Igor Kurchatov

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Igor Kurchatov
Игорь Курчатов
Azerbaijan Polytechnic Institute
WebsiteI.V. Kurchatov by PBS

Igor Vasilyevich Kurchatov (Russian: Игорь Васильевич Курчатов; 12 January 1903 – 7 February 1960), was a Soviet physicist who played a central role in organizing and directing the former Soviet program of nuclear weapons.[2]

As many of his contemporaries in Russia, Kurchatov, initially educated as a naval architect, was an autodidact in nuclear physics and was brought by Soviet establishment to accelerate the feasibility of the "super bomb". Aided by effective intelligence management by Soviet agencies on American Manhattan Project, Kurchatov oversaw the quick development and testing of the first Soviet nuclear weapon, which was roughly based on the first American device, at Semipalatinsk in the Kazakh SSR in 1949.

Kurchatov, a recipient of many former Soviet honors, had an instrumental role in modern

Chelyabinsk-40 (a more serious event than Chernobyl in 1986).: 107–108 [3] Kurchatov died in Moscow in 1960, aged 57.[1]

Biography

Kurchatov was born in a small village in Simsky Zavod in Ufa, Russia (now it is a town of Sim, Chelyabinsk Oblast), on 12 January 1903.: 2039 [4] His father, Vasily Alekseyevich Kurchatov, was a surveyor and former forester's assistant in the Ural Mountains; his mother, Mariya Vasilyevna Ostroumova, a daughter of the parish priest at Sim, was a school teacher.[5][1] He was an elder and second of three children of Vasily Kurchatov, and the family moved to Simferopol in Crimea in 1912.[6] The Kurchatovs were of Russian ethnicity.[7]

Igor Kurchatov in Leningrad, 1929

After his older sister, Antonina, passed away in Crimea, Igor grew up with his younger brother, Boris, where they both attended the Simferopol gymnasium №1, and was a Mandolin player at his school's orchestra.[6] During World War I, Igor and Boris had to work to support the family, becoming a skilled welder and developing interests in steam engines, wishing to become an engineer.[6]

Kurchatov attended the

Physico-Technical Institute in Saint Petersburg, Russia.[6][11] Kurchatov married Marina Sinelnikova in 1927 and they did not have children.[12]

While working under Ioffe on

Radium Institute which was headed by Vitaly Khlopin [ru]. In 1937, Kurchatov was a part of the team that designed and built the first cyclotron particle accelerator in Russia, which was installed in Radium Institute.[13] Installation was finished in 1937, and research began to take place on 21 September 1939.[14][15] During this time, Kurchatov considered studying physics abroad at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in the United States but the plan fell apart due the political reasons.[13] Until 1933, Kurchatov did not go into the nuclear physics and his work was primarily focused on electromagnetism but did an important work on nuclear isomer and radioactivity in 1935.: 449 [10]

In 1940, Kurchatov moved to

demagnetizing ships to protect them from German mines, which was in active use until the end of World War II and thereafter.[16][17][18] The job with Soviet Navy solved Kurchatov's objection on spontaneous fission when he wrote in 1944: "Uranium must be separated into two parts at the moment of detonation. Upon the breaking up of the nuclei in a kilogram of uranium, the energy released must be equal to the explosion of 20,000 tons of TNT equivalent.": 152 [19]: 30–32 [20]

Soviet program of nuclear weapons

Main article: Russia and weapons of mass destruction

After 1942, Kurchatov oversaw the facility expansion and overall development of the Russian program in the Soviet Union, from military to civilian dimensions of the nuclear program.: 24–25 

theoretical physicist.[23]: 30 [24]: 34 [25]

The Soviet establishment did not start the program until 1943 despite receiving intelligence from Russian spies in the United States and a warning from

