Peter Kapitsa biography and personal life. What Nobel laureate Peter Kapitsa did

Literature:
Biography of P. L. Kapitsa on the IPP RAS portal
P. E. Rubinin Kapitsa in my old notebooks
E. L. Kapitsa Our conversations, which will serve as a prologue (P. L. Kapitsa and the Krylov family)
S. E. Shnol Symbols of time (review of the memoirs of P. L. Kapitsa)

Kapitsa Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa Pyotr Leonidovich

(1894-1984), physicist, one of the founders of low temperature physics and the physics of strong magnetic fields, academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1939), Hero of Socialist Labor (1945, 1974). In 1921-1934 on a scientific trip to Great Britain. Organizer and first director (1935-1946 and since 1955) of the Institute of Physical Problems of the USSR Academy of Sciences (now named after Kapitsa). Discovered the superfluidity of liquid helium (1938). He developed a method for liquefying air using a turboexpander he created, which significantly improved the technology for the industrial production of oxygen. He built a new type of powerful microwave generator and obtained high-temperature plasma in an HF discharge. USSR State Prize (1941, 1943), Nobel Prize (1978).

KAPITSA Petr Leonidovich (1894-1984), Russian physicist and engineer, member of the Royal Society of London (1929), academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1939), Hero of Socialist Labor (1945, 1974). Works on the physics of magnetic phenomena, physics and technology of low temperatures, quantum physics of condensed matter, electronics and plasma physics. In 1922-1924 he developed a pulsed method for creating super-strong magnetic fields. In 1934 he invented and built a machine for adiabatic cooling of helium. In 1937 he discovered the superfluidity of liquid helium. In 1939 he introduced a new method of liquefying air using a low-pressure cycle and a highly efficient turboexpander. Nobel Prize (1978). USSR State Prize (1941, 1943). Gold medal named after. Lomonosov Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1959). Medals of Faraday (England, 1943), Franklin (USA, 1944), Niels Bohr (Denmark, 1965), Rutherford (England, 1966), Kamerlingh Onnes (Netherlands, 1968).
* * *
KAPITSA Petr Leonidovich, Russian physicist and engineer.
Family. Years of study
Father, Leonid Petrovich Kapitsa, military engineer, builder of forts at the Kronstadt Fortress. Mother, Olga Ieronimovna, philologist, specialist in the field of children's literature and folklore. Her father, Infantry General Jerome Ivanovich Stebnitsky (cm. STEBNITSKY Hieronymus Ivanovich)- military surveyor and cartographer. In 1912, Pyotr Kapitsa, after graduating from a real school in Kronstadt, entered the electromechanical faculty of the St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute (PPI). Already in the first courses, A.F. Ioffe drew attention to him (cm. IOFFE Abram Fedorovich), who taught physics at the Polytechnic. He involves Kapitsa in research in his laboratory. In 1914, Kapitsa went on summer vacation to Scotland to study English. Here he is overtaken by the First World War. He managed to return to Petrograd only in November 1914. In 1915, he voluntarily went to the Western Front as a driver of an ambulance as part of the sanitary detachment of the Union of Cities (January - May).
In 1916, Kapitsa married Nadezhda Kirillovna Chernosvitova. Her father, K.K. Chernosvitov, a member of the Central Committee of the Cadet Party, a deputy from the First to the Fourth State Dumas, was arrested by the Cheka and executed in 1919. In the winter of 1919/1920, during the influenza epidemic (“Spanish flu”), Kapitsa lost her father within a month, son, wife and newborn daughter. In 1927, he married for the second time Anna Alekseevna Krylova, the daughter of a mechanic and shipbuilder, academician A. N. Krylov (cm. KRYLOV Alexey Nikolaevich).
First works
Kapitsa published his first scientific works in 1916, as a 3rd year student at the PPI. After defending his thesis in September 1919, he received the title of electrical engineer. But in the fall of 1918, at the invitation of A.F. Ioffe, he became an employee of the Physico-Technical Department of the X-ray and Radiological Institute (transformed in November 1921 into the Physico-Technical Institute). In 1920, together with N. N. Semenov (cm. SEMENOV Nikolai Nikolaevich) proposes a method for determining the magnetic moment of an atom, based on the interaction of an atomic beam with a non-uniform magnetic field. This method was then implemented in the famous Stern-Gerlach experiments (cm. STERN - GERLACH EXPERIENCE).
At the Cavendish Laboratory
On May 22, 1921, he arrived in England as a member of the commission of the Russian Academy of Sciences, sent to the countries of Western Europe to restore scientific ties broken by war and revolution. July 22 begins working at the Cavendish Laboratory, whose head, Rutherford (cm. RUTHERFORD Ernest), agreed to accept him for a short-term internship. Rutherford was so impressed by the experimental skill and engineering acumen of the young Russian physicist that he sought a special subsidy for his work. Since January 1925, Kapitsa has been deputy director of the Cavendish Laboratory for Magnetic Research. In 1929 he was elected a full member of the Royal Society of London. In November 1930, the Council of the Royal Society, from funds bequeathed to the Society by the chemist and industrialist L. Mond, allocated 15,000 pounds sterling for the construction of a laboratory for Kapitsa in Cambridge. The grand opening of the Mondov laboratory took place on February 3, 1933.

