Kapitsa Petr Leonidovich (July 8, 1894 - April 8, 1984). Coming from a family of military engineers, he graduated from the Polytechnic Institute in Petrograd in 1918. Upon graduation, he worked here as a teacher under the leadership of A. Iofe. Together with him he created a new direction in physics education. His work on atomic physics brought him fame.

In 1921, the Soviet scientist interned in Cambridge, where he received his doctorate. In 1929, Pyotr Leonidovich in England was elected a member of the Royal Society. Only 10 years later he became a full member of the Academy of Sciences in the USSR. Conducting research at the Mondov laboratory and being involved in publishing, he gained worldwide fame.

Since 1934, Kapitsa was deprived of his visa and forced to work in the USSR. The lack of necessary equipment significantly hampered research. Only after some time, with the assistance of influential people, were suitable conditions created.

Heading the institute organized by him, Petr Leonidovich, develops new method He worked with gases and studied their superfluidity. These discoveries helped to significantly increase the efficiency of domestic industry.

During the war period, and immediately after it, Kapitsa P.L. He held high positions in the Council of People's Commissars and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, and worked very hard. In Kazan, he is working on the creation of a cryogenic oxygen plant. Due to intrigue, the project was frozen, which seriously slowed down the development of the steel industry in our country. The scientist is forced to continue his research at his dacha, with the support of the President of the Academy of Sciences S. Vavilov.

Since 1947 he has been working at Moscow University. The multifaceted personality of this man combined different qualities: high scientific intuition, pragmatism, independence of judgment.

In 1950 - 1955, Pyotr Leonidovich made important discoveries in thermo nuclear physics.

The last period of his life, the scientist worked at MIPT. Kapitsa works actively, combining teaching and scientific activities. He studies plasma, hydraulic dynamics and the mysteries of ball lightning. Having enormous success in the scientific field, Kapitsa proved himself to be an outstanding administrator. Regularly conducts his famous seminars. Pyotr Leonidovich takes part in the preparation and launch of the first artificial satellite.

Has received awards of the highest dignity. He is a Nobel Prize winner.

Biography of Pyotr Kapitsa Leonidovich about the main thing

Russian scientist was born in 1894. Since the family lived not far from St. Petersburg, in 1914 Pyotr Leonidovich took exams at the Polytechnic Institute in this city. He immediately stood out for his special abilities. When the war began, Kapitsa volunteered. There he was a driver and took the wounded from the battlefield. A terrible disease - the Spanish flu - brought a lot of grief to his family: his father, his wife and his two children died.

Immediately after graduation, Kapitsa receives a teaching position. But his patron and teacher encouraged Kapitsa to continue his studies abroad. Thus, the future scientist came to England to Cambridge under the leadership of Rutherford. They soon become good friends.

In 1922, he successfully defended his doctoral dissertation and became deputy director of the laboratory. He was a brilliant scientist, and the Royal Society of London noticed this and donated it for the construction of a personal laboratory for Pyotr Leonidovich.

While abroad, he does not forget about his homeland. With his assistance, many Russian physicists were invited to study in England to exchange experiences. And since 1934, the Soviet government forced him to stay, closing his visa to England. Offended by the current situation, he wrote to many influential people of world renown, but all in vain. He had to open his own laboratory, fortunately, the authorities allocated money to purchase the necessary equipment. But overall life was not easy. Thanks to the support of foreign friends and colleagues, his laboratory was completely transported from England to the USSR.

Many of Kapitsa's discoveries were used in industry. And in 1965, for the first time in years, he went abroad to receive a medal and gave lectures there. And in 1978 he received the Nobel Prize.

So, in 1984 the scientist died.

Interesting facts and dates from life

In the USSR, the name of academician Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa was well known, who received two Stalin Prizes one after another (1941 and 1943), was twice awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor (1945 and 1974), a Nobel Prize laureate (1978), almost permanently (since 1934). until his death in 1984, with the exception of a ten-year break in 1946-1955) director of the Institute of Physical Problems of the USSR Academy of Sciences, awarded many orders (he had six Orders of Lenin alone). If you do not pay attention to the break in the leadership of the institute (its reasons were not explained in Soviet literature and reference publications), Kapitsa appeared as a high-ranking figure of the scientific establishment, favored by the authorities under all the communist rulers: Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev.

And only from the late 80s did documents and memoirs begin to appear in the press, indicating that the scientist’s relationship with the Soviet rulers was by no means so cloudless, that he actively and courageously used his unique position as a brilliant physicist, whose research was urgently needed by the military. industrial complex, to protect their colleagues from the repressive machine, to criticize the evils of the system. Kapitsa was far from dissident. He did not, like A.D. Sakharov, openly challenge totalitarianism. His style was different: he combined courage and directness when it came to people of science arrested by the authorities, with pragmatism in relations with the authorities.

Our story, however, will be devoted to one, relatively short period in the life of a scientist - when he, having arrived in the USSR for a congress in 1934, was deprived of the opportunity to return to his laboratory. There are only mentions of this episode in Kapitsa’s life in the literature, although it was reflected in correspondence published in the West (see: “Kapitsa in Cambridge and Moscow: Life and Letters of a Russian Physicist”, Amsterdam, 1990).

In 1995, the Vestnik magazine published a bright article by Moses Kaganov with memories of P.L. Kapitsa and his institute and a selection of testimonies of people who knew the scientist closely (#15, pp. 41-51). But even in these materials, except for the monosyllabic mention of M. Kaganov, nothing is said about how, in fact, Pyotr Leonidovich was forced to stay in the USSR in 1934.

P.L. Kapitsa was born on July 9, 1894 in the family of a military engineer, colonel, and then a general of the Russian army (his father’s military titles were hidden in Soviet publications). Peter graduated from the Petrograd Polytechnic Institute in 1919, showing already in his student years the qualities of an outstanding scientist. In 1921 he managed to go abroad.

While in Great Britain, he turned to the famous physicist Ernest Rutherford with a request to accept him for an internship at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge. Rutherford initially refused, since the laboratory, according to him, was overcrowded with employees (there are already about 30 people). Then Kapitsa asked the master what accuracy he strives for in his experiments. “A 2-3 percent error is acceptable,” Rutherford replied. “In this case,” said Peter, “one extra researcher will not be noticeable; he will be absorbed by the permissible inaccuracy of the experiment.” The young scientist’s witty remark and relaxed manner, combined with his quite decent English, captivated Rutherford, so Kapitsa became his employee. Kapitsa often recalled this episode, but Rutherford forgot it. When the venerable scientist was asked what made him accept Kapitsa, he answered: “I don’t remember what exactly, but I’m very glad that I did it.”

Kapitsa worked in Cambridge for 13 years. Here he carried out a series of fundamental research, for which he received a Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1923. The young experimenter founded a scientific seminar in Cambridge in 1922, later called the Kapitza Club. In 1925, he became deputy director of the Cavendish Laboratory, in 1926 he headed his own Magnetic Laboratory, and in 1930 he began construction of a powerful laboratory with funds bequeathed by the chemist and industrialist Ludwig Mond. This laboratory was inaugurated on February 3, 1933. On behalf of the University of Cambridge, it was “accepted” by the University Chancellor, the leader of the Conservative Party, Stanley Baldwin, who repeatedly served as Prime Minister.

Since 1926, Kapitsa often came to the USSR and returned to England without hindrance. In the Kremlin, he was considered a Soviet scientist who was on a “long trip abroad.” In 1929, Kapitsa was elected a full member of the Royal Society of London (this title is equivalent to an academic one in other countries). In the same year, he became a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, as well as a consultant at the Ukrainian Institute of Physics and Technology (UPTI) in Kharkov (it was at this institute that A.K. Walter, A.I. Leipunsky and K.D. Sinelnikov in 1935 -1936 a linear electron accelerator was created and the first experimental splitting of an atomic nucleus was carried out). In the fall of 1929, having arrived in the USSR once again, Kapitsa spent about two weeks in Kharkov, where he lectured and gave consultations at the UPTI. In 1932 and 1933 he again visited Moscow, Leningrad and Kharkov, after which he returned to Cambridge.

Nothing foreshadowed a thunderstorm when, on September 1, 1934, Pyotr Leonidovich again came to the USSR together with his wife Anna Alekseevna, the daughter of the famous academician, mathematician and mechanic A.N. Krylov, to participate in the Mendeleev Congress. British friends warned Peter that his exceptional position could not continue indefinitely. But the scientist did not heed these words.

This time, the scientist’s every move was monitored by NKVD officers, who reported Kapitsa’s real and fictitious “anti-Soviet” statements to their superiors. There were also many informers among scientists. It should be noted that Kapitsa loved jokes, pranks, and, in short, making an impression. When he was once asked to give his home address, he replied: “England, Kapitsa.” Another time (in 1931), Kapitsa introduced the prominent Bolshevik figure N.I. Bukharin, who visited him in Cambridge, as “Comrade Bukharin.”

It is quite understandable that even completely innocent jokes from the point of view of common sense were classified by the NKVD in reports to the party leadership as dangerous counter-revolutionary agitation.

Kapitsa's personality became the center of attention of Kremlin leaders. A special government commission was even formed (secretly, of course), which was to decide his fate. On September 16, this commission, chaired by V.V. Kuibyshev, a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, made a decision: “Based on the considerations that Kapitsa provides significant services to the British, informing them about the situation in science in the USSR, and also that he provides major services to English companies, including the military, by selling them his patents and working on their orders, to prohibit P.L. Kapitsa from leaving the USSR.” As we can see, the resolution essentially paid tribute to Kapitsa’s scientific potential, and at the same time there was not a word about his “anti-Sovietism.” The latter was kept in reserve, in case it was “necessary” to exert force on the scientist.