Georgii Flerov.: 34 [25] Kurchatov, as many others, was working towards building ammunition for the Red Army's campaign against the German forces at the Eastern Front of World War II.: 34 [25] Initially, the Soviet establishment asked Abram Ioffe to lead the Soviet program of nuclear weapons, which Ioffe rejected, instead recommending Kurchatov in 1942.: 50–51 [26] Kurchatov established the Laboratory No. 2 in Moscow by bringing Abram Alikhanov (who worked on heavy water production) from Armenia and Lev Artsimovich who was instrumental in electromagnetic isotope separation.: 51–52 [26] Initially, Kurchatov insisted working without foreign data on isotope separation and was aiming to produce material using the gas centrifuges but the gas centrifuge machine would be available to the Soviets only much later.: 53–54 [26] Facing a tighter deadline from Stalin, Kurchatov relied upon foreign data by choosing the Gaseous diffusion method to produce the fissile material, a move that irked Pyotr Kapitsa who raised objections against this but was dismissed.: 54 [26]

During the early years, the Soviet program suffered from many setbacks due to logistical failures and lack of commitment by the Soviet establishment but received later full support - after the atomic bombings of

Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan.: 51–52 [26] In 1942, Kurchatov was informed of results obtained from Chicago Pile-1 by the Soviet intelligence, and provided his view of making a nuclear bomb.: 23 [27] In 1945, Kurchatov became involved in designing and building the first reactor at Laboratory No. 2 which sustained the nuclear chain reaction in late 1946.: 23 [27] Together with Alikhanov and Flerov, Kurchatov authored a paper on the production of plutonium in a uranium graphite reactor.: 26 [27] In 1947, Kurchatov worked with Isaak Kikoin to verify the calculations of the foreign data received on the American program.: 55 [26]

In 1946, the Soviet program was aggressively pursued under

Yakov Zel'dovich, and Kurchatov vigorously defended their deuterium calculations, insisting that the data could not be more accurate on cross section estimates.: 73 [28]: 87–88 [13]

The team was assisted by public disclosures made by the

US government
as well as by further information supplied by Fuchs. However, Kurchatov and Beria feared that the intelligence was disinformation and so insisted that their scientists retest everything themselves. Beria, in particular, would use the intelligence as a third-party check on the conclusions of the teams of scientists.

RDS-1

Main articles: RDS-1 and RDS-6s
Kurchatov at Harwell on 26 April 1956

The

Russian spies in the United States greatly aided in providing the key data on American nuclear devices, which allowed Kurchatov to avoid time-consuming and expensive trial and error problems.: 49–50 [29] The fissile material was obtained from using the gaseous diffusion and implosion-type plutonium core that Kurchatov spent most of his time on.: 551 [26] Furthermore, the German nuclear physicists were instrumental in speeding the acquisition of device data, and were employed under Kurchatov's guidance.: 36 [30]

Final device assembly was overseen by Yulii Khariton who had a device moved to a knock-down subassembly in Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan.: 551 [26]

On 29 August 1949, Kurchatov and his team successfully detonated its initial

RDS-1 (РДС–1) by Kurchatov which was approved by Soviet establishment.: 219 [31] Kurchatov later remarked that his main feeling at the time to be one of relief.: 36–37 [25]

In 1950, the work on

RDS-6, which was detonated in 1953.: 36 [32]

By the time RDS-1 exploded, Kurchatov had decided to work on nuclear power generation, working closely with engineer

Lenin.: 107 [3]

After Stalin's death and the execution of Beria, Kurchatov began to speak about the dangers of

nuclear weapon testing and visited England where he spoke in favour of greater interaction between Russian and Western scientists on nuclear fusion applications.: 37–38 [25]

Death

Main article:
Radiation poisoning

In January 1949, Kurchatov was involved in a serious radiation accident which became a

Chelyabinsk-40, in which it is possible that even more people died than at Chernobyl.: 11–14 [33] In an effort to save the uranium load and reduce losses in the production of plutonium, Kurchatov, without proper safety gear, was the first to step into the central hall of the damaged reactor full of radioactive gases.[34]: 242 [35] After 1950, Kurchatov's health sharply declined and he suffered a stroke in 1954 and died in Moscow of a cardiac embolism on 7 February 1960 aged 57. He was cremated and his ashes were buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis on Red Square.[3]

Legacy and honors

Kurchatov on a 2003 stamp of Russia.
Monument to Kurchatov at the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site's Central Staff office, 1991.