During 13 years of successful work in England, Kapitsa remained a loyal citizen of the USSR and did everything possible to help the development of science in his country. Thanks to his assistance and influence, many young Soviet physicists had the opportunity to work for a long time at the Cavendish Laboratory. In the “International Series of Monographs on Physics” of the Oxford University Press, of which Kapitsa was one of the founders and chief editors, monographs by G. A. Gamov are published (cm. GAMOV Georgy Antonovich), Ya. I. Frenkel (cm. Frenkel Yakov Ilyich) and N.N. Semenov. But all this did not prevent the USSR authorities in the fall of 1934, when Kapitsa came to his homeland to see his loved ones and give a series of lectures about his work, from canceling his return visa. He was summoned to the Kremlin and informed that from now on he would have to work in the USSR.
Back to USSR

In December 1934, the Politburo adopted a resolution on the construction of the Institute of Physical Problems in Moscow. Kapitsa agrees to continue his research in the field of physics in Moscow only on the condition that his institute receives the scientific installations and instruments he created in England. Otherwise, he will be forced to change the field of his research and take up biophysics (the problem of muscle contractions), in which he has long been interested. He turns to I.P. Pavlov (cm. PAVLOV Ivan Petrovich), and he agrees to give him a place at his institute. In August 1935, the Politburo again considered the issue of Kapitsa at its meeting and allocated 30,000 pounds. Art. to purchase equipment from his Cambridge laboratory. In December 1935, this equipment began to arrive in Moscow.
Famous Seminar

In 1937, Kapitsa’s physics seminar—“kapicnik,” as physicists began to call it—began to work at the IPP, when it turned from an institute into a Moscow and even all-Union one.
Work for defense
During the war, Kapitsa worked on introducing the oxygen plants he developed into industrial production. 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 Kapitsa was appointed head of the Main Oxygen Department.
Conflict with authorities
On August 20, 1945, a Special Committee was created under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, which was entrusted with leading the work on the creation of the Soviet atomic bomb. Kapitsa is a member of this committee. However, work in the Special Committee weighs heavily on him. In particular, because we are talking about the creation of “weapons of destruction and murder” (words from his letter to N.S. Khrushchev). Taking advantage of the conflict with L.P. Beria (cm. BERIA Lavrentiy Pavlovich), who headed the atomic project, Kapitsa asks to be relieved of this work. The result is many years of disgrace. In August 1946 he was expelled from Glavkislorod and from the institute he created.
Nikolina Gora
At her dacha, on Nikolina Gora, Kapitsa is setting up a small home laboratory in the lodge. In this “hut laboratory,” as he called it, Kapitsa conducted research in mechanics and hydrodynamics, and then turned to high-power electronics and plasma physics.
When the Faculty of Physics and Technology was created at Moscow State University in 1947, one of the founders and organizers of which was Kapitsa, he became the head of the department of general physics at the Physics Physics Faculty and in September began giving a course of lectures. (In 1951, the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology was created on the basis of this faculty). At the end of December 1949, Kapitsa avoided participating in the ceremonial meetings dedicated to the 70th anniversary of Stalin, which was perceived by the authorities as a demonstrative step, and he was immediately released from work at Moscow State University.
Return to work at the Academy
After the death of Stalin and the arrest of Beria, the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences adopted a resolution “On measures to assist Academician P. L. Kapitsa in the work he is carrying out.” On the basis of the Nikologorsk home laboratory, the Physical Laboratory of the USSR Academy of Sciences was created, and Kapitsa was appointed its head. On January 28, 1955, Kapitsa again became director of the Institute of Physical Problems (since 1990 this institute bears his name). On June 3, 1955, he was appointed editor-in-chief of the country's leading physics journal, the Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Physics. Since 1956, Kapitsa has headed the Department of Physics and Low Temperature Engineering at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. In 1957-1984 – member of the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

Worldwide recognition
In 1929, Kapitsa was elected a full member of the Royal Society of London and a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, and in 1939 - an academician. In 1941 and 1943 he was awarded the State Prize, in 1945 he received the title of Hero of Socialist Labor, and in 1974 he was awarded the second gold medal “Hammer and Sickle”. In 1978 he received the Nobel Prize “for fundamental inventions and discoveries in the field of low-temperature physics.”

Contribution to science and technology
Kapitsa made significant contributions to the development of the physics of magnetic phenomena, low-temperature physics and technology, quantum physics of condensed matter, electronics and plasma physics. In 1922, he first placed a cloud chamber in a strong magnetic field and observed the curvature of alpha particle trajectories (cm. ALPHA PARTICLE). This work preceded Kapitsa's extensive series of studies on methods for creating superstrong magnetic fields and studying the behavior of metals in them. In these works, a pulsed method of creating a magnetic field by closing a powerful alternator was first developed and a number of fundamental results in the field of metal physics were obtained (linear increase in resistance in high fields, resistance saturation). The fields obtained by Kapitsa were record-breaking in magnitude and duration for decades.
The need to conduct research on the physics of metals at low temperatures led Kapitsa to the creation of new methods for obtaining low temperatures. In 1934 he invented a liquefaction machine for the adiabatic cooling of helium. This method of cooling helium now underlies all modern technology for obtaining low temperatures near absolute zero - helium temperatures. At the same time, the application of the adiabatic cooling method to air led to the development by Kapitsa in 1936-1938 of a new method of air liquefaction using a low-pressure cycle and a highly efficient turboexpander he invented. Low-pressure air separation plants are now operating throughout the world, producing more than 150 million tons of oxygen per year. The Kapitsa turboexpander (with an efficiency of 86–92%) is used not only in them, but also in many other cryogenic systems.
In 1937, after a series of subtle experiments, Kapitsa discovered superfluidity (cm. SUPERFLUIDITY) helium He showed that the viscosity of liquid helium flowing through thin slits at temperatures below 2.19 K is so many times less than the viscosity of any very low-viscosity liquid that it is apparently equal to zero. Therefore, Kapitsa called this state of helium superfluid. This discovery marked the beginning of the development of a completely new direction in physics - condensed matter physics. To explain it, it was necessary to introduce new quantum concepts - the so-called elementary excitations, or quasiparticles (cm. QUASI-PARTICLES).
Kapitza's research on applied electrodynamics, which he began in the late 1940s. on Nikolina Gora, led to the invention of new devices for generating ultra-high-frequency oscillations of high constant power. These generators - nigotrons - were then used to create high-temperature, high-pressure plasma.
The appearance of a scientist and a person
In Kapitsa, from a young age, there was a physicist, an engineer and a master “golden hands” in one person. This is what won Rutherford over in his first year at Cambridge. His teacher A.F. Ioffe, in his submission for Kapitza’s election to corresponding members of the USSR Academy of Sciences, which was later signed by other scientists, wrote in 1929: “Peter Leonidovich, combining a brilliant experimenter, an excellent theorist and a brilliant engineer, is one one of the most prominent figures in modern physics."
Fearlessness is one of the most characteristic features of Kapitsa the scientist and citizen. After the USSR authorities did not allow him to return to Cambridge in the fall of 1934, he realized that in the totalitarian state in which he would work, everything was decided by the country's top leadership. He began to have a direct and frank conversation with this leadership. And here he followed the behest of the equally fearless I.P. Pavlov, who in December 1934 told him: “...After all, I am the only one here who says what I think, but I will die, you must do this, because this is so necessary for our homeland …” (from Kapitsa’s letter to his wife dated December 4, 1934). From 1934 to 1983, Kapitsa wrote more than 300 letters “to the Kremlin.” Of these, Stalin - 50, Molotov - 71, Malenkov - 63, Khrushchev - 26. Thanks to his intervention, V. A. Fok was saved from death in prisons and camps during the years of Stalin’s terror (cm. FOK Vladimir Alexandrovich), L. D. Landau (cm. LANDAU Lev Davidovich) and I. V. Obreimov (cm. OBREIMOV Ivan Vasilievich). In the last years of his life he came out in defense of A.D. Sakharov (cm. SAKHAROV Andrey Dmitrievich) and Yu. F. Orlova.
Kapitsa was a remarkable organizer of science. The success of his organizational activities was based on a simple principle, which he formulated and wrote down on a separate sheet of paper: “Leading means not stopping good people from working.”
Even in the darkest times of Soviet isolationism, Kapitsa always defended the principles of internationalism in science. From his letter to Molotov dated May 7, 1935: “I firmly believe in the internationality of science and believe that real science should be outside all political passions and struggles, no matter how they try to involve it there. And I believe that the scientific work that I have done all my life is the heritage of all humanity, no matter where I did it.”