The USSR government instructed the Deputy People's Commissar of Heavy Industry G.L. Pyatakov (formerly a member of the united opposition of Trotsky and Zinoviev, and now a zealous Stalinist sycophant, which did not save him from execution in 1938) to inform Kapitsa about the decision and enter into negotiations with him about the conditions of his work in the USSR. On September 21, Kapitsa came to Moscow to meet with the Deputy People's Commissar, who hypocritically invited him to “consider the proposal” to stay in the USSR and get involved in scientific activities “for the benefit of socialist construction.” Kapitsa rejected the offer, saying that he had an interesting scientific work, an excellently equipped laboratory, the necessary staff of scientists, and that he was well-off financially. Pyatakov tried to send Kapitsa to a higher authority - to V.I. Mezhlauk, deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and chairman of the State Planning Committee (the chairman of the government was V.M. Molotov). Kapitsa, however, did not go to Mezhlauk and returned to Leningrad that same evening.

But the hope that he would be left alone was in vain. Immediately upon his arrival in Leningrad, Kapitsa received a telegram about a summons to Mezhlauk. The scientist simply did not pay attention to her. However, threatening phone calls followed from the secretariat of the deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars. As a result, on September 25, Kapitsa, again interrupting his participation in the Mendeleev Congress, came to Moscow. This time they tried to make him understand that he was only a small fry compared to the government bigwigs: for two days, Molotov’s deputy “was busy” and did not receive Kapitsa, and only on the third day “found time” for a conversation with the scientist. This meeting did not produce any practical results. Kapitsa again expressed his desire to return to work in Cambridge. Mezhlauk stated that the USSR government considered the scientist’s departure abroad “undesirable,” but agreed to a trip to the UK for his wife and two young sons - 6-year-old Sergei and 3-year-old Andrei (now both of them are famous scientists: S.P. Kapitsa is a physicist, and A.P. Kapitsa is a geographer).

Only gradually and not yet completely did P.L. Kapitsa begin to realize the realities of the totalitarian system. The scientist found himself in a trap. At times he fell into despair. The sexots reported his words: “You can force me to dig canals, build fortresses, you can take my body, but no one will take my spirit. And if they mock me, then I will quickly commit suicide in any way, I would rather put a bullet in my forehead ".

The attacks of despair, however, quickly passed. Kapitsa decided to turn to Rutherford and other major scientists, in particular, Paul Langevin and Albert Einstein, with a request to appear in the press demanding that he be given the opportunity to leave the USSR. This attempt did not produce significant results. The pro-Soviet Langevin simply did not want to do anything to spite the “Kremlin highlander.” As for Einstein, shortly before this, in 1933, having emigrated from Germany to the USA, he saw in the USSR powerful force, capable of resisting Hitlerism and, although he was very critical of the Bolshevik experiment, did not want to be involved even in the slightest in an action that could be interpreted as anti-Soviet.

True, Rutherford, informed by Anna Kapitsa about what had happened, addressed a restrained, British-style protest to the Soviet plenipotentiary in Great Britain I.M. Maisky. Maisky, a former Menshevik who was now doing his best to curry favor with Stalin, responded much belatedly with a demagogic letter with the following content: “The system in force in the Soviet Union is that the Soviet government plans not only the economy of the country, but also the distribution of labor resources, including the distribution of scientific workers. As long as our scientific institutions could solve the tasks assigned to them with the help of available scientific workers, the Soviet government did not raise any objections to the work of Mr. Kapitsa in Cambridge. Now, however, as a result of the extraordinary development of the national economy of the USSR, connected with it. with the accelerated completion of the First and energetic implementation of the Second Five-Year Plan, the available number of scientific workers is not enough, and in these conditions the Soviet government considered it necessary to use for scientific activity within the country of all those scientists - Soviet citizens who have hitherto worked abroad. Mr. Kapitsa falls into this category. Now he has been offered an extremely responsible job in the Soviet Union in his specialty, which will allow him to fully develop his abilities as a scientist and citizen of his country."

From the letter one could conclude that Kapitsa had come to terms with his fate. But this was far from the case. Despite the failure with international intervention, Pyotr Leonidovich found it possible to use internal leverage to break free. In his opinion, a group of Soviet academicians could turn to N.I. Bukharin, K.E. Voroshilov and M. Gorky “to organize a broad campaign” in his defense. Moreover, sexots reported that the scientist was trying to find out “where Comrade Stalin was - in Moscow or on vacation (Stalin usually vacationed in the south in the fall, and this was widely known - G.Ch.) - and to inform him about what happened."

It must be said that Kapitsa’s ups and downs aroused sympathy from some prominent Russian scientists. The secret report of the NKVD noted statements in support of Kapitsa by academicians V.I. Vernadsky, A.N. Krylov, A.F. Ioffe, N.N. Semenov, I.P. Pavlov, F.I. Shcherbatsky, A.E. Favorsky with an expression of sympathy. Vernadsky, for example, stated: “If the government’s decision not to allow entry into England is not canceled, an international scandal will occur. The English Royal Society, of which Kapitsa is a member, will take all measures to return Kapitsa. Science is international, and no one should be prohibited work where he wants and on topics he finds interesting." “You cannot create by order. Kapitsa will refuse to create,” said Favorsky. The mood of the academicians was summed up in the following way by the NKVD certificate: they “generally spoke out against the decision made regarding Kapitsa, and consider such a forcible separation of Kapitsa from his two children living in England, receiving education there, and the destruction of his well-equipped laboratory, unacceptable.”

But the only one who tried to move from words to action was Kapitsa’s father-in-law, Academician Krylov. He turned to the President of the Academy of Sciences A.P. Karpinsky with a request to specially come to Moscow to the Chairman of the USSR Central Executive Committee M.I. Kalinin so that he would help Kapitsa return to Cambridge. Alas, 88-year-old Karpinsky rejected Krylov’s request.

At the very height of this story, on September 26, 1934, the Izvestia newspaper (its editor was N.I. Bukharin) published an article by Kapitsa, provided long before and lying in his briefcase, about the problem of obtaining liquid helium and about joint work with UPTI scientists in this direction. The publication of the article created the appearance that the author’s position was stable and did not cause concern.

At the same time, the NKVD, through its agents, began to spread rumors that Kapitsa was working for British intelligence and was even collecting spy data about the situation in Far East, bandwidth the Siberian Railway, border fortifications, aircraft construction, etc. Against the background of these rumors, Pyatakov, in a conversation with Academician Semenov, whose friendship with Kapitsa was known, uttered words that sounded like a direct threat of arrest: “If rumors about Kapitsa’s secret work reach the GPU (The GPU no longer existed, but this abbreviation continued to be widely used in a very sinister sense - G.Ch.), this could cause severe repressions against Kapitsa."

Political, psychological and moral pressure eventually yielded results. Kapitsa began to be inclined to resume work in the USSR. Academicians Krylov and Semenov, who had an excellent understanding of Soviet realities, convinced him of the need to begin scientific work, but at the same time demanding decent conditions - this was the only possible way out of this situation. Kapitsa was an experimental scientist whose work required complex, expensive equipment developed under his direct supervision, located in the Mondov Laboratory in Cambridge. He was very skeptical about the possibility of transferring laboratory equipment to the USSR.

True, he resorted to some cunning - he began to tell his colleagues that he was ready to transfer his work to the USSR, but for this, they say, he needed to go to England for six months to “liquidate matters with Rutherford.” Of course, nothing came of this plan. N.N. Semenov appealed to government agencies several times, explaining that Kapitsa could really achieve the biggest scientific achievements only if a special laboratory is organized for it. In the end, Semenov was “recommended,” as it was said in a secret report from the NKVD, to leave Kapitsa alone and wait until he himself contacted the relevant Soviet institutions with a request to create a laboratory for him. The authorities wanted the surrender to be complete and public...

Letters to his wife in England testified to the scientist’s state of mind. One of them said: “...Life is amazingly empty for me now. Other times my fists clench, and I’m ready to tear my hair out and rage. With my instruments, on my ideas in my laboratory, others live and work, but I’m sitting here alone, and I don’t understand why this is necessary. Sometimes it seems to me that I’m going crazy.”

Still, the authorities did not wait for Kapitsa’s complete capitulation, and they decided to make a minor compromise. On October 31, the scientist was given a letter from V.I. Mezhlauk, in which the deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars asked Kapitsa to submit his proposals for scientific work in the USSR by November 3. In a reply letter, Kapitsa explained to the Bolshevik official that his work at Cambridge related to extremely technically complex areas of modern physics, that his laboratory was equipped with “the only and original instruments” manufactured by British industrial enterprises, which “willingly took on individual problems.” He stated that in the USSR he did not see an opportunity for himself to take responsibility “for organizing scientific research, similar to those on which he worked at Cambridge." Therefore, he decided to change the field of scientific research, taking up the problems of biophysics together with I.P. Pavlov.

In early November, Kapitsa came to Moscow for negotiations on the conditions of his work in the USSR. Negotiations dragged on. Time and again he had to explain to officials that without his laboratory, without reliable employees selected by him, without proven technology, he was not able to carry out fundamental research, and that it was impossible to expect direct “introduction into production” of the results of his research.

Perhaps all this red tape would have continued for a long time. However, Stalin intervened in the matter, who obviously realized that “the game is worth the candle.” In any case, in the twenties of December, things finally moved forward. On December 22, the question of Kapitsa was raised at the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. The adopted resolution provided for the creation of the academic Institute of Physical Problems in Moscow, the approval of Kapitsa as the director of this institute, and the completion of the construction of institute buildings with laboratories equipped with the most modern equipment by September 1935. Kapitsa was given the right to staff the institute himself with qualified personnel and dispose of the allocated financial means out of control higher authorities. The resolution provided for the creation of the most favorable material conditions for Kapitsa, in particular - an apartment in the center of Moscow with 5-7 rooms, a dacha in Crimea and a personal car. So the iron cage in which the scientist found himself began to turn into gold.

