For fundamental discoveries and inventions in the field of low temperature physics. Born June 26 (July 8) 1894 in Kronstadt. He graduated from the Kronstadt real school (1912), then the Petrograd Polytechnic Institute (1918). Academician A.F. Ioffe was the supervisor of Kapitsa's thesis. At his department, Kapitsa remained to work after graduating from the institute. In 1921, together with Ioffe and other scientists, he went on a business trip to England. He was engaged in the acquisition of equipment for scientific institutions in Russia, worked at the University of Cambridge under E. Rutherford. Here he carried out research on a- and b-radiation, created a method for obtaining strong magnetic fields. For these works in 1923 he received a prize to them. J. Maxwell. In the same year he received his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge. Since 1924 - Assistant Director of the Cavendish Laboratory. In 1925 he was elected a member of the council of Trinity College, in 1929 - a member of the Royal Society of London and a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences. In 1930 he headed the laboratory. Monda of the Royal Society, specially created to carry out work under his direction.

In 1934, Kapitsa went on vacation to the USSR, but he was not allowed to return to Cambridge. In 1935 he headed the Institute for Physical Problems in Moscow. In 1939 he was elected a full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Winner of the 1941 and 1943 Stalin Prizes in physics.

In 1946, Kapitsa was removed from the post of director, and he had to do research in the home laboratory he created at his dacha. In 1939-1946 he was a professor at Moscow State University, since 1947 - a professor at MIPT. In 1955, Kapitsa was re-appointed director of the Institute for Physical Problems. In the same year he became editor-in-chief of the Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Physics.

Kapitsa was best known for his innovative experimental research in the field of low-temperature physics, the creation of technology for obtaining pulsed superstrong magnetic fields, and his work on plasma physics. In 1924 he managed to obtain a magnetic field of 500 kG. In 1932 Kapitsa created a hydrogen liquefier, in 1934 - a helium liquefier, and in 1939 - an installation low pressure for the industrial production of oxygen from air. In 1938 he discovered an unusual property of liquid helium — a sharp decrease in viscosity at temperatures below the critical temperature (2.19 K); this phenomenon is now called superfluidity. These studies stimulated the development of the quantum theory of liquid helium, developed by L. Landau. In the post-war period, Kapitsa's attention was attracted by high-power electronics. He created continuous magnetron generators. In 1959, he experimentally discovered the formation of high-temperature plasma in a high-frequency discharge. Kapitsa was a member of many foreign academies of sciences and scientific societies, was awarded the medals of M. Faraday (1942), B. Franklin (1944), M. V. Lomonosov (1959), N. Bohr (1964), E. Rutherford (1966).

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Collage

Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa, 1964.

Kapitsa (left) and Semyonov (right). In the fall of 1921, Kapitsa appeared in the studio of Boris Kustodiev and asked him why he painted portraits of celebrities and why the artist did not paint those who would become famous. Young scientists paid the artist for the portrait with a bag of millet and a rooster.

Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa (June 26, 1894, Kronstadt - April 8, 1984, Moscow) - Soviet physicist. Academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1939).

A prominent organizer of science. Founder of the Institute for Physical Problems (IPP), the director of which he remained until the last days of his life. One of the founders of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. First Head of the Department of Low Temperature Physics, Faculty of Physics, Moscow State University.

Laureate 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 gas liquefaction plant (turbo expander). From 1921 to 1934 he worked in Cambridge under the direction of Rutherford. In 1934, during a guest visit, he was forcibly abandoned in the USSR. 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 laureate of the Stalin Prize (1941, 1943). He was awarded the M.V. Lomonosov Great Gold Medal of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1959). Twice Hero of Socialist Labor (1945, 1974). Fellow of the Royal Society.

Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa was born in Kronstadt, 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 academic 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. AF Ioffe quickly noticed a talented student and attracted him to his seminar and work in the laboratory. The first World War caught young man in Scotland, which he visited during his summer vacation to study the language. He returned to Russia in November 1914 and a year later volunteered for the front. Kapitsa served as a driver in an ambulance and drove the wounded on the Polish front. In 1916, after demobilization, he returned to St. Petersburg to continue his studies.

Even before defending his diploma, AF Ioffe invites Pyotr Kapitsa to work in the Physicotechnical Department of the recently created Roentgenological and Radiological Institute (transformed in November 1921 into the Physicotechnical Institute). The scientist publishes his first scientific works at ZhRFHO and begins teaching.

Ioffe believed that a promising young physicist needed to continue his studies at an authoritative 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 managed to get a job at the Cavendish Laboratory under the supervision of Ernest Rutherford, and on July 22, Kapitsa began working in Cambridge. The young Soviet scientist quickly earns the respect of his colleagues and management thanks to his talent as an engineer and experimenter. His work in the field of superstrong magnetic fields brought him wide recognition 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 soon they 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 commissioned Peter Kapitsa to conduct a spectacular demonstration experiment in front of the famous guest.

