Ilya Mikhailovich Frank (russian: Илья́ Миха́йлович Франк; 23 October 1908 – 22 June 1990) was a
Soviet winner of the
Nobel Prize for Physics in 1958 jointly with
Pavel Alekseyevich Cherenkov and
Igor Y. Tamm, also of the Soviet Union. He received the award for his work in explaining the phenomenon of
Cherenkov radiation. He received the Stalin prize in 1946 and 1953 and the USSR state prize in 1971.
Life and career
Ilya Frank was born on 23 October 1908 in
St. Petersburg. His father,
Mikhail Lyudvigovich Frank, was a talented mathematician descended from a
Jewish family, while his mother, Yelizaveta Mikhailovna Gratsianova, was a
Russian Orthodox physician. His father participated in the student revolutionary movement, and as a result was expelled from
Moscow University
M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU; russian: Московский государственный университет имени М. В. Ломоносова) is a public research university in Moscow, Russia and the most prestigious ...
. After the
October Revolution, he was reinstated and appointed professor. Ilya's uncle,
Semyon Frank, a noted Russian philosopher, wasn't as fortunate and was expelled from the USSR in 1922 together with 160 other intellectuals. Ilya had one elder brother, Gleb Mikhailovich Frank, who became an eminent
biophysicist and member of the
Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R.[
]
Ilya Frank studied mathematics and
theoretical physics at
Moscow State University. From his second year he worked in the laboratory of
Sergey Ivanovich Vavilov, whom he regarded as his mentor. After graduating in 1930, on recommendation of Vavilov, he started working at the State Optical Institute in Leningrad. There he wrote his first publication—about
luminescence— with Vavilov. The work he did there would form the basis of his doctoral dissertation in 1935.
In 1934, Frank moved to the Institute of Physics and Mathematics of the
USSR Academy of Sciences (which shortly would be moved to Moscow, where it was transformed into the Institute of Physics). Here he started working on
nuclear physics, a new field for him. He became interested in the
effect discovered by
Pavel Cherenkov, that charged particles moving through water at high speeds emit light. Together with
Igor Tamm, he developed a theoretical explanation: the effect occurs when charged particles travel through an optically transparent medium at speeds greater than the
speed of light in that medium, causing a
shock wave in the
electromagnetic field
An electromagnetic field (also EM field or EMF) is a classical (i.e. non-quantum) field produced by (stationary or moving) electric charges. It is the field described by classical electrodynamics (a classical field theory) and is the classical c ...
.
The amount of energy radiated in this process is given by the
Frank–Tamm formula.
The discovery and explanation of the effect resulted in the development of new methods for detecting and measuring the velocity of high-speed
nuclear particle
In physics and chemistry, a nucleon is either a proton or a neutron, considered in its role as a component of an atomic nucleus. The number of nucleons in a nucleus defines the atom's mass number (nucleon number).
Until the 1960s, nucleons were ...
s and became of great importance for research in
nuclear physics.
Cherenkov radiation is also widely used in biomedical research for detection of
radioactive isotopes. In 1946, Cherenkov, Vavilov, Tamm, and Frank were awarded a
Stalin Prize for their discovery, and 1958 Cherenkov, Tamm, and Frank received the
Nobel Prize in physics.
In 1944, Frank was appointed professor and became head of a department at the Institute of Physics and of the Nuclear Physics Laboratory (which was later transferred to the Institute of Nuclear Research). Frank's laboratory was involved in the (then secret) study of
nuclear reactors. In particular, they studied the diffusion and thermalization of
neutrons.
In 1957, Frank also become director of the Laboratory of Neutron Physics at the
Joint Institute for Nuclear Research. The laboratory was based on the neutron fast-pulse reactor (IBR) then under construction at the site. Under Frank's supervision the reactor was used in the development of
neutron spectroscopy techniques.
Personal life and death
Frank married the noted
historian, Ella Abramovna Beilikhis, in 1937. Their son, Alexander, was born in the same year, and would continue much of the studies of his father as a physicist.
Frank died on 22 June, 1990 in
Moscow at the age 81.
References
External links
* including the Nobel Lecture, December 11, 1958 ''Optics of Light Sources Moving in Refractive Media''
Ilya Mikhaylovich Frank – Source and photoon nobel-winners.com
Ilja M. Frank
{{DEFAULTSORT:Frank, Ilya
1908 births
1990 deaths
Nobel laureates in Physics
Soviet Nobel laureates
Scientists from Saint Petersburg
People from Sankt-Peterburgsky Uyezd
Experimental physicists
Full Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences
Jewish physicists
Moscow State University alumni
Soviet physicists
Stalin Prize winners
Recipients of the USSR State Prize
Members of the German Academy of Sciences at Berlin