Alexander Butlerov

Alexander Butlerov (1828-1886) is known as the creator of the theory of chemical structure.  He was born in Chistopol, which is near Kazan.  When he was just sixteen Butlerov began studies in the physics and mathematics department at the University of Kazan.  Immediately after graduating he began teaching chemistry at the university.

Butlerov's travels to Paris to work with other chemists and participating in the Paris Chemical Society inspired him to do more lab work when he returned to Russia.  In his experiments he concluded that chemical structures in theoretical chemistry could not be abstract, but needed to be based on the actual structures of different molecules.  Butlerov took into account all aspects of chemical reactions, not just the products he wanted but any products that may have formed.  In addition, he moved away from theoretical formulas and moved on to using empirical formulas. This was Butlerov's basic concept of chemical structure: "Assuming that each chemical atom is characterized by a specific and limited quantity of chemical force [affinity], with which it participates in the formation of a substance, I would call this chemical bond or [this] capacity for the mutual union of atoms into a complex substance chemical structure”.

http://russia-ic.com/people/general/b/109

http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Aleksandr_Mikhailovich_Butlerov.aspx

Pyotr Kapitsa

Pyotr Kapitsa was born in 1894 in Kronstadt, near Leningrad.  He started his scientific career at the Petrograd Polytechnical Institute, where he proposed a method for determining "the magnetic moment of an atom interacting with an inhomogeneous magnetic field".  In 1923 he went to Cambridge to work with Ernest Rutherford, using a magnetic field to observe alpha particles bending (Rutherford famously discovered the nucleus of an atom by shooting alpha particles at a gold sheet).  While at Cambridge, Kapitsa discovered the linear dependence on resistivity on magnetic fields by different metals.  He also began his work on low temperature physics, and developed an apparatus for the liquification of helium in 1934.  

In 1934, Kapitsa returned to Moscow and created the Institute for Physical Problems where he researched strong magnetic fields, low temperature physics, now known as cryogenics.  In his experiments on liquid helium, Kapitsa discovered that the helium was "superfluid", which is a state of matter where the liquid has no viscosity and thus can do some pretty amazing things.

Kapitsa, on top of his many contributions to science, also actively defended intellectual freedom.  When he returned to Moscow in 1934, the Soviet Union forced him to stay and continue his work there.  He refused to work until the government bought all his lab equipment from colleague Rutherford.  In 1945, Kapitsa was appointed to a committee to construct a Soviet atomic bomb by the Politburo.  Although forced to remain on the committee, he refused to work on the atomic bomb and fell out of favor with Stalin and the Soviet government.  His scientific prestige kept him safe from too much retribution, and after Stalin died Kapitsa spent the rest of his career working out of a home laboratory.

http://russiapedia.rt.com/prominent-russians/science-and-technology/pyotr-kapitsa/

http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Pyotr_Kapitsa

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/311753/Pyotr-Leonidovich-Kapitsa

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/kapitsa.html

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1978/kapitsa-bio.html

Sofia Kovalevskaya

Sofia Kovalevskaya (1850-1891)  was born into a family of minor nobility (her father was a general) in Polibino.  She was interested in mathematics from a very young age when her uncle would talk to her about mathematical principles before she could even understand what they were.  After she began taking lessons in math with the family tutor, Kovalevskaya developed such a love for the subject that she started to neglect her other studies.  Due to laws that prohibited single women from traveling alone, Kovalevskaya entered into a marriage of convenience with Vladimir Kovalevsky, a paleontologist.  In 1869, she moved to Heidelberg with her husband so she could study at the university there, however, because she was a woman, she could only take classes unofficially.  After three semesters, she moved to Berlin to study under renowned mathematician Karl Weierstrass.  She produced three papers in this time to attempt to receive her doctoral degree.

Kovalevskaya's first paper, "On the Theory of Partial Differential Equations" was her most important paper and was published in an important journal, Crelle's Journal, in 1875.  This paper led to the Cauchy-Kovalevskaya Theorem, which is an existence theorem in differential equations.  Her second paper was on elliptic integrals, and the final paper was a mathematical explanation of the formation of Saturn's rings, based on her theory that the rings were elliptic.  These papers gained Kovaleyskaya a doctorate from the University of Gottingen in 1874.