The next day, December 23, 1934, the government’s decision to create the Institute of Physical Problems of the USSR Academy of Sciences was published. Kapitsa was immediately transferred from the abandoned Novomoskovskaya Hotel to the prestigious Metropol, where he was given a luxury room.

The transformation of P.L. Kapitsa into a “persona grata” did not at all mean an immediate overcoming of bureaucratic slingshots in dealing with scientists. On March 11, 1935, he wrote to his wife in England: “No one here can believe that all I want is just a good, trusting attitude towards myself. No one can believe that I really want to help organize science. Tragedy my position, that [it’s been] three months since I want to make people understand what I want, and I still have an incredulous and condescending attitude toward me. I feel like some kind of Don Quixote. I stand up for some kind of Dulcinea Science. and everyone makes fun of me."

Nevertheless, the strong will, organizational skills, enormous authority of the scientist, coupled with the invisible, but felt, patronizing attitude of the Soviet dictator gradually led to the necessary results. At the insistence of Kapitsa, the Soviet embassy in London entered into negotiations with the Royal Society on the purchase and transportation of equipment from the Mondov laboratory to the USSR.

The first foreign report about Kapitsa's detention in the USSR appeared in the Russian newspaper " Latest news"(Paris) March 9, 1935. The newspaper expressed the opinion that the Bolsheviks captured Kapitsa as a hostage for the defector Gamow. This version apparently seemed not convincing enough to the Western public, and over the next month and a half the press remained silent on this matter.

The storm erupted when the London News Chronicle published a conversation with Rutherford in its morning edition on April 24 under the headline “Cambridge Shocked by Soviets.” “Kapitsa is a brilliant worker,” said “Crocodile,” as the great scientist was called by friends and students, “and he would undoubtedly carry out a number of wonderful experiments here in the next year or two.” In the evening editions of 70 UK newspapers published responses to the conversation that day. "Russia detained him; end of Cambridge studies," wrote the Star. On April 25, comments appeared throughout the Western press under the headings “Russia detains a professor; England loses a great scientist,” “Disappeared professor,” “Loss for science at Cambridge,” etc. On April 26, Rutherford sent a letter to the London Times, published on April 29 under the title "Detention in Russia. Shock for the scientific world." Rutherford wrote that the report of the arrest indicated a violation of personal freedom. The Soviet authorities "requisitioned" Kapitsa's services without any prior notice. His student and friend was deeply shocked by the collapse of his work, his health was seriously damaged. “From the point of view of world science as a whole, it will be a great misfortune if, due to a lack of responsiveness or misunderstanding, conditions arise in which Kapitsa cannot give the world what he is capable of.” A group of leading American scientists appealed to the Soviet plenipotentiary representative in the United States, Troyanovsky, with a protest.

At the same time, it was Rutherford’s statement about the internationality of science that formed the basis for the decision of the Senate of Cambridge University on November 30, 1935, adopted at Rutherford’s proposal, to agree to the sale of the USSR for the Kapitsa Institute (this is exactly what was said in the decision, the official name of the institute was ignored ) scientific equipment of the Mondov laboratory. At the very end of 1935, the equipment arrived in the USSR, and at the beginning of 1936, the construction of the Institute of Physical Problems was completed.

Kapitsa took full advantage of his right to staff the institute with scientific staff and freely dispose of the funds provided. There was even a kind of microscopic labor market at the institute, with positive results flowing from it. One day, shortly after the completion of construction, Kapitsa, extremely busy with research and scientific-organizational affairs, accidentally looked out of the window at the extremely cluttered courtyard. "How many janitors do we have?" - he asked the secretary. “Three,” came the answer. “Immediately fire two, and give the remaining one triple salary,” the director ordered. The next morning the yard sparkled clean...

Kapitsa was forced to come to terms with being in a “golden cage”. In January 1936, his wife and sons returned from Great Britain. Fundamental discoveries of the scientist followed - he developed a new method of air liquefaction, which predetermined the development throughout the world of large installations for the production of oxygen, nitrogen and inert gases, established a temperature jump ("Kapitsa jump") during the transfer of heat from solid to liquid helium, discovered the superfluidity of liquid helium, etc.

At the same time, the unique position of a brilliant physicist and organizer of science, whose works were widely used in Soviet defense technology (although, as Kapitsa noted, much less effectively than would have been possible without bureaucratic delays and party interference), allowed him to preserve the relative (we emphasize - a very relative) independent position and speak out in defense of scientists who have been attacked and arrested.

Already in 1936, he addressed a letter to Molotov in support of the mathematician, academician N.N. Luzin, whom Pravda declared “an enemy in a Soviet mask.” The letter was returned with the resolution “It is unnecessary to return Mr. Kapitsa. V. Molotov,” but they did not dare to arrest Luzin. In February 1937, Kapitsa spoke out in defense of the arrested physicist V.A. Fok, who was soon released and two years later elected academician. In April 1938, Kapitsa stood up for the arrested head of the theoretical department of his institute, L.D. Landau. This time, the troubles continued for a whole year - it was not easy for the director to achieve the release of the scientist who compared the Stalinist dictatorship with the power of Hitler. But in the end, Kapitsa achieved his goal - Landau was released on his personal guarantee.

During the war, P.L. Kapitsa was a member of the Scientific and Technical Council under the State Defense Committee and the head of the Main Directorate of the Oxygen Industry under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR. Occupying such impressive bureaucratic posts, the scientist never betrayed himself. He wrote to Stalin, defending “idealists,” protested against administrative interference in science, and ridiculed statements like “if you are not a materialist in physics, you are an enemy of the people.” Regarding Pravda’s refusal to print one of his notes in strict accordance with the author’s edition, he even dared to write to Stalin that Pravda was a boring newspaper, to which the “best friend of scientists” replied: “Of course, you are right, not Pravda.” "".

After it was created in the USA and then used for military purposes atomic weapons, On August 20, 1945, a Special Committee was formed in the USSR to direct “all work on the use of intra-atomic energy of uranium.” L.P. Beria became the chairman, and among the physicists only I.V. Kurchatov and P.L. Kapitsa were included. But clashes between Kapitsa and Beria immediately began. Twice, on October 3 and November 25, 1945, Kapitsa addressed letters to Stalin, pointing out that the incompetent intervention of an omnipotent person only hindered scientific developments. This time, however, Stalin took the side of his minion, and Kapitsa was removed from the committee.

Thus began the period of disgrace for the academician (he was elected a full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences in 1939). True, the cunning Stalin, realizing Kapitsa’s enormous scientific potential, even at this time maintained the appearance of patronage. On April 4, 1946, he writes to Kapitsa: “I received all your letters. There are a lot of instructive things in the letters, I’m thinking of meeting you someday and talking about them.”

In August 1946, Stalin signed a decree removing Kapitsa from all posts. From that time on, the scientist lived near Moscow, on Nikolina Gora, where he organized a home laboratory (remembering his directorship, he called it “a hut of physical problems”). As it now turns out, in the mid-30s, Kapitsa underestimated his strength - and in a makeshift laboratory, using equipment made by himself or friends, he conducted research in the field of mechanics and hydrodynamics, developed a new type of generator, and discovered a plasma cord in dense gases during high-frequency discharge. In December 1949, when “all progressive humanity” was singing praises on the occasion of Stalin’s 70th birthday, Kapitsa ignored the anniversary events. A month later, another revenge followed - he was expelled from his professorship at Moscow University.

Only after the death of the bloody dictator and the arrest of Beria, Kapitsa’s position in the scientific world and society was restored. In August 1953, the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences adopted a resolution to assist P.L. Kapitsa in his work, and in January 1955, after a meeting with N.S. Khrushchev, he again became director of the Institute of Physical Problems.

But Kapitsa continued to write and tell the rulers what he really thought. He warmly congratulated A.I. Solzhenitsyn on being awarded the Nobel Prize, but refused to join the shameful letter from academicians “condemning” A.D. Sakharov. “Save Sakharov. He is a great scientist of our country,” wrote Pyotr Leonidovich Brezhnev in 1981. Kapitsa also spoke out in support of dissident Vadim Delaunay. Among a group of cultural and scientific figures, he protested in 1966 against the process of gradual rehabilitation of Stalin, and his letter to Brezhnev undoubtedly had a certain influence, although the creeping, indirect justification of Stalinism occurred until Gorbachev’s “perestroika”.

Yes, it was possible to build a “golden cage” for Kapitsa, but it was impossible to make him an “obedient cog” of the system, to force him to work in shackles. Man with capital letters and the brilliant scientist, Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa, died in 1984, three months short of his ninetieth birthday.

So, we begin our five-year Nobel marathon. And we'll start with one of the three Nobel laureates in physics in 1978. Meet: Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa.

Kapitsa Petr Leonidovich

Died on April 8, 1984 in Moscow, USSR. Nobel Prize in Physics 1978 (1/2 of the prize, the other half shared between Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson for the discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation).

The wording of the Nobel Committee: “For fundamental inventions and discoveries in the field of physics low temperatures(for his basic inventions and discoveries in the area of ​​low-temperature physics).

The age at which the award is received is 84 years.

In the autumn of 1921, a young man appeared in the studio of the famous painter Boris Kustodiev, who asked him if it was true that he only painted portraits famous people. And he proposed to paint a portrait of those who would become famous - himself and his friend, chemist Kolya Semenov. The young people paid the artist with a bag of millet and a rooster (perhaps it was this, and not the promise of becoming famous, that was decisive in the hungry year), and as for their promise... By the end of their lives, they would have two Nobel Prizes between them, in physics and chemistry , four highest Soviet ranks Hero of Socialist Labor and fifteen highest orders - Orders of Lenin. We simply will not count state, Lenin and Stalin prizes. This brave man's name was young man Peter Kapitsa.