encyclopedic Dictionary. 2009 .

Russia (USSR)

Russian experimental physicist, one of the founders of low temperature physics and the physics of strong magnetic fields. Winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1978 for his discoveries in the field of low temperature physics, which he made back in the 30s of the 20th century...

In 1934 P.L. Kapitsa came on vacation to the USSR, but the authorities not allowed he returned to Cambridge and was offered to become director of the newly created Institute of Physical Problems. Ernst Rutherford, having come to terms with the loss of one of his best employees, allowed the Soviet authorities to buy the laboratory equipment and send it to the USSR.

“However, in 1934, when he once again came on vacation to the USSR, the Soviet government forbade him to return to England - by right of force. Deeply offended Kapitsa yet he did not break down and did not even part with his socialist ideals. He compared himself “to a woman who wants to give herself for love, but who they certainly want to rape.” For Soviet leaders, he used the expression “our idiots,” and here both words are equally important: “I have a sincere affection for our idiots, and they are doing wonderful things, and this will go down in history. [...] But what can you do if they don’t understand anything about science? [...] They (idiots), of course, can become smarter tomorrow, or maybe only in 5-10 years. There is no doubt that they will become wiser, since their life will force them to do this. The only question is: when?”

Gorelik G., Andrey Sakharov. Science and Freedom, M., “Vagrius”, 2004, p. 175-176.

In 1935 P.L. Kapitsa was appointed director of the Institute of Physical Problems in Moscow. In 1946, he was removed from the post of director and was engaged in research in the home laboratory he created at his dacha (in fact, it was house arrest). In 1955 P.L. Kapitsa reappointed director of the Institute of Physical Problems.

Since 1935, P.L. Kapitsa sent And V. Stalin 49 unanswered letters. But if there were no letters for a long time, Stalin’s secretary asked them to be sent by phone. “In his letters, Kapitsa continually cites historical examples. He directly points out to Stalin that since we cannot inspire a scientist with money, let alone in capitalist America, we must at least give him his due, as they give to the Patriarch. “This is also Bacon noticed in his “New Atlantis”. Therefore, it’s time for comrades like Beria start learning respect for scientists.”
In 1949, Kapitsa was removed from the head of the department at the university because he was not at meetings in honor of Stalin’s 70th birthday.
They wanted to elect him to the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences, but the Central Committee Suslov He said that we should abstain, and they abstained. They wanted to make him a member of the academic council of Moscow University, but this was prohibited.
Beria soon got his way, Kapitsa was fired from everywhere. Removed from oxygen work needed by the country. The Stalin Prize awarded by the Academy of Sciences was cancelled. Of course, Beria would have killed Kapitsa in the end. Stalin, knowing his satrap well, warned: “I’ll take it off for you, but don’t touch it.”

Granin D.A., A man not from here, St. Petersburg, Lenizdat, 2014, p. 7.

“In January 1946, academician Peter Kapitsa sent Stalin manuscript of a book by a technology historian L. I. Gumilevsky“Russian Engineers,” which was written with the support and initiative of Kapitsa. In a letter to Stalin, Kapitsa noted: “From this book it is clear:
1. A large number of major engineering undertakings originated here.
2. We ourselves hardly knew how to develop them.
3. Often the reason for not using innovation was that we usually underestimated our own and overestimated what was foreign. Now we need to strengthen our own technology... We can do this successfully only when we finally understand that the creative potential of our people is no less, but even greater than others, and we can safely rely on it.” Stalin not only read with interest the book by L.I. Gumilyovsky, but ordered its immediate publication.”

Roy Medvedev, Zhores Medvedev, Unknown Stalin, M., “Time”, 2007, p. 596.

P.L. Kapitsa repeatedly stood up to I.V. Stalin and subsequent for the oppressed scientists.

“Life is an incomprehensible thing. I think people will never be able to understand human destiny, especially one as complex as mine.”
P. L. Kapitsa

Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa was born in Kronstadt on July 9, 1894 in the family of the Tsarist general, military engineer Leonid Kapitsa. His mother, Olga Ieronimovna Stebnitskaya, worked as a philologist and wrote children's books, and her father, Peter's grandfather - Jerome Ivanovich Stebnitsky - was a famous military cartographer and surveyor, an infantry general. The future scientist also had a brother, named Leonid after his father.
In 1905, eleven-year-old Kapitsa was enrolled in a gymnasium, but a year later, due to problems with Latin, he left it and continued his studies at the Kronstadt Real School. Peter graduated with honors in 1912, after which he wished to enter St. Petersburg University. However, “realists” were not accepted there, and Kapitsa eventually ended up at the electromechanical department of the Polytechnic Institute. His physics teacher turned out to be the outstanding Russian scientist Abram Fedorovich Ioffe. He is rightly called the “father of Soviet physics”; at various times, Nobel laureate Nikolai Semenov, the creator of the atomic bomb Igor Kurchatov, physical chemist Yuli Khariton, and experimental physicist Alexander Leypunsky studied with him.

