Sergey Ivanovich Vavilov (russian: Серге́й Ива́нович Вави́лов ( – January 25, 1951) was a

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate ca ...

, the President of the

Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union The Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union was the highest scientific institution of the Soviet Union from 1925 to 1991, uniting the country's leading scientists, subordinated directly to the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union (until 1946 ...

from July 1945 until his death. His elder brother Nikolai Vavilov was a famous Russian

geneticist A geneticist is a biologist or physician who studies genetics, the science of genes, heredity, and variation of organisms. A geneticist can be employed as a scientist or a lecturer. Geneticists may perform general research on genetic processes ...

Biography

Vavilov founded the Soviet school of physical optics, known by his works in

luminescence Luminescence is spontaneous emission of light by a substance not resulting from heat; or "cold light". It is thus a form of cold-body radiation. It can be caused by chemical reactions, electrical energy, subatomic motions or stress on a crysta ...

. In 1934 he co-discovered the Vavilov-Cherenkov effect, a discovery for which Pavel Cherenkov was awarded a

Nobel Prize in Physics ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , alt = A golden medallion with an embossed image of a bearded man facing left in profile. To the left of the man is the text "ALFR•" then "NOBEL", and on the right, the text (smaller) "NAT•" then " ...

in 1958. The Kasha–Vavilov rule of luminescence

quantum yield The quantum yield (Φ) of a radiation-induced process is the number of times a specific event occurs per photon absorbed by the system. Applications Fluorescence spectroscopy The fluorescence quantum yield is defined as the ratio of the numb ...

s is also named for him. He was a member of the

USSR Academy of Sciences The Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union was the highest scientific institution of the Soviet Union from 1925 to 1991, uniting the country's leading scientists, subordinated directly to the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union (until 1946 ...

from 1932, Head of the

Lebedev Institute of Physics The Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (LPI RAS or just LPI) (in russian: Физи́ческий институ́т имени П.Н.Ле́бедева Российской академии наук (ФИАН)), situated ...

(since 1934), a chief editor of the ''

Great Soviet Encyclopedia The ''Great Soviet Encyclopedia'' (GSE; ) is one of the largest Russian-language encyclopedias, published in the Soviet Union from 1926 to 1990. After 2002, the encyclopedia's data was partially included into the later ''Bolshaya rossiyskaya e ...

'', a member of the

Supreme Soviet The Supreme Soviet (russian: Верховный Совет, Verkhovny Sovet, Supreme Council) was the common name for the legislative bodies (parliaments) of the Soviet socialist republics (SSR) in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USS ...

from 1946 and a recipient of four Stalin Prizes (1943, 1946, 1951, 1952). He wrote on the lives and works of great thinkers, such as

Lucretius Titus Lucretius Carus ( , ; – ) was a Roman poet and philosopher. His only known work is the philosophical poem '' De rerum natura'', a didactic work about the tenets and philosophy of Epicureanism, and which usually is translated in ...

Galileo Galilei Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642) was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a polymath. Commonly referred to as Galileo, his name was pronounced (, ). He w ...

Isaac Newton Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27) was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author (described in his time as a " natural philosopher"), widely recognised as one of the g ...

Mikhail Lomonosov Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov (; russian: Михаил (Михайло) Васильевич Ломоносов, p=mʲɪxɐˈil vɐˈsʲilʲjɪvʲɪtɕ , a=Ru-Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov.ogg; – ) was a Russian polymath, scientist and wri ...

Michael Faraday Michael Faraday (; 22 September 1791 – 25 August 1867) was an English scientist who contributed to the study of electromagnetism and electrochemistry. His main discoveries include the principles underlying electromagnetic inductio ...

, and Pyotr Lebedev, among others.

Legacy

A meteorological station (as well as a glacier and an

ice cap In glaciology, an ice cap is a mass of ice that covers less than of land area (usually covering a highland area). Larger ice masses covering more than are termed ice sheets. Description Ice caps are not constrained by topographical featu ...

) in October Revolution Island, in the

Severnaya Zemlya Severnaya Zemlya (russian: link=no, Сéверная Земля́ (Northern Land), ) is a archipelago in the Russian high Arctic. It lies off Siberia's Taymyr Peninsula, separated from the mainland by the Vilkitsky Strait. This archipelago ...

group have been named after Vavilov. A

minor planet According to the International Astronomical Union (IAU), a minor planet is an astronomical object in direct orbit around the Sun that is exclusively classified as neither a planet nor a comet. Before 2006, the IAU officially used the term '' ...

2862 Vavilov discovered in 1977 by

astronomer

Nikolai Chernykh Nikolai Stepanovich Chernykh (russian: Никола́й Степа́нович Черны́х) (6 October 1931 – 25 May 2004Казакова, Р.К. Памяти Николая Степановича Черных'. Труды Государст ...

is named after him and his brother Nikolai Vavilov. The crater '' Vavilov'' on the

far side of the Moon The far side of the Moon is the lunar hemisphere that always faces away from Earth, opposite to the near side, because of synchronous rotation in the Moon's orbit. Compared to the near side, the far side's terrain is rugged, with a multitu ...

is also named after him and his brother. There is a ship named after him, the Akademik Sergey Vavilov. She is a research vessel that can carry approximately 150 crew and passengers, and is a Class-1A

icebreaker An icebreaker is a special-purpose ship or boat designed to move and navigate through ice-covered waters, and provide safe waterways for other boats and ships. Although the term usually refers to ice-breaking ships, it may also refer to sma ...

which regularly makes trips to

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest co ...

and the

Arctic The Arctic ( or ) is a polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean, adjacent seas, and parts of Canada ( Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut), Danish Realm ( Greenland), Finland, Iceland ...

. In the summer of 2010 she was working in and around the coast of Svalbard. Also, an Aeroflot plane, with VO-BHL identification number is named after him.

References

# М. Борисов, "Изследванията на С. И. Вавилов върху физиката на луминесцентните явления", Научно-популярна сесия в памет на акад. Сергей Иванович Вавилов (17 – 18.10.1951), София, Изд. БАН, с. 39–77 (1954) # Н. Ахабабян, Сергей Иванович Вавилов (по случай 100 години от рождението му), Светът на физиката, кн. 1, с. 30–35 (1991) # Л. Спасов, Г. Камишева, Милко Борисов за себе си и другите за него, София, Акад. изд. "Проф. М. Дринов" (2008) с. 183

External links

Sergei Vavilov: luminary of Russian physics
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vavilov, Sergey 1891 births 1951 deaths 20th-century Russian physicists Bauman Moscow State Technical University faculty Foreign Members of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences Full Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences ITMO University Members of the German Academy of Sciences at Berlin Foreign members of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology faculty Moscow State University alumni Moscow State University faculty Moscow Power Engineering Institute faculty Presidents of the Russian Academy of Sciences Presidents of the USSR Academy of Sciences Second convocation members of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union Third convocation members of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union Stalin Prize winners Recipients of the Order of Lenin Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour Russian military personnel of World War I Russian physicists Soviet physicists Burials at Novodevichy Cemetery Proceedings of the USSR Academy of Sciences editors