The future Nobel laureate was the son of the Kronstadt fortifier Leonid Kapitsa and the daughter of the famous topographer Hieronymus Stebnitsky Olga, a famous collector of folklore. In 1914, he entered the electromechanical faculty of the St. Petersburg Polytechnic University, where Ioffe quickly noticed him and took him to his laboratory. It cannot be said that life was easy for Kapitsa. He managed to work as a military driver during the First World War; in 1919–1920, the Spanish flu claimed the lives of his father, first wife, two-year-old son and newborn daughter. For a long time, Ioffe could not send him abroad to continue his studies with world-class physicists.

Maxim Gorky helped and - suddenly - Rutherford, who agreed to take him in. Rutherford later recalled that he himself did not understand why he suddenly agreed to take on an unknown Russian. True, he had no regrets. Actually, Rutherford even owes his nickname (Crocodile) to Kapitsa.

At the same time, my personal life also improved. Pyotr Leonidovich's second wife, Anna Alekseevna, was the daughter of the famous mathematician and mechanic, shipbuilding theorist Academician Alexei Nikolaevich Krylov. Both sons of Pyotr Leonidovich and Anna Alekseevna were born in England, but left a noticeable mark on Russian science: Sergei Petrovich became a physicist, a professor at MIPT, and for 39 years he hosted the famous program “Obvious-Incredible.” Andrei Petrovich rose above his brother in the scientific hierarchy and became a famous geographer, Antarctic explorer and corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Kapitsa settled in well in England. As a result, a laboratory was built specifically for him in Cambridge. The words of former British Prime Minister Baldwin, spoken at the opening of the laboratory, are well known: “We are happy that Professor Kapitsa, who so brilliantly combines both physicist and engineer, is working as our laboratory director. We are confident that, under his able leadership, the new laboratory will contribute to the knowledge of natural processes.” Kapitsa also brought “get-togethers” to the Cambridge world - seminars where anything and everything was discussed. In addition, Kapitsa was an excellent chess player and won the Cambridgeshire County Chess Championship.

Once again, in 1934, everything seemed to collapse. During his visit to Moscow, he was banned from traveling to Britain. But he stood up, was able to force the government to create an institute for himself and buy his laboratory from Rutherford. And continue the work for which he would eventually receive the Nobel Prize. It seems to me that it was precisely a certain longing for the “classical British physical tradition” that led Kapitsa to another most important act in his life - the creation of the Faculty of Physics and Technology of Moscow State University, which turned into the famous Physics and Technology (MIPT) and the “Phystech System” - in which students from the very beginning They are not trained by teachers, but by actual working scientists and engineers. By the way, here too Kapitsa’s partner was his neighbor in Kustodiev’s portrait, Nikolai Semenov.

But let's return to the Nobel Prize. It is not entirely true to say that Kapitza received the Nobel Prize in Physics precisely for the discovery of helium superfluidity. The wording of the Nobel Committee states that the prize was received for discoveries and inventions in the field of ultra-low temperatures. It would be more correct to say that the award was awarded to Pyotr Leonidovich for two achievements at once.

The first is a fundamental discovery and a delicate experiment to discover the superfluidity of helium. In fact, Kapitsa discovered a new state of helium, helium II, in which, at temperatures below 2.17 K, liquid helium behaves like a quantum liquid and its viscosity becomes zero. It is said that Niels Bohr nominated Kapitsa for the prize three times, but without success, and Lev Landau received the prize for his explanation of helium superfluidity long before Kapitza (1961). It is also worth noting that Pyotr Leonidovich received the prize exactly 40 years after his article in Nature on superfluidity. Two other researchers who discovered superfluidity independently of Landau, Allen and Meizner, who continued his work at the Mondov laboratory and published the results of their research in the same issue of the journal, simply did not live to see the prize.

The second is the invention of the turboexpander, a device for liquefying gases, which made it possible to obtain large quantities helium (Kapitsa’s installation produced two liters of liquefied gas per hour). True, the importance of this invention is not only in the production of liquid helium, but also in the possibility of producing on an industrial scale liquid oxygen, which is much more important in the war. Thus, Kapitsa is one of the few physicists who fully embodied both parts of that fragment of Nobel’s will that concerns physics: the dynamite tycoon asked to present his prize “for discoveries or inventions” in the field of physics. Pyotr Leonidovich did both.

When I was preparing this article, I came across an article by P.E. Rubinin about Kapitsa’s “Nobel week”. It turns out that the organizers of the celebration offered to rent a traditional Nobel tailcoat (and the ceremony requires the most formal white tie dress code - that is, a tailcoat and a white bow tie) for Kapitsa and his entourage in Stockholm and asked for the sizes. However, Pyotr Leonidovich, remembering his British years, said that renting a tailcoat was disgusting and all the Moscow guests of the Swedish king had tailcoats sewn in Moscow by the famous tailor P.P. Okhlopkova. But I still had to buy a bow tie with an elastic band, which Kapitsa couldn’t stand. During the decades he spent in the USSR, Kapitsa forgot how to tie a real bow tie. However, Kapitsa went through all the other difficulties of the ceremony easily - and had a lot of fun when on the morning of the ceremony he had to take part in a “run-through” - everything was the same as in the evening, only without the king.

At the time of receiving the Nobel Prize, Kapitsa was the oldest laureate in history, which he did not fail to sarcastically note in his response. He honestly said that he published his first scientific work 65 years before the Nobel Prize. Pyotr Leonidovich also misbehaved in his Nobel lecture. According to tradition, Nobel winners give lectures about the field of science and the discovery for which they were awarded...

But let’s give the floor to Kapitsa himself: “The choice of topic for the Nobel lecture presented some difficulty for me. Typically this lecture is related to the work for which the prize has been awarded. In my case, this award is related to my research in the field of low temperatures, near the liquefaction temperature of helium, i.e. several degrees above absolute zero. As fate would have it, it so happened that I retired from this work more than 30 years ago, and although the institute I led continues to work on low temperatures, I myself began studying the phenomena occurring in plasma at those exceptionally high temperatures. high temperatures, which are necessary for the thermonuclear reaction to occur. These works led us to interesting results, opening up new perspectives, and I think that a lecture on this topic is of more interest than the work I have already forgotten in the field of low temperatures. Besides, as the French say, les extremes se touchent (extremes meet).”

I’m not sure, but in my opinion, this is almost the only case of a lecture so far from the Nobel opening.

One can talk about Kapitsa for a long time and write multi-volume studies. Much has already been written - about his stay abroad, and about his role in the founding of MIPT, and about how he defended scientists before Stalin (and saved many), and about his Hut of Physical Problems - a dacha-laboratory on Nikolina Gora. Something was published for the first time by the author of these lines, something else will be published. But you can’t fit everything into one article. On the other hand, who said that I would write only this text about Pyotr Leonidovich?..

But for now I say goodbye to you until Monday. The next hero of our series will be Kapitsa’s “neighbor” in the portrait, colleague at the founding of MIPT and the only Russian and Soviet Nobel laureate in chemistry Nikolai Nikolaevich Semenov.

1. Kapitza P. Viscosity of liquid helium below the l-point (English) // Nature. - 1938. - Vol. 3558. - No. 141. - P. 74.

2. P.E. Rubinin. The main event of the Nobel week P.L. Kapitsa // Academician Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa. Collection of articles. New in life, science and technology. Series "Physics" 7/1979. M, "Knowledge", 1979.

3. P.L. Kapitsa. Plasma and controlled thermonuclear reaction // Academician Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa. Collection of articles. New in life, science and technology. Series "Physics" 7/1979. M, "Knowledge", 1979.

Kapitsa Pyotr Leonidovich
Born: June 26 (July 8), 1894.
Died: April 8, 1984.

Biography

Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa (1894-1984) - Soviet physicist.

Prominent organizer of science. Founder of the Institute of Physical Problems (IPP), whose director remained until the last days of his life. One of the founders of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. The first head of the Department of Low Temperature Physics, Faculty of Physics, Moscow State University.

Winner 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 ultra-strong magnetic fields and the confinement of high-temperature plasma. Developed a high-performance industrial installation for liquefying gases (turboexpander). From 1921 to 1934 he worked in Cambridge under the leadership of Rutherford. In 1934, having returned to the USSR for a while, he was forcibly left in his homeland. 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, and therefore he asked for resignation, the request was granted. From 1946 to 1955 he was dismissed from state Soviet institutions, but he was given the opportunity to work as a professor at Moscow State University until 1950. Lomonosov.

Twice winner of the Stalin Prize (1941, 1943). Awarded a large gold medal named after M.V. Lomonosov of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1959). Twice Hero of Socialist Labor (1945, 1974). Full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Fellow of the Royal Society of London.

Early life

Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa was born on June 26 (July 8), 1894 in Kronstadt (now an administrative district of St. Petersburg), in the family of a military engineer of Moldavian (Bessarabian) origin Leonid Petrovich Kapitsa and his wife Olga Ieronimovna, the daughter of topographer Ieronim Stebnitsky from the Ukrainian Volyn region noble family. In 1905 he entered the gymnasium. A year later, due to poor 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. A capable student is quickly noticed A. F. Ioffe, attracts to his seminar and work in the laboratory.

First world war I found a young man in Scotland, which he visited during the summer holidays to study the language. He returned to Russia in November 1914 and a year later volunteered to go to the front. Kapitsa served as an ambulance driver and carried the wounded on the Polish front. In 1916, having been demobilized, he returned to St. Petersburg to continue his studies. Kapitsa's father dies of the Spanish flu in revolutionary Petrograd, followed by the deaths of his first wife, two-year-old son and newborn daughter.

Even before defending his diploma, A.F. Ioffe invited Pyotr Kapitsa to work in the Physico-Technical Department of the newly created X-ray and Radiological Institute (transformed in November 1921 into the Physico-Technical Institute). A scientist publishes his first scientific works in ZhRFKhO and begins teaching.