Already at the beginning of his studies, Ioffe drew attention to Pyotr Leonidovich and attracted him to studies in his laboratory. During the summer holidays of 1914, Kapitsa went to Scotland to study English. But in August the First World War broke out, and Kapitsa managed to return home only in mid-autumn. At the beginning of 1915, he volunteered to go to the front, where he worked as a driver of an ambulance, part of the medical detachment of the All-Russian Union of Cities. His work was by no means calm; the detachment often found itself in shelling zones.
Having been demobilized in 1916, Pyotr Leonidovich returned to his native institute. Ioffe immediately attracted him to experimental work in the physics laboratory he directed, and also obliged him to participate in his seminars - the first physics seminars in Russia. In the same year, the scientist married the daughter of a member of the Cadet Party, Nadezhda Kirillovna Chernosvitova. It is known that he even had to go to China for her, where she went with her parents. From this marriage Kapitsa had two children - son Jerome and daughter Nadezhda.

Pyotr Leonidovich published his first works in 1916, while a third-year student. In September 1919, he successfully defended his thesis and was retained at the Polytechnic Institute as a teacher in the Faculty of Physics and Mechanics. In addition, at the invitation of Ioffe, since the fall of 1918, he was an employee of the X-ray and Radiological Institute, which was reorganized at the end of 1921 into the Physico-Technical Institute.

During this harsh time, Pyotr Leonidovich became close to his classmate Nikolai Semenov. In 1920, under the leadership of Abram Fedorovich, young scientists developed a unique technique for measuring the magnetic moments of atoms in inhomogeneous magnetic fields. At that time, no one knew about the works of Soviet physicists, but in 1921 a similar experiment was repeated by the Germans Otto Stern and Walter Gerlach. This famous and later classic experiment remained in history under the name of Stern-Gerlach.

In 1919, Kapitsa's father-in-law was arrested by the Cheka and executed. And in the winter of 1919-1920, during the Spanish flu epidemic, a young scientist lost his wife, father, two-year-old son and newborn daughter in eighteen days. It is known that in those days Kapitsa wanted to commit suicide, but his comrades kept him from this act. However, Pyotr Leonidovich could not become the same and return to normal life - he walked around the institute like a shadow. At the same time, Abram Fedorovich turned to the Soviet authorities with a request to allow his students to go on an internship to leading English laboratories. The then influential Russian writer Maxim Gorky intervened in the matter, and as a result, Joffe’s letter was signed.
In 1921, Kapitsa, as a representative of the Russian Academy, went to Western Europe in order to restore former scientific ties. The Soviet scientist was not given permission to enter for a long time - Europe was fencing off in every possible way from the Bolshevik infection. In the end, entry was allowed, and on May 22 the young scientist arrived in England. However, here he encountered another problem - they did not want to let him into Rutherford’s laboratory, where he was sent for an internship. Ernest Rutherford himself bluntly stated that his workers were engaged in science, not in preparing a revolution, and Kapitsa had nothing to do here. All the Russian’s persuasion that he came for the sake of science had no effect on the British physicist of New Zealand origin. Then, according to one version, Pyotr Leonidovich asked Rutherford the following question: “What is the accuracy of your experiments?” The Englishman, surprised, said that somewhere around ten percent, and then Kapitsa said the following phrase: “So, with the number of employees in your laboratory being thirty people, you will not notice me.” After cursing, Rutherford agreed to accept the “impudent Russian” for a probationary period.

From a young age in Kapitsa, there was an engineer, a physicist and a master “golden hands” in one person. The Russian scientist's engineering acumen and experimental skill impressed Rutherford so much that he personally secured special subsidies for his work. A year later, Pyotr Leonidovich became the favorite student of the “father” of nuclear physics, remaining so until his death. Throughout their lives, the two legendary scientists maintained close human and scientific relations with each other, as evidenced by their numerous messages to each other.

The topic of Kapitsa’s doctoral dissertation was “Methods for producing magnetic fields and the passage of alpha particles through matter.” In 1923, having brilliantly defended it at Cambridge, he became a Doctor of Science, incidentally achieving the prestigious James Maxwell Fellowship. And in 1924, the Russian genius was appointed deputy director of the Cavendish Laboratory for magnetic research. His scientific authority grew rapidly. Rutherford, not given to praise, called Kapitsa “an experimenter from God.” The scientist was often invited by British companies to advise them.

However, Pyotr Leonidovich still paid his main attention to work at the Cavendish Laboratory. To study the processes of radioactive decay, he needed to create powerful magnetic fields. Kapitsa's experimental installation produced magnetic fields that were record-breaking for those years, exceeding all previous ones by six thousand times. As Landau put it, this made the Russian scientist a “magnetic world champion.” The physicist himself liked to repeat: “A good engineer must be 25 percent an artist. Cars cannot be designed, they must be drawn.”

In 1925, Pyotr Leonidovich became a member of the local Trinity College, where many members of the royal family studied, and in 1929 he was elected a full member of the Royal Society of London. His teacher Ioffe nominated Kapitsa as a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences in 1929, which was later supported by other Soviet scientists. Also in 1931, Kapitsa was elected a member of the French Physical Society. By this time, Pyotr Leonidovich had developed warm and trusting relationships with many outstanding scientists.

The situation in Cambridge radically changed Kapitsa's condition and mood. At first he plunged headlong into scientific work, and then gradually returned completely to normal life. He studied English literature and history, bought a plot of land on Huntington Road and began building a house there to his own design. Subsequently, the scientist organized the so-called “Kapitsa Club” - seminars for the scientific community of the University of Cambridge, held once a week in Rutherford’s laboratory. At these meetings, a variety of issues regarding the development of sciences, literature and art were discussed. These meetings quickly gained wild popularity in England; they were attended by the most eminent English persons. And virtually all the “whales” of world science attended the discussion of physics issues - Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Wolfgang Pauli, Werner Heisenberg, Paul Dirac and many others.

