Semenov N.N., (1896-1986), physicist

Categories / Science. Education/Personalia
SEMENOV Nikolay Nikolaevich (1896-1986), physicist, one of the initiators of chemical physics, founder of a scientific school, member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1932), Hero of Socialist Labour (1966, 1976). He graduated from the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics of the University of Petrograd in 1917. From 1920 to 1931, he worked at the Physical and Engineering Institute, combining this office with teaching at Leningrad Polytechnic Institute from 1921. From 1928, he held a professorship at the Polytechnic Institute (29 Politekhnicheskaya Street; memorial plaque). He was also a founding director of the Institute of Chemical Physics of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1931), which was evacuated to Kazan in 1941 and eventually transferred to Moscow in 1943. The same year the scientist himself settled in Moscow, where he assumed a professorship at Moscow State University. From 1957 to 1963, he was also active as academic secretary of the Department of Chemical Sciences of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, the institution, where he held the post of vice-president in 1963-71. His works fall within the field of chemical kinetics and the combustion theory. In 1943, he originated the theory of chain reactions. In 1956, Semenov was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, together with Sir C. Hinshelwood. The scientist was also a recipient of several Soviet awards, including the Stalin Prize (1941, 1949) and the Lenin Prize (1976).

References: Николай Николаевич Семенов, 1896-1986. 3-е изд., перераб. и доп. М., 1990; Воспоминания об академике Николае Николаевиче Семенове. М., 1993.

O. N. Ansberg. Hinshelwood Cyril Norman
Lenin (real name Ulyanov) Vladimir Ilyich
Nobel Alfred Bernhard
Semenov Nikolay Nikolaevich
Stalin (real name Dzhugashvili) Iosif Vissarionovich
Politekhnicheskaya St./Saint Petersburg, city, house 29
Воспоминания об академике Николае Николаевиче Семенове. М., 1993
Николай Николаевич Семенов, 1896-1986. 3-е изд., перераб. и доп. М., 1990 Russian Academy of Sciences
State University, St. Petersburg
Ioffe Physics-Technical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Polytechnical University