Ioffe believed that a promising young physicist needed to continue his studies at a reputable foreign scientific school, but for a long time it was not possible to organize a trip abroad. Thanks to the assistance Krylova 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 manages to get a job at the Cavendish Laboratory under Ernest Rutherford, and on July 22, Kapitsa begins working in Cambridge. The young Soviet scientist quickly earned 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 fame 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 they soon 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 instructed Peter Kapitsa to conduct a spectacular demonstration experiment in front of the famous guest.

The topic of his doctoral dissertation, which Kapitsa defended at Cambridge in 1922, was “The passage of alpha particles through matter and methods for producing 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 is elected Messel Professor of the Royal Society. The leader of the Conservative Party of England, former Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, noted in his opening speech:

We are happy that Professor Kapitsa, who so brilliantly combines both physicist and engineer, works as our laboratory director. We are convinced that under his able leadership the new laboratory will make its contribution to the knowledge of natural processes.

Kapitsa maintains ties with the USSR and in every possible way promotes the international scientific exchange of experience. The International Series of Monographs in Physics, published by Oxford University Press, of which Kapitsa was one of the editors, publishes monographs by Georgy Gamov, Yakov Frenkel, and Nikolai Semyonov. At his invitation, he comes to England for an internship. Yuliy Khariton And Kirill Sinelnikov.

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 a proposal for election to the USSR Academy of Sciences. February 22, 1929 Permanent Secretary of the USSR Academy of Sciences Oldenburg informs Kapitsa that “The Academy of Sciences, wishing to express its deep respect for your scientific achievements in the field of physical sciences, elected you at the General Meeting of the USSR Academy of Sciences on February 13 this year. as its corresponding members."

Return to the USSR

The XVII Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) appreciated the significant contribution of scientists and specialists to the success of the country’s industrialization and the implementation of the first five-year plan. However, at the same time, the rules for the travel of specialists abroad became more strict and their implementation was now monitored by a special commission.

Numerous cases of non-return of Soviet scientists did not go unnoticed. In 1936 V. N. Ipatiev and A. E. Chichibabin were deprived of Soviet citizenship and expelled from the Academy of Sciences for remaining abroad after a business trip. A similar story with 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 especially concerned about the fact that Kapitsa provided consultations to European industrialists. According to historian Vladimir Yesakov, long before 1934, a plan related to Kapitsa was developed, and Stalin knew about it. From August to October 1934, a series of Politburo resolutions were adopted, signed by L. M. Kaganovich, ordering the detention of the scientist in the USSR. The final resolution read:

Based on the considerations that Kapitsa provides significant services to the British, informing them about the situation in science in the USSR, and also that he provides major services to English firms, including the military, by selling them his patents and working on their orders, to prohibit P . L. Kapitsa departure from the USSR.

Until 1934, Kapitsa and his family lived in England and regularly came to the USSR on vacation and to see relatives. The USSR government several times offered him 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 People's Commissar of Heavy Industry recommended that we carefully consider the offer to stay. Kapitsa refused, and he was sent to a higher authority to see Mezhlauk. The Chairman of the State Planning Committee informed the scientist that traveling abroad was impossible and the visa was cancelled. Kapitsa was forced to move in with his mother, and his wife, Anna Alekseevna, went to Cambridge to visit her children alone. The English press, commenting on what happened, 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. He asked Paul Langevin, Albert Einstein and Ernest Rutherford for help and intervention. In a letter to Rutherford, he wrote that he had barely recovered from the shock of what had happened, and thanked the teacher for helping his family who remained in England. Rutherford wrote a letter to the USSR Plenipotentiary Representative in England for clarification as to why the famous physicist was being refused to return to Cambridge. In a response letter he was informed that Kapitsa’s return to the USSR was dictated by the accelerated development planned in the five-year plan Soviet science and industry.

1934-1941

The first months in the USSR were difficult - there was no work and no certainty about the future. I had to live in cramped conditions in a communal apartment with Pyotr Leonidovich’s mother. His friends Nikolai Semyonov, Alexey Bakh, and 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 Mondov laboratory, in which he worked, be transported to the USSR. If Rutherford refuses to transfer or sell the equipment, then duplicates of the unique instruments will need to be purchased. By decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, 30 thousand pounds sterling was allocated for the purchase of equipment.

On December 23, 1934, Vyacheslav Molotov signed a decree on organizing the Institute of Physical Problems (IPP) within the USSR Academy of Sciences. On January 3, 1935, the newspapers Pravda and Izvestia reported the appointment of Kapitsa as director of the new institute. At the beginning of 1935, Kapitsa moved from Leningrad to Moscow - to the Metropol Hotel, and received a personal car. In May 1935, construction began on the institute's laboratory building on Vorobyovy Gory. After rather difficult negotiations with Rutherford and Cockroft (Kapitsa did not take part in them), it was possible to reach an agreement on the conditions for transferring the laboratory to the USSR. Between 1935 and 1937, equipment was gradually received from England. The matter was greatly delayed due to the sluggishness of the officials involved in the supply, and it became 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 required. Two experienced engineers came to Moscow to help with installation and setup - mechanic Pearson and laboratory assistant Lauerman.

In his letters of the late 1930s, Kapitsa admitted that the opportunities for work in the USSR were inferior to those abroad - this was even despite the fact that he had a scientific institution at his disposal and had virtually no problems with funding. It was depressing that problems that could be solved in England with one phone call were mired in bureaucracy. The scientist’s harsh statements and the exceptional conditions created for him by the authorities did not contribute to establishing 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 attempts were made, at least in words, to put my work in conditions that simply should have been considered normal, that they were indignant without hesitation: “If we have the same did, then we won’t do the same thing as Kapitsa”... In addition to envy, suspicion and everything else, an atmosphere was created that was impossible and downright creepy... The scientists here are definitely unkind to my move here.

In 1935, Kapitsa's candidacy was not even considered in the elections to full membership of the USSR Academy of Sciences. He repeatedly writes notes and letters about the possibilities of reforming Soviet science and the academic system to government officials, but does not receive a clear response. Several times Kapitsa took part in meetings of the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences, but, as he himself recalled, after two or three times"withdrew." 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 installed, and Kapitsa returned to active scientific work. At the same time, a “kapichnik” began working at the Institute of Physical Problems - the famous seminar of Pyotr Leonidovich, which soon gained 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 team of the institute, headed by Pyotr Leonidovich, is actively working on the purely practical task of improving the design of a new installation for the production of liquid air and oxygen - a turboexpander. The academician’s fundamentally new approach to the functioning of cryogenic installations is causing heated discussions both in the USSR and abroad. However, Kapitsa’s activities are approved, and the institute he heads is set as an example effective organization scientific process. At the general meeting of the Department of Mathematical and Natural Sciences of the USSR Academy of Sciences on January 24, 1939, Kapitsa was accepted as a full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences by unanimous vote.

War and post-war years

During the war, the IFP was evacuated to Kazan, and Pyotr Leonidovich’s family moved there from Leningrad. During war years, the need for the production of liquid oxygen from air on an industrial scale increases sharply (in particular, for the production of explosives). Kapitsa is working on introducing into production the oxygen cryogenic plant he developed. In 1942, the first copy of “Object No. 1” - the TK-200 turbo-oxygen installation with a capacity of up to 200 kg/h of liquid oxygen - was manufactured and put into operation at the beginning of 1943. In 1945, “Object No. 2” was commissioned - a TK-2000 installation with a productivity ten times greater.

At his suggestion, on May 8, 1943, by resolution of the State Defense Committee, the Main Directorate for Oxygen was created under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, and Pyotr Kapitsa was appointed head of the Main Oxygen Department. In 1945, a special institute of oxygen engineering - VNIIKIMASH - was organized and a new magazine "Oxygen" began to be published. In 1945, he received the title of Hero of Socialist Labor, and the institute he headed was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.

In addition to practical activities, Kapitsa also finds time for teaching. On October 1, 1943, Kapitsa was appointed to the position of head of the Department of Low Temperatures at the Physics Faculty of Moscow State University. In 1944, at the time of the change of the head of the department, he became the main author of a letter from 14 academicians, which drew the government's attention to the situation at the Department of Theoretical Physics of the Faculty of Physics of Moscow State University. As a result, the head of the department after Igor Tamm was not Anatoly Vlasov, but Vladimir Fok. Having worked in this position for a short time, Fok left this post two months later. Kapitsa signed a letter from four academicians to Molotov, the author of which was A.F. Ioffe. This letter initiated the resolution of the confrontation between so-called “academic” and “university” physics.

Meanwhile, in the second half of 1945, immediately after the end of the war, the Soviet atomic project entered an active phase. On August 20, 1945, the Atomic Special Committee was created under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, headed by Lavrentiy Beria. The committee initially included only two physicists:

Kurchatov was appointed scientific supervisor of all works. Kapitsa, who was not a specialist in nuclear physics, was supposed to oversee separate directions(low-temperature technology for separating uranium isotopes). Both Kurchatov and Kapitsa are members of the Technical Council of the special committee, additionally I.K. Kikoin, A.F. Ioffe, Yu.B. Khariton and V.G. Khlopin are invited there. Kapitsa immediately becomes dissatisfied with Beria’s leadership methods; he speaks very impartially and sharply about the General Commissar of State Security - both personally and professionally. On October 3, 1945, Kapitsa wrote a letter to Stalin asking him to be relieved of his work on the Committee, but there was no response. On November 25, Kapitsa writes a second letter, more detailed (on 8 pages) and on December 21, 1945, Stalin allows Kapitsa’s resignation. Protocol No. 9 of November 30, 1945, “minutes of the meeting of the Special Committee of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR,” was published, in which P. L. Kapitsa makes a report on the conclusions he made based on the analysis of data on the consequences of the use of atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and not No instructions are given; a detailed analysis of the bombing of these cities is entrusted to a commission headed by A. I. Alikhanov.