In England, an unpleasant story happened to Kapitsa. The young scientist bought himself a motorcycle, which he rode at breakneck speed. One day he lost control, flew off his motorcycle, rolled into a ditch and only miraculously survived. However, he badly injured his right leg and walked with a cane for the rest of his life.

Already in the mid-twenties, the experimental installations of the two great scientists became crowded in one laboratory, and Ernest Rutherford convinced the British government to begin construction of a new huge complex for conducting physical experiments on ultra-high magnetic fields. In November 1930, the Council of the Royal Society, from money bequeathed by the industrialist and chemist Ludwig Mond, allocated fifteen thousand pounds to build new research facilities in Cambridge. The opening of the laboratory, called Mondovskaya, took place on February 3, 1933. The former Prime Minister of the country, Chancellor of the University Stanley Baldwin said: “We are glad that Professor Kapitsa is working as our laboratory director. We are firmly convinced that under his leadership it will make a huge contribution to the understanding of natural processes.”

At the same time, Kapitsa's friends tried to arrange his personal life. However, the scientist himself categorically refused any serious relationship, continuing to demonstrate amazing successes in science. However, one fine day in 1926, Alexei Nikolaevich Krylov, the famous Russian shipbuilder and mathematician, came to Cambridge. Together with him was his daughter, Anna Alekseevna, who lived with her mother in Paris. Anna Alekseevna herself recalled: “Petya put me in the car, and we drove to museums all over England. We were always on the road together and, generally speaking, I expected some personal confessions from him... Day after day passed, but nothing changed. Without saying anything personal, Petya came to the station to see us off. However, a day later he appeared with us in Paris, again put me in the car, and the endless displays of now French sights began again. And I realized that this man would NEVER ask me to become his wife. I should have done this. And I did it...” All the people who knew Anna Alekseevna said that she was an outstanding woman. Her role in Kapitsa’s life is unique and indescribable; she never worked anywhere and devoted all her attention to the scientist. Pyotr Leonidovich almost never parted with her and idolized her until the last day of his life. They got married in the spring of 1927, they had two sons: Sergei and Andrei. Subsequently, both became famous scientists. Despite the fact that Kapitsa’s children were born in Cambridge, everyone in the family circle spoke exclusively Russian. Sergei Kapitsa later wrote: “If my mother started speaking English, then my brother and I understood that now they would start scolding us.”

During thirteen years of work in England, Pyotr Leonidovich remained a devoted patriot of his country. Thanks to his influence and support, many young Soviet scientists got the chance to visit foreign laboratories. In 1934, Kapitsa wrote: “By constantly communicating with various scientists in Europe and England, I can assist those sent abroad to work in various places, which would otherwise be difficult for them, since my assistance is based not on official connections, but on favors.” , mutual favors and personal acquaintance with senior officials.” Petr Leonidovich also contributed in every possible way to the international exchange of experience in the scientific field. He was one of the editors of the International Monograph Series in Physics, published at Oxford University. It was from these monographs that the world learned about the scientific works of Soviet theoretical physicists Nikolai Semenov, Yakov Frenkel and Georgy Gamov.

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. Young scientists paid the artist for the portrait with a sack of millet and a rooster

The physicist's activities at Cambridge did not go unnoticed. The leadership of our country was concerned by the fact that Kapitsa provides consultations to European industrialists, and also often works on their orders. Repeatedly, officials turned to the scientist with a request to stay in our country for permanent residence. Pyotr Leonidovich promised to consider such proposals, but set a number of conditions, the first of which was permission to travel abroad. Because of this, the resolution of the issue was constantly postponed.

Every year Kapitsa returned to the USSR to visit his mother and comrades. At the end of the summer of 1934, the scientist once again returned to his homeland. Among other things, he was going to visit the city of Kharkov, since since May 1929 he had been a consultant to the local Ukrainian Institute of Physics and Technology, and also to take part in a major international congress dedicated to the centenary of the birth of Mendeleev. But on September 25, Pyotr Leonidovich was summoned from Leningrad to Moscow. There, Deputy People's Commissar of Heavy Industry Georgy Pyatakov recommended that he reconsider the offer to stay in the country. Kapitsa refused and was sent to a higher authority to Valery Mezhlauk, who was the chairman of the State Planning Committee. It was he who first informed the scientist that he would now be obliged to work in the USSR, and his English visa would be cancelled. Kapitsa was forced to live in a communal apartment with his mother in Leningrad, and Anna Alekseevna, who came with him, returned to her children in Cambridge.

Thus began one of the most difficult periods in the life of the brilliant scientist. He was left alone, without his favorite job, without his laboratory, without family, without students, and even without Rutherford, to whom he became very attached and who always supported him. At one time, Kapitsa even seriously thought about changing the field of his research and switching to biophysics, which had long interested him, namely the problem of muscle contractions. It is known that he turned to his friend, the famous physiologist Ivan Pavlov, on this issue, and he promised to find him something to do at his Institute of Physiology.
On December 23, 1934, Molotov signed a decree on the creation of the Institute of Physical Problems, which is part of the Academy of Sciences. Kapitsa was offered to become the director of the new institute. In the winter of 1935, Pyotr Leonidovich moved to Moscow and settled in the Metropol Hotel; a personal car was provided to him. Construction of the first laboratory building began in May on Vorobyovy Gory. From the very beginning of construction, Kapitsa began to be helped by the outstanding Soviet experimental scientist, future academician Alexander Shalnikov. It was he who had the honor of becoming the legendary physicist’s closest assistant for the rest of his life. Alexander Iosifovich said that the construction of the institute buildings took place in extremely difficult conditions; often he and Kapitsa “had to explain to the builders that there is a right angle...” And yet, thanks to the ebullient nature of Pyotr Leonidovich, they managed to build the institute in a record two years.

