Georgii Nikolayevich Flyorov (also spelled Flerov, rus, Гео́ргий Никола́евич Флёров, p=gʲɪˈorgʲɪj nʲɪkɐˈlajɪvʲɪtɕ ˈflʲɵrəf; 2 March 1913 – 19 November 1990) was a Soviet physicist who is known for his discovery of

spontaneous fission Spontaneous fission (SF) is a form of radioactive decay that is found only in very heavy chemical elements. The nuclear binding energy of the elements reaches its maximum at an atomic mass number of about 56 (e.g., iron-56); spontaneous breakdo ...

and his important contribution towards the

crystallography Crystallography is the experimental science of determining the arrangement of atoms in crystalline solids. Crystallography is a fundamental subject in the fields of materials science and solid-state physics (condensed matter physics). The wor ...

and material science, for which, he was honored with many awards. In addition, he is also known for his letter directed to Joseph Stalin, during the midst of World War II, to start the Soviet program of nuclear weapons in the former Soviet Union. In 2012, element 114 was named flerovium after the research laboratory at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research bearing his name.

Biography

Flyorov was born on 2 March 1913 in

Rostov-on-Don Rostov-on-Don ( rus, Ростов-на-Дону, r=Rostov-na-Donu, p=rɐˈstof nə dɐˈnu) is a port city and the administrative centre of Rostov Oblast and the Southern Federal District of Russia. It lies in the southeastern part of the East Eu ...

in Russia. His grandfather was a priest in the Russian Orthodox Church—his mother was Jewish. After finishing schooling in 1929, he was trained as a mechanic and later as an electrician, first working as a technician at the Kirov Plant. In 1933–34, he was able to attend the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute (now known as the Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University), and earned a specialist degree from the Polytechnic Institute in physics under

Abram Ioffe Abram Fedorovich Ioffe ( rus, Абра́м Фёдорович Ио́ффе, p=ɐˈbram ˈfʲɵdərəvʲɪtɕ ɪˈofɛ; – 14 October 1960) was a prominent Russian/Soviet physicist. He received the Stalin Prize (1942), the Lenin Prize (1960) (po ...

's group in 1939. He found employment at the Ioffe Institute (then known as LFTI) and worked under Igor Kurchatov. Initially he worked with

Mikhail Rusinov Mikhail Mikhaylovich Rusinov (russian: Михаил Михайлович Русинов, 11 February 1909 – 29 September 2004) was a Russian scientist specialising in optics. He co-founded the USSR Science School of Computational Optics and disc ...

in fission applications in 1939 but discovered

in 1940 with Konstantin Petrzhak in 1940. He is known for writing to Stalin in April 1942 as a lieutenant in the

Soviet Air Forces The Soviet Air Forces ( rus, Военно-воздушные силы, r=Voyenno-vozdushnyye sily, VVS; literally "Military Air Forces") were one of the air forces of the Soviet Union. The other was the Soviet Air Defence Forces. The Air Forces ...

and pointing out the conspicuous silence within the field of

nuclear fission Nuclear fission is a reaction in which the nucleus of an atom splits into two or more smaller nuclei. The fission process often produces gamma photons, and releases a very large amount of energy even by the energetic standards of radio ...

in the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany. Flyorov's urgings to "build the uranium bomb without delay" eventually led to the development of the Soviet atomic bomb project. In the 1970s, he claimed as his discovery two transition metal elements: seaborgium and

bohrium Bohrium is a synthetic chemical element with the symbol Bh and atomic number 107. It is named after Danish physicist Niels Bohr. As a synthetic element, it can be created in a laboratory but is not found in nature. All known isotopes of bohriu ...

.Original Russian version
. He founded the

Flyorov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions The Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR, russian: Объединённый институт ядерных исследований, ОИЯИ), in Dubna, Moscow Oblast (110 km north of Moscow), Russia, is an international research cen ...

(FLNR), one of the main laboratories of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna in 1957, and was director there until 1989. Also during this period, he chaired the Scientific Council of the Soviet Academy of Sciences.

Honours and awards

Hero of Socialist Labour The Hero of Socialist Labour (russian: links=no, Герой Социалистического Труда, Geroy Sotsialisticheskogo Truda) was an honorific title in the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact countries from 1938 to 1991. It repre ...

(1949) * Two Orders of Lenin (1949, 1983) * Order of the October Revolution (1973) * Order of the Red Banner of Labour, three times (1959, 1963, 1975) *

Order of the Patriotic War The Order of the Patriotic War (russian: Орден Отечественной войны, Orden Otechestvennoy voiny) is a Soviet military decoration that was awarded to all soldiers in the Soviet armed forces, security troops, and to partisan ...

, 1st class (1985) * Lenin Prize (1967) * Stalin Prize, twice (1946, 1949) *

Marian Smoluchowski Medal The Marian Smoluchowski Medal is a Polish annual science award conferred by the Polish Physical Society (''Polskie Towarzystwo Fizyczne, PTF'') for contributions in the field of physics. Description The medal was established in 1965 and is the hi ...

(1974) * USSR State Prize (1975) * Honorary Citizen of Dubna * The element flerovium ( atomic number 114) named after him

References

External links

Significant Flerov DatesAnnotated bibliography of Georgy Flerov from the Alsos Digital LibraryA draft of Flerov's letter to Stalin
{{DEFAULTSORT:Flyorov, Georgy Nikolayevich Soviet physicists Soviet nuclear physicists Soviet inventors Full Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences People involved with the periodic table Heroes of Socialist Labour Recipients of the Order of Lenin Lenin Prize winners Stalin Prize winners Recipients of the USSR State Prize 1913 births 1990 deaths Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University alumni Soviet military personnel of World War II Soviet Air Force officers