Actually, in the second letter, Kapitsa described how necessary, in his opinion, to implement the nuclear project, defining in detail an action plan for two years. As the biographers of the academician believe, Kapitsa at that time did not know that Kurchatov and Beria already had received Soviet intelligence data on the American nuclear program. The plan proposed by Kapitsa, although it was quite fast in execution, was not fast enough for the prevailing political situation around the development of the first Soviet atomic bomb. IN historical literature It is often mentioned that Stalin handed over to Beria, who proposed to arrest the independent and sharp-minded academician: “I’ll take him off for you, but don’t touch him.” Authoritative biographers of Pyotr Leonidovich do not confirm the historical accuracy of such words of Stalin, although it is known that Kapitsa allowed himself behavior that was completely exceptional for a Soviet scientist and citizen. According to historian Lauren Graham, Stalin valued Kapitsa's frankness and frankness. Kapitsa, despite the severity of the problems they raised, kept his messages to Soviet leaders secret (the contents of most of the letters were revealed after his death) and did not widely propagate his ideas.

At the same time, in 1945-1946, the controversy surrounding the turboexpander and the industrial production of liquid oxygen intensified again. Kapitsa enters into a discussion with leading Soviet cryogenic engineers who do not recognize him as a specialist in this field. The State Commission recognizes the promise of Kapitsa’s developments, but believes that launch into an industrial series will be premature. Kapitsa's installations are dismantled, and the project is frozen.

On August 17, 1946, Kapitsa was removed from the post of director of the IPP. He retires to the state dacha, to Nikolina Mountain. Instead of Kapitsa, Alexandrov is appointed director of the institute. According to academician Feinberg, at that time Kapitsa was “in exile, under house arrest.” The dacha was the property of Pyotr Leonidovich, but the property and furniture inside were mostly state-owned and were almost completely taken away. In 1950, he was fired from the Faculty of Physics and Technology of Moscow State University, where he lectured.

In his memoirs, Pyotr Leonidovich wrote about persecution by security forces, direct surveillance initiated by Lavrentiy Beria. Nevertheless, the academician does not abandon scientific activity and continues research in the field of low temperature physics, separation of uranium and hydrogen isotopes, and improves his knowledge of mathematics. Thanks to the assistance of the President of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Sergei Vavilov, it was possible to obtain a minimum set of laboratory equipment and install it at the dacha. In numerous letters to Molotov and Malenkov, Kapitsa writes about experiments carried out in artisanal conditions and asks for the opportunity to return to normal work. In December 1949, Kapitsa, despite the invitation, ignored the ceremonial meeting at Moscow State University dedicated to the 70th anniversary of Stalin.

Recent years

The situation changed only in 1953 after the death of Stalin and the arrest of Beria. On June 3, 1955, Kapitsa, after a meeting with Khrushchev, returned to the post of director of the IFP. At the same time, he was appointed editor-in-chief of the country's leading physics journal, the Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Physics. Since 1956, Kapitsa has been one of the organizers and first head of the Department of Physics and Low Temperature Engineering at MIPT. In 1957-1984 - member of the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

Kapitsa continues active scientific and pedagogical activity. During this period, the scientist's attention was attracted by the properties of plasma, the hydrodynamics of thin layers of liquid, and even the nature of ball lightning. He continues to conduct his seminar, where the best physicists in the country were considered an honor to speak. “Kapichnik” became a kind of scientific club where not only physicists were invited, but also representatives of other sciences, cultural and artistic figures.

The persuasiveness of scientific foresight and the weight of the opinion of P. L. Kapitsa sometimes manifested itself in unexpected areas. Thus, in August 1955, he influenced the decision to create the first artificial Earth satellite. This is how the Lenin Prize laureate, Honored Worker of Science and Technology of the RSFSR, Doctor of Technology writes about it. Sc., prof. Anatoly Viktorovich Brykov:

At the end of August 1955, a meeting of the country's leading scientists in the field of rocket science was held at the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences, where, at the suggestion of Sergei Pavlovich Korolev, a special body was established to organize scientific research using a series of artificial Earth satellites. This newly created body was headed by M. V. Keldysh. Mstislav Vsevolodovich acted very energetically. The next day, all members of the newly created body gathered at the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences, where M.K. Tikhonravov made a report on the proposed design of the satellite and its weight characteristics. At the same time, Mikhail Klavdievich was based on the development of the simplest satellite of the first stage, since work on the second stage had not yet been completed. After the report, Tikhonravov gave answers to numerous questions about thermal conditions satellite, power sources, weight of scientific instruments, etc. Igor Marianovich Yatsunsky participated in the work of this meeting and spoke about the progress of the discussion of the report: - After a heated discussion and statements by scientists of a number of valuable proposals on the use of the satellite, Mstislav Vsevolodovich was still not satisfied and could not make a decision on this issue. The tension was resolved by Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa. He formulated the results of the discussion something like this: “This is a completely new matter, here we are only entering the realm of the unknown, and this always brings fruits to science that cannot be foreseen in advance. But they will definitely be there. We need to make an artificial earth satellite!” Everyone agreed with him, including Keldysh. The decision to create the first artificial Earth satellite was made.

In addition to achievements in science, Kapitsa proved himself as an administrator and organizer. Under his leadership, the Institute of Physical Problems became one of the most productive institutions of the USSR Academy of Sciences, attracting many of the country's leading specialists. In 1964, the academician expressed the idea of ​​​​creating a popular scientific publication for young people. The first issue of the Kvant magazine was published in 1970. Kapitsa took part in the creation of the Academgorodok research center near Novosibirsk, and a new type of higher education institution - the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. The gas liquefaction plants built by Kapitsa, after a long controversy in the late 1940s, found wide application in industry. The use of oxygen for oxygen blasting revolutionized the steel industry.

In 1965, for the first time after a break of more than thirty years, Kapitsa received permission to leave the Soviet Union for Denmark to receive the Niels Bohr International Gold Medal. There he visited scientific laboratories and gave a lecture on high-energy physics. In 1969, the scientist and his wife visited the United States for the first time.

In recent years, Kapitsa has become interested in controlled thermonuclear reactions. In 1978, Academician Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics “for fundamental inventions and discoveries in the field of low-temperature physics.” The academician received the news of the award while on vacation at the Barvikha sanatorium. Kapitsa, contrary to tradition, dedicated his Nobel speech not to the works that were awarded the prize, but to modern research. Kapitsa referred to the fact that he moved away from questions in the field of low-temperature physics about 30 years ago and is now fascinated by other ideas. The Nobel laureate's speech was entitled “Plasma and the controlled thermonuclear reaction.” Sergei Petrovich Kapitsa recalled that his father completely kept the bonus for himself (he deposited it in his name in one of the Swedish banks) and did not give anything to the state.

These observations led to the idea that ball lightning is also a phenomenon created by high-frequency oscillations that occur in thunderclouds after ordinary lightning. In this way, the energy necessary to maintain the long-lasting glow of ball lightning was supplied. This hypothesis was published in 1955. A few years later we had the opportunity to resume these experiments. In March 1958, already in a spherical resonator filled with helium at atmospheric pressure, in a resonant mode with intense continuous oscillations of the Hox type, a freely floating oval-shaped gas discharge arose. This discharge was formed in the region of maximum electric field and slowly moved in a circle coinciding with the line of force.

Until the last days of his life, Kapitsa maintained an interest in scientific activities, continued to work in the laboratory and remained as director of the Institute of Physical Problems.

On March 22, 1984, Pyotr Leonidovich felt unwell and was taken to the hospital, where he was diagnosed with a stroke. On April 8, without regaining consciousness, Kapitsa died. He was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery in Moscow.

Works 1920-1980

One of the first significant scientific works (together with Nikolai Semenov, 1918) was devoted to measuring the magnetic moment of an atom in a non-uniform magnetic field, which was improved in 1922 in the so-called Stern-Gerlach experiment.

While working at Cambridge, Kapitsa became closely involved in research into superstrong magnetic fields and their influence on the trajectory of elementary particles. Kapitza was one of the first to place a cloud chamber in a strong magnetic field in 1923 and observed the curvature of the tracks of alpha particles. In 1924, he obtained a magnetic field with an induction of 32 Tesla in a volume of 2 cm3. In 1928 he formulated the law of linear increase electrical resistance a number of metals from tension magnetic field(Kapitsa's law).

The creation of equipment for studying the effects associated with the influence of strong magnetic fields on the properties of matter, in particular magnetic resistance, led Kapitsa to the problems of low temperature physics. To carry out the experiments, first of all, it was necessary to have a significant amount of liquefied gases. The methods that existed in the 1920-1930s were ineffective. Developing fundamentally new refrigeration machines and installations, Kapitsa in 1934, using an original engineering approach, built a high-performance gas liquefaction plant. He managed to develop a process that eliminated the compression phase and highly purified air. Now there was no need to compress the air to 200 atmospheres - five was enough. Due to this, it was possible to increase the efficiency from 0.65 to 0.85-0.90, and reduce the installation price by almost ten times. In the course of work to improve the turboexpander, it was possible to overcome the interesting engineering problem of freezing of the lubricant of moving parts at low temperatures - liquid helium itself was used for lubrication. The scientist’s significant contribution was not only to the development of an experimental sample, but also to bringing the technology to mass production.

In the post-war years, Kapitsa was attracted to high-power electronics. He developed the general theory of magnetron-type electronic devices and created continuous magnetron generators. Kapitsa put forward a hypothesis about the nature of ball lightning. Experimentally discovered the formation of high-temperature plasma in a high-frequency discharge. Kapitsa expressed a number of original ideas, for example, the destruction of nuclear weapons in the air using powerful beams electromagnetic waves. In recent years, he has worked on issues of thermonuclear fusion and the problem of confining high-temperature plasma in a magnetic field.

The “Kapitza pendulum” is named after Kapitza, a mechanical phenomenon that demonstrates stability outside of an equilibrium position. The quantum mechanical Kapitza-Dirac effect is also known, demonstrating the scattering of electrons in the field of a standing electromagnetic wave.