The most important problem of the new institution was the critical shortage of equipment and instruments for laboratories. Everything that Kapitsa did in England was unique, unfortunately, most of it was beyond the capabilities of our industry to manufacture. In order to continue his advanced research in Moscow, Kapitsa was forced to inform the country's leadership that he needed all the scientific instruments and installations he had developed in England. If it was impossible to transport the equipment of the Mondov laboratory to the USSR, the physicist insisted on the need to purchase duplicates of these rare devices.

By decision of the Politburo, 30 thousand pounds were allocated for the purchase of Kapitsa equipment in August 1935. After difficult negotiations with Rutherford, the parties managed to reach an agreement, and in December 1935 the first devices arrived in Moscow. Equipment from Mond's laboratory continued to be supplied until 1937. The matter was constantly stalled due to the sluggishness of the officials involved in the supply, and Kapitsa needed to write more than one letter to the country’s top leadership. Also, two experienced English engineers arrived in Moscow to help Kapitsa install and configure the instruments: laboratory assistant Lauerman and mechanic Pearson.

The harsh statements characteristic of the talented physicist, as well as the exceptional conditions that the authorities created for him, did not contribute to establishing contacts with colleagues from the academic environment. Kapitsa wrote: “The situation is depressing. Interest in my works has fallen, many fellow scientists are indignant without embarrassment: “If they did the same for us, we still won’t do what Kapitsa did.” In 1935, the physicist’s candidacy was not even considered for election to membership in the Academy of Sciences. Kapitsa took part in meetings of the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences a couple of times, but then, in his own words, “withdrew.” All this led to the fact that in organizing the work of the Institute of Physical Problems, the scientist mainly relied on his own strength.

At the beginning of 1936, the scientist’s family received permission to return to the USSR, and soon Anna Alekseevna and her children joined him in the capital. Together with his relatives, Pyotr Leonidovich moved to live in a small cottage of several rooms located on the territory of the institute. And in the spring of 1937, construction finally ended. By this time, most of the scientist’s equipment had already been transported and installed. All this gave Kapitsa the opportunity to return to active scientific work.

First of all, he continued research into ultra-strong magnetic fields, as well as the field of ultra-low temperature physics. This work took him several years. The scientist was able to discover that in the temperature range of 4.2-2.19°K liquid helium exhibits the properties of an ordinary liquid, and when it is cooled to temperatures below 2.19°K, various anomalies appear in its characteristics, among which the main one is a surprising decrease in viscosity . The loss of viscosity allowed liquid helium to flow freely through the smallest holes and even rise along the walls of the container, as if not being affected by gravity. The scientist called this phenomenon superfluidity. In the studies of 1937-1941, Kapitsa discovered and examined other anomalous phenomena occurring in liquid helium, for example, an increase in its thermal conductivity. These experimental works by Kapitsa marked the beginning of the development of a whole new field of physics - quantum liquids. It should be noted that in his work on studying the properties of superfluid helium, Kapitsa was helped by Lev Landau, whom Pyotr Leonidovich invited to visit him from Kharkov.

Simultaneously with the above-mentioned activities, Kapitsa was engaged in the design of installations for the liquefaction of various gases. Back in 1934, the scientist built a high-performance liquefaction apparatus designed for adiabatic cooling of gases. He managed to eliminate a number of key phases from the technical process, due to which the efficiency of the installation increased from 65 to 90 percent, and its price fell tenfold. In 1938, he modernized the existing turboexpander design, achieving extremely efficient air liquefaction. Compared to the world's best devices from the German company Linde, Kapitsa's turboexpanders had three times lower losses. This was a fantastic breakthrough; from now on, the production of liquid oxygen could be safely put on an industrial scale. In turn, this revolutionized the steel industry and it is not an exaggeration to note that during the war the production of huge numbers of tanks by Soviet industry would have been impossible without this discovery. By the way, Kapitsa did not stop there - he personally began implementing his methodology and did not give up until production started working. For this, in 1944, Pyotr Leonidovich was awarded the title of Hero of Labor. His works caused heated discussions among scientists, both in our country and abroad. On January 24, 1939, Pyotr Leonidovich was accepted as a full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
In 1937, the famous seminars, the so-called “Kapichniki”, began at the Kapitsa Institute, which soon gained all-Union fame. Pyotr Leonidovich invited not only famous physicists, but also engineers, teachers, doctors, and in general any person who had proven himself in some way. At the seminar, in addition to special physical problems, issues of social thought, philosophy, and genetics were discussed. After the seminar, all the main participants were invited to Kapitsa’s office for tea and sandwiches. The opportunity to speak openly and the atmosphere of trust were characteristic features of Kapitsa’s “club” and played the most significant role in the development of domestic physics.

The specific features of Kapitsa the citizen and scientist can be called absolute honesty combined with a complete absence of fear and a character as solid as a stone. The return of Pyotr Leonidovich to his homeland coincided with the repressions carried out in the country. Kapitsa at that time already had high enough authority to dare to defend his views. During the period from 1934 to 1983, the physicist, who was never a member of the Communist Party, wrote over three hundred letters “to the Kremlin,” of which fifty were addressed personally to Joseph Stalin, seventy-one to Vyacheslav Molotov, sixty-three to Georgy Malenkov, twenty-six to Nikita Khrushchev. In his letters and reports, Pyotr Leonidovich openly criticized decisions that he considered wrong, and proposed his own versions of academic systems and reforms of Soviet science. He lived in full accordance with the rule he himself established: “In any circumstances you can learn to be happy. Only the one who has entered into a deal with his conscience is unhappy.” Thanks to his activities, outstanding physicists Vladimir Fok and Ivan Obreimov were saved from death in camps and prisons. When Lev Landau was arrested on charges of espionage in 1938, Pyotr Leonidovich managed to secure his release, although to do this the scientist had to threaten to resign from his post as director of the institute. In the fall of 1941, the scientist attracted public attention by making a warning statement about the likelihood of creating an atomic one in the future. And in 1972, when the authorities of our country initiated the issue of expelling Andrei Sakharov from the Academy of Sciences, only Kapitsa spoke out against this. He said: “A similar shameful precedent has already happened once. In 1933, the Nazis expelled Albert Einstein from the Berlin Academy of Sciences.” In addition, Kapitsa always fiercely defended the position of scientific internationalism. In his letter to Molotov on May 7, 1935, he said: “I firmly believe that real science must be outside of political passions and struggle, no matter how they try to lure it there. I believe that the scientific work that I have been doing all my life is the heritage of all humanity.”

