The first theoretical physicist of Saratov State University Sergei A. Boguslavsky (1883 – 1923)

Abstract

Russian theoretical physicist of the first quarter of the 20th century, one of the first professors of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of Saratov University (1918 – 1921). In 1911 – 1922, he carried out important theoretical and experimental works in the field of optics, crystal physics, pyroelectricity, thermodynamics, hydrodynamics and vacuum electronics. The fundamental aspect of Boguslavsky’s works, distinguished by “the richness of ideas, subtlety, and completeness of presentation” (Grigory S. Landsberg), determines their great historical and scientific interest.
Boguslavsky’s life was complicated by some serious illness. 2023 marks the 140th anniversary of the birth and 100th anniversary of the death of Sergei A. Boguslavsky. He studied at the universities of Freiburg and Göttingen, and defended his dissertation at the University of Göttingen. In Göttingen, he worked with future Nobel laureate Max Born, who thought highly of him. In 1918 – 1923 S. A. Boguslavsky was a professor at Saratov and Moscow universities, where he headed the departments of theoretical physics. In 1928, in the laboratory opened by Boguslavsky at Moscow University, Leonid I. Mandelstam and Grigory S. Landsberg discovered the phenomenon of combinational scattering (Raman scattering) of light in crystals.
We used the scientific works by Sergey A. Boguslavsky, the memoirs of his contemporaries – employees of Göttingen, Moscow and Saratov universities (Nobel laureate Max Born, Nobel laureate Petr L. Kapitsa, professors Vladimir D. Zernov, Vladimir K. Semenchenko, Grigory S. Landsberg, Alexey S. Predvoditelev, Nikolay A. Kaptsov), data from the archive of Saratov State University. We note the significance of scientific works by Sergey A. Boguslavsky for physics of his time and their interest in the context of history of physics, methodology of representing fundamental and practical results of scientific creativity, organizing higher education in complex public and personal circumstances, and preservation of historical memory.

Speaker

Valery M. Anikin
Saratov State University
Russia

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