During his time in Soviet nuclear program, Kurchatov swore he would not cut his beard until the Soviet program succeeded, and he continued to wear a large beard (often cut into eccentric styles) for the remainder of his life, earning him the nickname "The Beard".[36] Kurchatov was a communist: 37 [25] who had a portrait of Stalin by the time he died, and a member of Communist Party of the Soviet Union.: 37 [25]

Two towns bear his name:

2352 Kurchatov are also named after him. Many of his students also enjoyed distinguished careers, among them Andrei Sakharov, Viktor Adamsky, Yuri Babayev, Yuri Trutnev and Yuri Smirnov [ru
].

For his part in establishing the Soviet nuclear program, in accordance with state decree 627-258, Kurchatov was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor, the Stalin Prize First Class, the sum of 500,000 rubles (besides the earlier results of (50%) premium in the amount of 500,000 rubles) and a ZIS-110 car, a private house and cottage furnished by the state, a doubling of his salary and "the right (for life for him and his wife) to free travel by rail, water and air transport in the USSR". In all, he was:

  • Member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences (elected in 1943)[1]
  • Three times Hero of Socialist Labor (1949, 1951, 1954)[1]
  • Awarded five Orders of Lenin
  • Awarded two Orders of the Red Banner
  • Awarded the following medals: "For Victory over Germany", "For the defense of Sevastopol"
  • Four times recipient of the Stalin Prize (1942, 1949, 1951, 1954)
  • Recipient of the Lenin Prize (1957).

Kurchatov was buried in the Kremlin Wall in Moscow, a burial place reserved for top Soviet officials. In 1960 his institute was renamed to the I.V. Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy, and in 1991 to the Russian Research Centre Kurchatov Institute. The Kurchatov Medal was established by the Academy of Sciences for outstanding work in nuclear physics.[1] In the Transfermium Wars element naming controversy, the USSR's proposed name for element 104 was "kurchatovium", Ku, in honor of Kurchatov. Element 104 is now known as rutherfordium.