Discovery of superfluidity

Kamerlingh Onnes, while studying the properties of the liquid helium he first obtained, noted its unusually high thermal conductivity. A liquid with anomalous physical properties attracted the attention of scientists. Thanks to the Kapitsa installation, which began operating in 1934, it was possible to obtain liquid helium in significant quantities. In the first experiments, Kamerlingh Onnes obtained about 60 cm3 of helium, while Kapitsa’s first installation had a productivity of about 2 liters per hour. The events of 1934-1937 associated with excommunication from work at the Mondov laboratory and forced detention in the USSR greatly delayed the progress of research. Only in 1937 did Kapitsa restore the laboratory equipment and return to his previous work in the field of low-temperature physics at the new institute. Meanwhile, at Kapitsa’s former workplace, at the invitation of Rutherford, young Canadian scientists John Allen and Austin Meisner began working in the same field. Kapitsa’s experimental installation for producing liquid helium remained in the Mondov laboratory - Alain and Maizner worked with it. In November 1937, they obtained reliable experimental results on changes in the properties of helium.

Historians of science, talking about the events at the turn of 1937-1938, note that there are some controversial points in the competition between the priorities of Kapitza and Allen with Jones. Pyotr Leonidovich formally sent materials to Nature before his foreign competitors - the editors received them on December 3, 1937, but were in no hurry to publish, awaiting verification. Knowing that the verification could take a long time, Kapitsa clarified in a letter that the proofs could be checked by John Cockcroft, director of the Mondov laboratory. Cockroft, having read the article, informed his employees, Allen and Jones, about it, hastening them to publish it. Cockcroft, a close friend of Kapitsa, was surprised that Kapitsa only let him know about the fundamental discovery at the last moment. It is worth noting that back in June 1937, Kapitsa, in a letter to Niels Bohr, reported that he had made significant progress in the research of liquid helium.

As a result, both articles were published in the same issue of Nature dated January 8, 1938. They reported an abrupt change in the viscosity of helium at temperatures below 2.17 Kelvin. The difficulty of the problem solved by the scientists was that it was not easy to accurately measure the viscosity of the liquid that flowed freely into the half-micron hole. The resulting turbulence of the liquid introduced a significant error into the measurement. Scientists have taken different experimental approaches. Allen and Meisner looked at the behavior of helium-II in thin capillaries (the same technique was used by the discoverer of liquid helium, Kamerlingh Onnes). Kapitsa studied the behavior of a liquid between two polished disks and estimated the resulting viscosity value to be below 10−9 P. Kapitsa called the new phase state helium superfluidity. The Soviet scientist did not deny that the contribution to the discovery was largely joint. For example, in his lecture, Kapitsa emphasized that the unique phenomenon of helium-II gushing was first observed and described by Alain and Meisner.

These works were followed by a theoretical substantiation of the observed phenomenon. It was given in 1939-1941 by Lev Landau, Fritz London and Laszlo Tissa, who proposed the so-called two-fluid model. Kapitsa himself continued his research on helium-II in 1938-1941, in particular confirming the speed of sound in liquid helium predicted by Landau. The study of liquid helium as a quantum liquid (Bose-Einstein Condensate) has become an important direction in physics, producing a number of remarkable scientific works. Lev Landau received the Nobel Prize in 1962 in recognition of his achievements in constructing a theoretical model of the superfluidity of liquid helium.

Niels Bohr recommended the candidacy of Pyotr Leonidovich to the Nobel Committee three times: in 1948, 1956 and 1960. However, the award of the prize occurred only in 1978. The contradictory situation with the priority of the discovery, in the opinion of many scientific researchers, led to the fact that the Nobel Committee delayed for many years in awarding the prize to the Soviet physicist. Allen and Meisner were not awarded the prize, although the scientific community recognizes their important contributions to the discovery of the phenomenon.

Civil position

Historians of science and those who knew Pyotr Leonidovich closely described him as a multifaceted and unique personality. He combined many qualities: intuition and engineering flair of an experimental physicist; pragmatism and business approach of the organizer of science; independence of judgment in dealing with authorities.

If any organizational issues needed to be resolved, Kapitsa preferred not to make phone calls, but to write a letter and clearly state the essence of the matter. This form of address required an equally clear written response. Kapitsa believed that it was more difficult to wrap up a case in a letter than in a telephone conversation. In defending his civic position, Kapitsa was consistent and persistent, writing about 300 messages to the top leaders of the USSR, touching on the most pressing topics. As Yuri Osipyan wrote, he knew how to intelligently combine destructive pathos with creative activity.

There are known examples of how, during the difficult times of the 1930s, Kapitsa defended his colleagues who came under the suspicion of security forces. Academicians Fock and Landau owe the liberation to Kapitsa. Landau was released from the NKVD prison under the personal guarantee of Pyotr Leonidovich. The formal pretext was the need for support from a theoretical physicist to substantiate the superfluidity model. Meanwhile, the charges against Landau were extremely serious, since he openly opposed the authorities and actually participated in the dissemination of materials critical of the dominant ideology.

In 1966, he signed a letter from 25 cultural and scientific figures Secretary General The Central Committee of the CPSU to L. I. Brezhnev is against the rehabilitation of Stalin. Kapitsa also defended the disgraced Andrei Sakharov. In 1968, at a meeting of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Keldysh called on members of the academy to condemn Sakharov and Kapitsa spoke in his defense, saying that one cannot speak out against a person if one has not been able to first become acquainted with what he wrote. In 1978, when Keldysh once again invited Kapitsa to sign a collective letter, he remembered how the Prussian Academy of Sciences excluded Einstein from its membership and refused to sign the letter.

On February 8, 1956 (two weeks before the 20th Congress of the CPSU), Nikolai Timofeev-Resovsky and Igor Tamm made a report on the problems of modern genetics at a meeting of Kapitsa’s physics seminar. For the first time since 1948, an official scientific meeting was held dedicated to the problems of the disgraced science of genetics, which Lysenko’s supporters in the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences and in the Central Committee of the CPSU tried to disrupt. Kapitsa entered into a debate with Lysenko, trying to offer him an improved method of experimentally testing the perfection of the square-cluster method of tree planting. In 1973, Kapitsa wrote to Andropov with a request to release the wife of the famous dissident Vadim Delaunay. Kapitsa received active participation in the Pugwash Movement, advocating the use of science exclusively for peaceful purposes.

Even during the Stalinist purges, Kapitsa maintained a scientific exchange of experience, friendly relations and correspondence with foreign scientists. They came to Moscow and visited the Kapitsa Institute. So in 1937, the American physicist William Webster visited Kapitza’s laboratory. Kapitsa's friend Paul Dirac visited the USSR several times

Kapitsa always believed that the continuity of generations in science has great value and the life of a scientist in a scientific environment acquires real meaning if he leaves students. He strongly encouraged work with youth and training of personnel. So in the 1930s, when liquid helium was very rare even in the best laboratories in the world, MSU students could get it in the IPP laboratory for experiments.

Under the conditions of a one-party system and a planned socialist economy, Kapitsa led the institute as he himself considered necessary. Initially, he was appointed by Leopold Olbert as a “party deputy” from above. A year later, Kapitsa gets rid of him, choosing his own deputy - Olga Alekseevna Stetskaya. At one time, the institute did not have a head of the personnel department at all, and Pyotr Leonidovich himself was in charge of personnel issues. He managed the institute’s budget quite freely on his own, regardless of the schemes imposed from above. It is known that Pyotr Leonidovich, seeing the chaos on the territory, ordered the dismissal of two of the three janitors of the institute and the remaining one to be paid triple salary. The Institute of Physical Problems employed only 15-20 researchers, and in total there were about two hundred people, while usually the staff of a specialized research institute of those times (for example, Lebedev Physical Institute or Physics and Technology) numbered several thousand employees. Kapitsa entered into polemics about the methods of running a socialist economy, speaking very freely about comparisons with the capitalist world.

If we take the last two decades, it turns out that fundamentally new directions in world technology, which are based on new discoveries in physics, all developed abroad and we adopted them after they received undeniable recognition. I will list the main ones: short-wave technology (including radar), television, all types of jet engines in aviation, gas turbine, atomic energy, isotope separation, accelerators. But the most offensive thing is that the main ideas of these fundamentally new directions in the development of technology often originated in our country earlier, but were not successfully developed. Because they did not find recognition or favorable conditions for themselves.
- from Kapitsa’s letter to Stalin

Family and personal life

Father - Leonid Petrovich Kapitsa (1864-1919), major general of the engineering corps, who built the Kronstadt forts, a graduate of the Nikolaev Engineering Academy, who came from the Moldavian noble family of Kapits-Milevsky (belonged to the Polish coat of arms "Yastrzhembets").

Mother - Olga Ieronimovna Kapitsa (1866-1937), née Stebnitskaya, teacher, specialist in children's literature and folklore. Her father Jerome Ivanovich Stebnitsky(1832-1897) - cartographer, corresponding member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, was the chief cartographer and surveyor of the Caucasus, so she was born in Tiflis. Then she came from Tiflis to St. Petersburg and entered the Bestuzhev courses. She taught at the preschool department of the Pedagogical Institute named after. Herzen.

In 1916, Kapitsa married Nadezhda Chernosvitova. Her father, a member of the Central Committee of the Cadet Party, State Duma deputy Kirill Chernosvitov, was later, in 1919, shot. From his first marriage, Pyotr Leonidovich had children:

Jerome (June 22, 1917 - December 13, 1919, Petrograd)
Nadezhda (January 6, 1920 - January 8, 1920, Petrograd).

Sergei (February 14, 1928, Cambridge - August 14, 2012, Moscow)
Andrey (July 9, 1931, Cambridge - August 2, 2011, Moscow).