After the war began, the Kapitsa Institute was evacuated to the city of Kazan. Sergei Kapitsa wrote: “During the evacuation, my mother and father and I spent two nights in the tunnels of the Kursk station - the same ones from which passengers now exit onto the platforms.” Upon arrival, the Institute of Physical Problems was located in the buildings of Kazan University. During the war years, the physicist worked on introducing the oxygen plants he created into industrial production. On May 8, 1943, by decree of the State Defense Committee, the Main Directorate for Oxygen was established, of which Kapitsa was appointed head.

In August 1945, a Special Atomic Committee was created under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, which was entrusted with leading the development of the atomic bomb. Pyotr Leonidovich was a member of this committee, but this activity burdened him. This was largely due to the fact that it was about making “weapons of destruction and murder.” Taking advantage of the conflict that arose with Lavrentiy Beria, who headed the atomic project, the outstanding scientist asked Stalin to relieve him of his work on the committee. The result was years of disgrace. In August 1946, he was removed from his post as head of the Main Directorate for Oxygen, and was also expelled from the institute he created. For eight years, Kapitsa was deprived of the opportunity to communicate with friends and colleagues and was under house arrest. He turned his dacha on Nikolina Gora into a small laboratory in which he continued to carry out research. He called it a “hut laboratory” and conducted many unique experiments on hydrodynamics, mechanics and plasma physics there. Here he first turned to high-power electronics - a new direction of his activity, which became the first step towards taming thermonuclear energy.

In 1947, the Faculty of Physics and Technology began operating at MSU (which in 1951 became the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology), one of the organizers and founders of which was Kapitsa. He himself was appointed head of the department of general physics and began giving lectures to students. However, at the end of 1949, the famous physicist refused to participate in ceremonial meetings in honor of Stalin’s seventieth birthday. This behavior did not go unnoticed; Kapitsa was immediately fired.

The scientist’s rehabilitation began after the leader’s death. The Presidium of the Academy of Sciences adopted a resolution “On assistance to Academician Kapitsa in the work being carried out.” Pyotr Leonidovich was appointed head of the Physics Laboratory of the Academy of Sciences, editor-in-chief of the Journal of Theoretical and Experimental Physics, and in 1955 he was reinstated as director of the Institute of Physical Problems. From 1956 he also became the head of the Department of Low Temperature Engineering and Physics at MIPT, and from 1957 he was elected to the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences.

After Kapitsa returned to his institute, he was finally able to fully continue his research. The physicist's scientific activities in the 50-60s covered a variety of areas, including the nature of ball lightning and the hydrodynamics of the thinnest layers of liquid. However, his main interests focused on studying the properties of plasma and designing high-power microwave generators. Later, his discoveries formed the basis of a program to develop a thermonuclear reactor with continuously heated plasma.

In addition to his achievements in the scientific field, Pyotr Leonidovich proved himself to be a wonderful administrator and teacher. The Institute of Physical Problems, under his strict leadership, turned into one of the most prestigious and most productive institutions of the Academy of Sciences, attracting many famous Russian physicists to its walls. The success of Kapitsa’s organizational activities was based on one simple principle: “To lead means not to interfere with good people working.” By the way, Kapitsa did not have direct students, but the entire scientific atmosphere he created at the institute had enormous educational significance in the preparation of new generations of physicists. In this regard, all employees of this institution could safely be called his students. During the entire time that Pyotr Leonidovich headed the institute, not a single experimental work done in it was sent to press without his careful study. Kapitsa liked to repeat to his colleagues: “True patriotism does not lie in praising the homeland, but in working for its benefit, in correcting one’s mistakes.”

In 1965, after a thirty-year break, Kapitsa was given permission to travel abroad. He went to Denmark, where he visited leading scientific laboratories and gave a number of lectures. Here he was awarded the prestigious award of the Danish Engineering Society - the N. Bohr medal. In 1966, Pyotr Leonidovich visited England and gave a speech dedicated to the memory of Rutherford to members of the Royal Society of London. And in 1969, Kapitsa, together with Anna Alekseevna, visited the United States for the first time.

On October 17, 1978, the Swedish Academy of Sciences sent a telegram to Pyotr Leonidovich, informing him that the physicist had been awarded the Nobel Prize for research in the field of low temperatures. It took the Nobel Committee almost half a century to recognize the merits of the Russian scientist. Kapitsa shared his award with the Americans Robert Wilson and Arno Penzias, who jointly made the discovery of cosmic background microwave radiation. In general, during his life, Pyotr Leonidovich was awarded many high awards and titles. It is only worth noting that he was an honorary doctor of 11 universities located on four continents, as well as the owner of six Orders of Lenin. He himself took this calmly, saying: “Why do you need fame and glory? Only so that conditions for work would appear, so that it would be better to work, so that orders would be completed faster. Otherwise, fame just gets in the way.”

In everyday life, the great scientist was unpretentious, loved to wear tweed suits and smoke a pipe. Tobacco and clothes were brought to him from England. In his spare time, Kapitsa repaired antique watches and played excellent chess. According to his contemporaries, he put a lot of emotion into the game and really did not like to lose. However, he did not like to lose in any business. The decision to take on or abandon any task - social or scientific - was not a surge of emotion for him, but the result of the deepest analysis. If the physicist was sure that the matter was hopeless, nothing could force him to take it up. The character of the great scientist, again according to the memoirs of contemporaries, is best characterized by the Russian word “cool”. He stated: “Excessive modesty is an even greater disadvantage than excess self-confidence.” Talking to him was not always easy; Kapitsa “always knew exactly what he wanted, he could immediately and bluntly say “no,” but if he said “yes,” you could be sure that he would do so.” Kapitsa directed the Institute as he considered necessary. Regardless of the schemes imposed from above, he managed the institution’s budget independently and quite freely. There is a well-known story when, seeing garbage on the territory, Pyotr Leonidovich fired two of the three institute janitors, and began to pay the remaining one triple salary. Even during times of political repression in the country, Kapitsa maintained correspondence with leading foreign scientists. Several times they even came to the capital of Russia to visit his institute.