The topic of his doctoral dissertation, which Kapitsa defended in Cambridge in 1922, was "The passage of alpha particles through matter and methods of obtaining magnetic fields." Since January 1925, Kapitsa has been 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 decided to allocate £ 15,000 for the construction of a special laboratory for Kapitsa in Cambridge. The grand opening of the Mond laboratory (named after the industrialist and philanthropist Mond) took place on February 3, 1933. Kapitsa was elected Professor of the Royal Society of Messel. Leader of the Conservative Party of England, former Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin said in his opening speech:

We are happy that our laboratory director is Professor Kapitsa, who brilliantly combines both physics and engineer in his person. We are convinced that under his skillful leadership, the new laboratory will contribute to the understanding of the processes of nature.

Kapitsa maintains ties with the USSR and in every possible way promotes the international scientific exchange of experience. Monographs by Georgy Gamow, Yakov Frenkel, Nikolai Semyonov are published in the "International Series of Monographs on Physics" by the Oxford University Press, one of the editors of which was Kapitsa. At his invitation, Julius Khariton and Kirill Sinelnikov come to England for an internship.

Back in 1922, Fyodor Shcherbatskoy spoke about the possibility of electing Pyotr Kapitsa to the Russian Academy of Sciences. In 1929, a number of leading scientists signed up for election to the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. On February 22, 1929, the permanent secretary of the USSR Academy of Sciences Oldenburg informs Kapitza 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. d. to its corresponding members ”.

Return to the USSR

The 17th Congress of the CPSU (b) appreciated the significant contribution of scientists and specialists to the success of the industrialization of the country and the fulfillment 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 their Soviet citizenship and expelled from the Academy of Sciences for staying abroad after a business trip. A similar story with the 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. The authorities were particularly concerned about the fact that Kapitsa provided consultations to European industrialists. According to the historian Vladimir Esakov, a plan related to Kapitsa was developed long before 1934, and Stalin knew about it. From August to October 1934, a number of Politburo resolutions were adopted, signed by Kaganovich, ordering to detain the scientist in the USSR. The final resolution read:

Proceeding from considerations that Kapitsa provides significant services to the British, informing them about the state of science in the USSR, as well as the fact that he provides British firms, including the military, the largest services, selling them his patents and working on their orders, to prohibit P L. Kapitza departure from the USSR.

Until 1934, Kapitsa lived with his family in England and regularly came to the USSR on vacation and to see his relatives. The USSR government offered him several times 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 the 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 commissar of heavy industry recommended that the proposal to stay should be carefully considered. Kapitsa refused, and he was sent for an appointment with 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 canceled. Kapitsa was forced to move to his mother, and his wife, Anna Alekseevna, left for Cambridge to live with her children alone. The British press, commenting on the incident, 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. I asked for help and intervention to Paul Langevin, Albert Einstein and Ernest Rutherford. In a letter to Rutherford, he wrote that he barely recovered from the shock of what had happened, and thanked the teacher for helping his family left in England. Rutherford, in a letter to the plenipotentiary of the USSR in England, asked for an explanation - why the famous physicist was denied a return to Cambridge. In a reply 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.

1934-1941 years

The first months in the USSR were difficult - there was no work and no 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, Alexey Bakh, Fyodor 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 Mondovka laboratory, in which he worked, be transported to the USSR. If Rutherford refuses to transfer or sell the equipment, then it will be necessary to purchase duplicates of unique devices. By the decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), 30 thousand pounds were allocated for the purchase of equipment.

On December 23, 1934, Vyacheslav Molotov signed a decree on the organization of the Institute for Physical Problems (IPP) within the USSR Academy of Sciences. On January 3, 1935, the newspapers Pravda and Izvestia announced that Kapitsa had been appointed director of the new institute. At the beginning of 1935, Kapitsa moved from Leningrad to Moscow, to the Metropol Hotel, and received a private car. In May 1935, construction began on the institute's laboratory building on Vorobyovy Gory. After rather difficult negotiations with Rutherford and Cockcroft (Kapitsa did not take part in them), it was possible to come to an agreement on the terms of transferring the laboratory to the USSR. In the period from 1935 to 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 was necessary to write letters to the top leadership of the USSR, right up to Stalin. As a result, we managed to get everything that Pyotr Leonidovich demanded. Two experienced engineers came to Moscow to help with installation and adjustment - mechanic Pearson and laboratory assistant Lauerman.

In his letters from the late 1930s, Kapitsa admitted that the opportunities for work in the USSR were inferior to those that were abroad - this even despite the fact that he received a scientific institution at his disposal and had practically no problems with funding. It was depressing that the problems that were solved in England with one phone call were mired in bureaucracy. The harsh 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.

The situation is depressing. Interest in my work fell, and on the other hand, fellow scientists were so indignant that there were, at least in words, attempts were made to put my work in conditions that simply had to be considered normal, that they are indignant without hesitation: “If<бы>they did the same to us, then we will not do what Kapitsa did. "

In 1935, Kapitsa's candidacy was not even considered in the elections to full members of the USSR Academy of Sciences. He repeatedly writes notes and letters about the possibilities of reforming Soviet science and the academic system to representatives of the authorities, but does not receive a clear reaction. Several times Kapitsa took part in the 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 of 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 the new institute was completed, most of the instruments were transported and mounted, and Kapitsa returned to active scientific activities... At the same time, at the Institute of Physical Problems, a "kapichnik" began to work - the famous seminar of Peter Leonidovich, which soon acquired 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 of 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 plants is causing 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 of the USSR Academy of Sciences on January 24, 1939, by unanimous vote, Kapitsa was accepted as a full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences.)