He and his mother died from the Spanish flu. They were all buried in one grave, at the Smolensk Lutheran Cemetery in St. Petersburg. Pyotr Leonidovich grieved the loss and, as he himself recalled, only his mother brought him back to life.

In October 1926, in Paris, Kapitsa became closely acquainted with Anna Krylova (1903-1996). In April 1927 they got married. It is interesting that Anna Krylova was the first to propose marriage. Pyotr Leonidovich knew her father, academician Alexei Nikolaevich Krylov, for a very long time, since the time of the 1921 commission. From his second marriage, two sons were born into the Kapitsa family:

Sergei (February 14, 1928, Cambridge - August 14, 2012, Moscow) Andrey (July 9, 1931, Cambridge - August 2, 2011, Moscow). They returned to the USSR in January 1936.

Pyotr Leonidovich lived with Anna Alekseevna for 57 years. His wife helped Pyotr Leonidovich in preparing manuscripts. After the death of the scientist, she organized a museum in his house.

In his free time, Pyotr Leonidovich was fond of chess. While working in England, he won the Cambridgeshire County Chess Championship. He loved making household utensils and furniture in his own workshop. Repaired antique watches.

Awards and prizes

Hero of Socialist Labor (1945, 1974)
Nobel Prize in Physics (1978)
Stalin Prize (1941, 1943)
Gold medal named after M. V. Lomonosov of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1959)
Medals named after Faraday (England, 1942), Franklin (USA, 1944), Kotenius (GDR, 1959), Niels Bohr (Denmark, 1965), Rutherford (England, 1966), Kamerlingh Onnes (Netherlands, 1968), Helmholtz (GDR) , 1981)
six orders of Lenin
Order of the Red Banner of Labor
Order of the Partisan Star (Yugoslavia, 1964)
medals
Honorary lectures Rutherford Memorial Lecture (1969) and Bernal Lecture (1977) in England

Material from Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia

In a collage

Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa, 1964.

Kapitsa (left) and Semenov (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 should not paint those who would become famous. The 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).

Prominent organizer of science. Founder of the Institute of Physical Problems (IPP), whose director remained until the last days of his life. One of the founders of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. The first head of the Department of Low Temperature Physics, Faculty of Physics, Moscow State University.

Winner 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 ultra-strong magnetic fields and the confinement of high-temperature plasma. Developed a high-performance industrial gas liquefaction plant (turboexpander). From 1921 to 1934 he worked in Cambridge under the leadership of Rutherford. In 1934, during a guest visit, he was forcibly left 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, and therefore he asked for resignation, the request was granted. From 1946 to 1955 he was dismissed from state Soviet institutions, but he was given the opportunity to work as a professor at Moscow State University until 1950. Lomonosov.

Twice winner of the Stalin Prize (1941, 1943). Awarded a large gold medal named after M.V. Lomonosov of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1959). Twice Hero of Socialist Labor (1945, 1974). Fellow of the Royal Society of London.

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 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. A. F. Ioffe quickly notices a capable student and attracts him to his seminar and work in the laboratory. The First World War found the young man in Scotland, which he visited during the summer holidays to study the language. He returned to Russia in November 1914 and a year later volunteered to go to the front. Kapitsa served as an ambulance driver and carried the wounded on the Polish front. In 1916, having been demobilized, he returned to St. Petersburg to continue his studies.

Even before defending his diploma, A.F. Ioffe invited Pyotr Kapitsa to work in the Physico-Technical Department of the newly created X-ray and Radiological Institute (transformed in November 1921 into the Physico-Technical Institute). The scientist publishes his first scientific works in ZhRFKhO and begins teaching.

Ioffe believed that a promising young physicist needed to continue his studies at a reputable foreign scientific school, but for a long time it was not possible 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 manages to get a job at the Cavendish Laboratory under Ernest Rutherford, and on July 22, Kapitsa begins working in Cambridge. The young Soviet scientist quickly earned 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 fame 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 they soon 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 instructed Peter Kapitsa to conduct a spectacular demonstration experiment in front of the famous guest.

The topic of his doctoral dissertation, which Kapitsa defended at Cambridge in 1922, was “The passage of alpha particles through matter and methods for producing 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 is elected Messel Professor of the Royal Society. The leader of the Conservative Party of England, former Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, noted in his opening speech:

We are happy that Professor Kapitsa, who so brilliantly combines both physicist and engineer, works as our laboratory director. We are convinced that under his able leadership the new laboratory will make its contribution to the knowledge of natural processes.-

Kapitsa maintains ties with the USSR and in every possible way promotes the international scientific exchange of experience. The International Series of Monographs in Physics, published by Oxford University Press, of which Kapitsa was one of the editors, publishes monographs by Georgy Gamov, Yakov Frenkel, and Nikolai Semyonov. At his invitation, Yuli 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 a proposal for election to the USSR Academy of Sciences. On February 22, 1929, the Permanent Secretary of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Oldenburg, informed Kapitsa that “the Academy of Sciences, wishing to express its deep respect for your scientific achievements in the field of physical sciences, elected you at the General Meeting of the USSR Academy of Sciences on February 13th. as its corresponding members."

Return to the USSR

The XVII Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) appreciated the significant contribution of scientists and specialists to the success of the country’s industrialization and the implementation of the first five-year plan. However, at the same time, the rules for the travel of specialists abroad became more strict and their implementation was now monitored by a special commission.

Numerous cases of non-return of Soviet scientists did not go unnoticed. In 1936, V.N. Ipatiev and A.E. Chichibabin were deprived of Soviet citizenship and expelled from the Academy of Sciences for remaining abroad after a business trip. A similar story with 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 especially concerned about the fact that Kapitsa provided consultations to European industrialists. According to historian Vladimir Yesakov, long before 1934, a plan related to Kapitsa was developed, and Stalin knew about it. From August to October 1934, a series of Politburo resolutions were adopted, signed by Kaganovich, ordering the detention of the scientist in the USSR. The final resolution read:

Based on the considerations that Kapitsa provides significant services to the British, informing them about the situation in science in the USSR, and also that he provides major services to English firms, including the military, by selling them his patents and working on their orders, to prohibit P . L. Kapitsa departure from the USSR.

Until 1934, Kapitsa and his family lived in England and regularly came to the USSR on vacation and to see relatives. The USSR government several times offered him 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 People's Commissar of Heavy Industry recommended that we carefully consider the offer to stay. Kapitsa refused, and he was sent to a higher authority to see Mezhlauk.
The Chairman of the State Planning Committee informed the scientist that traveling abroad was impossible and the visa was cancelled. Kapitsa was forced to move in with his mother, and his wife, Anna Alekseevna, went to Cambridge to visit her children alone. The English press, commenting on what happened, 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. He asked Paul Langevin, Albert Einstein and Ernest Rutherford for help and intervention. In a letter to Rutherford, he wrote that he had barely recovered from the shock of what had happened, and thanked the teacher for helping his family who remained in England. Rutherford wrote a letter to the USSR Plenipotentiary Representative in England for clarification as to why the famous physicist was being refused to return to Cambridge. In a response 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

The first months in the USSR were difficult - there was no work and no certainty about the future. I had to live in cramped conditions in a communal apartment with Pyotr Leonidovich’s mother. His friends Nikolai Semyonov, Alexey Bakh, and 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 Mondov laboratory, in which he worked, be transported to the USSR. If Rutherford refuses to transfer or sell the equipment, then duplicates of the unique instruments will need to be purchased. By decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, 30 thousand pounds sterling was allocated for the purchase of equipment.

On December 23, 1934, Vyacheslav Molotov signed a decree on organizing the Institute of Physical Problems (IPP) within the USSR Academy of Sciences. On January 3, 1935, the newspapers Pravda and Izvestia reported the appointment of Kapitsa as director of the new institute. At the beginning of 1935, Kapitsa moved from Leningrad to Moscow - to the Metropol Hotel, and received a personal car. In May 1935, construction began on the institute's laboratory building on Vorobyovy Gory. After rather difficult negotiations with Rutherford and Cockroft (Kapitsa did not take part in them), it was possible to reach an agreement on the conditions for transferring the laboratory to the USSR. Between 1935 and 1937, equipment was gradually received from England. The matter was greatly delayed due to the sluggishness of the officials involved in the supply, and it became 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 required. Two experienced engineers came to Moscow to help with installation and setup - mechanic Pearson and laboratory assistant Lauerman.

In his letters of the late 1930s, Kapitsa admitted that the opportunities for work in the USSR were inferior to those abroad - this was even despite the fact that he had a scientific institution at his disposal and had virtually no problems with funding. It was depressing that problems that could be solved in England with one phone call were mired in bureaucracy. The scientist’s harsh statements and the exceptional conditions created for him by the authorities did not contribute to establishing 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 attempts were made, at least in words, to put my work under conditions that simply should have been considered normal, that they were indignant without hesitation: “If<бы>They did the same to us, then we won’t do the same as Kapitsa”... In addition to envy, suspicion and everything else, an atmosphere was created that was impossible and downright creepy... The scientists here are definitely unkind to my move here.-

In 1935, Kapitsa's candidacy was not even considered in the elections to full membership of the USSR Academy of Sciences. He repeatedly writes notes and letters about the possibilities of reforming Soviet science and the academic system to government officials, but does not receive a clear response. Several times Kapitsa took part in meetings of the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences, but, as he himself recalled, after two or three times he “withdrew.” 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 installed, and Kapitsa returned to active scientific work. At the same time, a “kapichnik” began working at the Institute of Physical Problems - the famous seminar of Pyotr Leonidovich, which soon gained 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 team of the institute, headed by Pyotr Leonidovich, is actively working on the purely practical task of improving the design of a new installation for the production of liquid air and oxygen - a turboexpander. The academician’s fundamentally new approach to the functioning of cryogenic installations is causing heated discussions both in the USSR and abroad. However, Kapitsa’s activities receive approval, 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, Kapitsa was accepted as a full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences by unanimous vote.)