Already in his old age, the physicist, using his own authority, fiercely criticized the tendency, in his opinion, that had developed in our country to make decisions on scientific problems from non-scientific positions. He also opposed the construction of a pulp and paper plant that threatened to pollute Baikal, and condemned the attempt to rehabilitate Joseph Stalin, which began in the mid-60s. Kapitsa participated in the Pugwash movement of scientists for disarmament, peace and international security, and made proposals on ways to overcome the alienation between American and Soviet science.

Pyotr Leonidovich spent March 22, 1984, as usual, in his laboratory. At night he suffered a stroke and was taken to the hospital, where he died on April 8 without regaining consciousness. Kapitsa did not live long enough to reach his ninetieth birthday. The legendary scientist was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery.

Based on materials from the book by V.V. Cheparukhin “Peter Leonidovich Kapitsa: the orbits of life” and the site http://biopeoples.ru.

KAPITSA Petr Leonidovich (9.VII.1894 – 8.IV.1984)- Soviet physicist, academician (1939; corresponding member 1929). R. in Kronstadt. He graduated from the Petrograd Polytechnic Institute (1918) and remained to work at the department A.F. Ioffe. In 1921 he was sent on a scientific trip to England, where he worked at the Cavendish Laboratory. In 1924 - 32 he was deputy director of the Cavendish Laboratory, in 1930 - 34 - director of the Mond Laboratory at the Royal Society and professor (in 1929 elected a member of the Royal Society of London). After returning to the USSR, he organized the Institute of Physical Problems in Moscow, the director of which he was in 1935 - 46 and has been since 1955. In 1939 - 46 - professor at Moscow University, from 1947 - at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.
Father S.P. Kapitsa .

The works are devoted to nuclear physics, physics and technology of superstrong magnetic fields, physics and technology of low temperatures, high-power electronics, and physics of high-temperature plasma. In 1920, together with N.N. Semenov proposed a method for determining the magnetic moment of an atom, implemented in 1922 in research O. Stern And V. Gerlakha. The first in 1923 placed a cloud chamber in a strong magnetic field and observed the curvature of the tracks of alpha particles.

In 1924 he proposed a new method for producing pulsed ultra-strong magnetic fields (intensities up to 500,000 oersteds). Having obtained record values ​​of the magnetic field, he studied its effect on various physical properties of matter. In 1928 he established the law of linear increase in the electrical resistance of a number of metals depending on the magnetic field strength (Kapitsa's law).

In 1933, with P. A. M. Dirac, he described the so-called Kapitsa-Dirac effect - stimulated Compton scattering, which occurs as a result of the grouping of electrons in the field of a standing electromagnetic wave. The article was forgotten for many years, but later became the basis for the creation of free electron lasers.

He created new methods for liquefying hydrogen and helium, designed new types of liquefiers (piston, expander and turboexpander units). In 1934 he built an expander-type helium liquefier with a capacity of 2 l/h, and in 1939 - a low-pressure installation for the industrial production of oxygen from air. Kapitza's turboexpander forced us to reconsider the principles of creating refrigeration cycles used for liquefying and separating gases, which significantly changed the development of world oxygen production technology.

Having developed a technique for producing liquid helium, he studied its properties. In a number of his experiments, he showed that at temperatures below the critical temperature (2.19 K), the viscosity of liquid helium becomes extremely low (the discovery of superfluidity of helium II), and he thoroughly studied the properties of liquid helium in this new state, in particular, he showed that it consists of two component - superfluid and normal. These studies stimulated the development of the quantum theory of liquid helium, developed by L.D. Landau. In 1941 he observed a temperature jump at the “solid body - liquid helium” boundary (Kapitsa temperature jump). In 1978 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for fundamental research in the field of low-temperature physics.

In the post-war period, Kapitsa's attention was attracted to high-power electronics. He developed the general theory of magnetron-type electronic devices and created continuous magnetron generators - the planotron and nigotron. He put forward a hypothesis about the nature of ball lightning. Experimentally discovered (1959) the formation of high-temperature plasma in a high-frequency discharge. The works are also devoted to the history of physics and the organization of science.

Twice Hero of Socialist Labor (1945, 1974), twice laureate of the USSR State Prize (1941, 1943). Member of many foreign academies of sciences and scientific societies. Gold medal of M. V. Lomonosov (1959), medals of M. Faraday (1942), B. Franklin (1944), N. Bohr (1964), E. Rutherford (1966), F. Simon Prize (1973), etc. Chief editor of the Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Physics (since 1955).

Essays:

1. P.L.Kapitsa. EXPERIMENT. THEORY. PRACTICE. Articles. Performances. Publishing house "Science". Main editorial office of physical and mathematical literature. Moscow, 1974
2. P.L. Kapitsa. Do you understand physics? M. Knowledge, 1968
3. P.L. Kapitsa. Letters about science. 1930-1980. "Moscow Worker", 1989
4. P.L. Kapitsa. EVERYTHING SIMPLE IS TRUTH... Aphorisms and sayings of P. L. Kapitsa, his favorite parables, instructive stories, anecdotes. Comp. P.E. Rubinin. MOSCOW, MIPT PUBLISHING HOUSE, 1994

Literature:

1. Kedrov F. Kapitsa: life and discoveries - 2nd ed., M.: Mosk. worker, 1984.
2. Academician Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa/ Collection of articles. M., “Knowledge”, 1979.
3. Twenty-two reports by academician P.L. Kapitsa. Publication by P.E. Rubinina. Chemistry and Life, No. 3-5, 1985
4. Dobrovolsky E.N. "Kapitsa's Handwriting" - Moscow: Soviet Russia, 1968
5. V.M. Brodyansky. "Oxygen epic". Nature, 1994, No. 4
6. Monologues about Kapitsa. Bulletin of the Russian Academy of Sciences, volume 64, no. 6, p. 510-523 (1994)
7. Cheparukhin V.V. “Petr Leonidovich Kapitsa: the orbits of life”