Roughly, X-rays have a wavelength ran ...

s, mechanisms for generating

microwave Microwave is a form of electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths shorter than other radio waves but longer than infrared waves. Its wavelength ranges from about one meter to one millimeter, corresponding to frequency, frequencies between 300&n ...

s, and spectrometry in the

far infrared Far infrared (FIR) or long wave refers to a specific range within the infrared spectrum of electromagnetic radiation. It encompasses radiation with wavelengths ranging from 15 μm ( micrometers) to 1 mm, which corresponds to a freque ...

regions of the

electromagnetic spectrum The electromagnetic spectrum is the full range of electromagnetic radiation, organized by frequency or wavelength. The spectrum is divided into separate bands, with different names for the electromagnetic waves within each band. From low to high ...

. She was the first Russian woman to become internationally known for her physics research.

Life and career

Glagoleva was born in 1884 in what was then the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

, and educated in a secondary school in Tula, an industrial city south of Moscow. She worked as a schoolteacher in the country from 1900 to 1906, then studied physics and mathematics with Alexander Alexandrowitsch Eichenwald and

Nikolay Umov Nikolay Alekseevich Umov (; January 23, 1846 – January 15, 1915) was a Russian physicist and mathematician known for discovering the concept of Umov-Poynting vector and Umov effect. Biography Umov was born in 1846 in Simbirsk (present-day U ...

in the Moscow Higher Courses for Women. After finishing her studies there in 1910, she became an assistant for the Higher Courses. In 1911, women in Russia were granted the right to take the state examinations for becoming university professors; Glagoleva passed hers in 1914, and became an assistant in physics at

Moscow State University Moscow State University (MSU), officially M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University,. is a public university, public research university in Moscow, Russia. The university includes 15 research institutes, 43 faculties, more than 300 departments, a ...

in 1917, where her husband Vladimir Arkadiev also worked; in 1919 she joined his newly-founded laboratory on electromagnetism, and later led the laboratory. She also continued to work at the Second Moscow State University when it was established as a continuation of the Higher Courses in 1918, during the

Russian Revolution The Russian Revolution was a period of Political revolution (Trotskyism), political and social revolution, social change in Russian Empire, Russia, starting in 1917. This period saw Russia Dissolution of the Russian Empire, abolish its mona ...

. At Moscow State University, she became the founding head of a department of applied physics for the natural sciences in 1932. She became a full member of the Research Institute of Physics of Moscow State University in 1933, and was awarded a doctorate (on the basis of past work, with no thesis) in 1935. She also headed of department at the Medical Institute of the Second University. She retired from this position for medical reasons in 1937, and from her teaching and administrative responsibilities at Moscow State University in 1939. She died on 30 October 1945.

Research

During

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, Glagoleva-Arkadieva applied her expertise in physics to the organization, design, and construction of an

facility at the University's hospital, and its application in finding metal fragments and bullets in wounded soldiers from the war; she later repurposed the facility to assist in

childbirth Childbirth, also known as labour, parturition and delivery, is the completion of pregnancy, where one or more Fetus, fetuses exits the Womb, internal environment of the mother via vaginal delivery or caesarean section and becomes a newborn to ...

, and in those years regularly lectured on the medical applications of X-rays. In the early 1920s she began her work on the generation of

s by passing sparks through metal filings, embedded in oil. This led her in the mid-1920s to place the entire

into a single continuum, and by the late 1920s she was studying the spectral power density of the resulting radiation. This research developed in the 1930s into her studies of the

spectrum, using

diffraction grating In optics, a diffraction grating is an optical grating with a periodic structure that diffraction, diffracts light, or another type of electromagnetic radiation, into several beams traveling in different directions (i.e., different diffractio ...

s to isolate emissions of different frequencies. Her final research topic, in the late 1930s and early 1940s, considered the detailed emission mechanism and modes of vibration of the microwave emitter that she had invented in her earlier work.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Glagoleva-Arkadieva, Alexandra 1884 births 1945 deaths Russian women physicists Soviet physicists Soviet women physicists 20th-century Russian physicists