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Igor Vasilyevich Kurchatov Archived 19 October 2020 at the Wayback Machine. Encyclopaedia Britannica
  2. ^ "Nuclear Files: Library: Biographies: Igor Kurchatov". www.nuclearfiles.org. Archived from the original on 5 December 2021. Retrieved 21 February 2024.
  3. ^
    ISBN 978-0-359-73723-9. Archived
    from the original on 17 September 2023. Retrieved 4 November 2022.
  4. ISBN 978-1-317-74060-5. Archived
    from the original on 17 September 2023. Retrieved 5 November 2022.
  5. ^ Dictionary of World Biography, volume VIII- The 20th Century, Go-N, ed. Frank N. Magill, Routledge, p. 2039
  6. ^ a b c d e f g Golovin, Igorʹ Nikolaevich. Academician, Igor Kurchatov. Russia, Mir Publishers, 1969.
  7. ^ Курчатов Игорь Васильевич Archived 14 August 2021 at the Wayback Machine. warheroes.ru
  8. ^ Inc, Educational Foundation for Nuclear Science (December 1967). Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: The Father of Soviet Atomic Bomb. Educational Foundation for Nuclear Science, Inc. Archived from the original on 17 September 2023. Retrieved 5 November 2022. {{cite book}}: |last1= has generic name (help)
  9. ^ The doctorate in Russia is not a degree but an honorary degree given after several years of independent work in science
  10. ^
    ISBN 978-1-59884-948-6. Archived
    from the original on 17 September 2023. Retrieved 5 November 2022.
  11. ^
    S2CID 119603044. Archived
    (PDF) from the original on 21 January 2022. Retrieved 21 February 2024.
  12. ISBN 0822958813. Archived
    from the original on 21 February 2024. Retrieved 12 May 2019.
  13. ^
    ISBN 978-0-19-087031-7. Archived
    from the original on 17 September 2023. Retrieved 21 February 2024.
  14. ^ Radium Institute named Vitaly Khlopin Archived 26 April 2011 at the Wayback Machine
  15. ^ Radium Institute named Vitaly Khlopin. Chronology Archived 26 April 2011 at the Wayback Machine
  16. ^ Aleksandrov, A. P. (1983). "Годы с Курчатовым". Nauka i Zhizn. 2. Archived from the original on 5 April 2023. Retrieved 21 February 2024.
  17. ^ Koptev, Yu. I. (2008) "Виза безопасности". St. Petersburg. Изд-во Политехнического Университета. (in Russian)
  18. ^ Regel, V. R. (1975). "Размагничивание кораблей в годы Великой Отечественной войны". Priroda. 4. Archived from the original on 19 March 2022. Retrieved 21 February 2024.
  19. ISBN 978-981-323-557-1. Archived
    from the original on 17 September 2023. Retrieved 21 February 2024.
  20. ^ Gubarev, Vladimir, Atomnaya Bomba
  21. ISBN 978-0-275-95713-1. Archived
    from the original on 25 April 2023. Retrieved 6 November 2022.
  22. ^ Sherwin, Martin (12 October 1999). "Center to Premiere Film on Igor Kurchatov, Father of Soviet Nuclear Weapons Program | Wilson Center". www.wilsoncenter.org. Washington D.C.: Wilson Center. Archived from the original on 6 November 2022. Retrieved 6 November 2022.
  23. ISBN 978-1-316-29812-1. Archived
    from the original on 17 September 2023. Retrieved 6 November 2022.
  24. ISBN 978-1-350-27257-6. Archived
    from the original on 17 September 2023. Retrieved 6 November 2022.
  25. ^ a b c d e f g h i Day, Dwayne A. (1999). The Maker of Stalin's Bomb. Vienna, Austria: National Endowment for the Humanities. Archived from the original on 17 September 2023. Retrieved 6 November 2022.
  26. ^
    ISBN 978-0-300-14265-5. Archived
    from the original on 17 September 2023. Retrieved 6 November 2022.
  27. ^
    ISBN 978-0-415-26970-4. Archived
    from the original on 17 September 2023. Retrieved 6 November 2022.
  28. ISBN 978-1-4391-2647-9. Archived
    from the original on 17 September 2023. Retrieved 6 November 2022.
  29. ISBN 978-1-5267-9028-6. Archived
    from the original on 17 September 2023. Retrieved 6 November 2022.
  30. ^
    ISBN 978-1-5011-3463-0. Archived
    from the original on 17 September 2023. Retrieved 7 November 2022.
  31. ISBN 978-3-662-03610-5. Archived
    from the original on 17 September 2023. Retrieved 6 November 2022.
  32. ^
    ISBN 978-1-61673-242-4
    . Retrieved 7 November 2022.
  33. ^ Medvedev, Zhores. Stalin and the Atomic Gulag (PDF). pp. 11–14. Archived (PDF) from the original on 11 November 2022. Retrieved 21 February 2024.
  34. ISBN 978-1-86064-768-0. Archived
    from the original on 21 February 2024. Retrieved 21 February 2024.
  35. ISBN 978-1-911298-27-4. Archived
    from the original on 17 September 2023. Retrieved 7 November 2022.
  36. ISBN 978-1-4683-1041-2. Archived
    from the original on 17 September 2023. Retrieved 7 November 2022.

Further reading

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