She was hindered in many ways just by being a woman, but always found ways to overcome this, and later in life advocated women's rights, especially in academia.  Kovalevskaya was eventually invited to lecture in mathematics at the University of Stockholm in 1883 and was promoted to full professor in 1889.  In 1888 she was awarded the Prix Bordin for her paper on the rotation of a solid body about a fixed point.  She died at only forty-one years of age of pneumonia.

Cauchy-Kovalevskaya Theorem

http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Projects/Ellison/Chapters/Ch5.html
http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Projects/Ellison/Chapters/Ch7.html
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/323006/Sofya-Vasilyevna-Kovalevskaya
http://www.agnesscott.edu/lriddle/women/kova.htm
http://russiapedia.rt.com/prominent-russians/science-and-technology/sofia-kovalevskaya/

Ivan Pavlov

Ivan Pavlov was born in 1849 in the village of Ryazan.  He was originally educated at church school and theological seminary in his village.  However inspired by the progressive ideas of D. I. Pisarev, and I. M. Sechenov, the father of Russian physiology, Pavlov decided to quit the seminary and devote his life to science.  Physiology quickly became his passion, and in his first course on the subject Pavlov and a fellow student produced a work on the physiology of pancreatic nerves, which he was awarded for.   

In 1883, Pavlov presented his doctoral thesis on the "centrifugal nerves of the heart", and this paper was the foundation of the principles of the trophic function of the nervous system.  The trophic function is responsible for nutrition of tissues and organs, and maintaining homeostasis.

Most notable of Pavlov's achievements were his dog experiments that took place between 1890 and 1900 at the Institute of Experimental Medicine.  His experiments started as a study of the physiology of digestion, however Pavlov soon noticed that dogs were salivating without the presence of food whenever anyone with a white coat came into the room.  The dogs were normally fed by people in white coats, so he came up with the bell experiment to see if he could get the dogs to salivate without food (the unconditioned stimulus) by using another, neutral, stimulus (the bell) to condition them.  He knew the dogs salivated in the presence of food, so he would ring a bell every time the dogs were fed, conditioning them to associate the bell with food.  By the end of the experiment, the dogs would salivate when a bell was rang, with or without food present.  This type of associative conditioning became known as classical conditioning and laid the foundation for many psychological theories of learning and training. 

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1904/pavlov-bio.html

http://www.learning-theories.com/classical-conditioning-pavlov.html

http://www.simplypsychology.org/pavlov.html

Vladimir Shukhov: Engineer

Vladimir Grigorievich Shukhov was born in 1853 in the town of Graivoron, in Kursk.   When he was twenty-five, Shukhov moved to Baku to work on construction and engineering at oil deposits.  There he became the producer and chief engineer of the first oil pipeline that was ten kilometers long.  In the same year Shukhov developed the first "cylindrical metal reservoir for oil storage".  The very next year, 1879, he patented an atomizer for black oil burning. In 1907 he became the chief engineer and author of the Baku-Batumi oil pipeline (883 km), and in 1928 Shukhov did the same for the Groznyi-Tuapse pipeline (618 km).  He also invented the thermal cracking method for refining oil, which was patented in 1891.  Without this oil refinement technique, which led to others, we could still be working with crude oil.

View from the base of Shukhov Tower

Shukhov also pioneered the idea of using hyperboloid structure for towers, especially water towers.  The shape had structural integrity, and thus was able to hold a fair amount of weight without using too much material; the designs happened to be beautiful, too.  His tower design was also used in some of the first radio towers.  Christian Schadlich says this regarding Shukhov's hyperboloid engineering: "Shukhov's structures finish the efforts of the XIX century engineers to create original metal structures and at the same time they show the way far to the XX century. They express a significant progress: the core lattice of the then traditional spatial trusses, leaning on the basic and auxiliary elements was replaced by a net of equal structural elements".  Shukhov worked extensively on getting water to the cities, working on these superb water towers as well as pipelines and reservoirs.

http://journal.plastic-pipes.ru/sites/default/files/digest/2014/journal_digest-2014_68-72.pdf
http://www.shukhov.org/shukhov.html
http://cenews.com/article/9720/shukhovs-world

Igor Sikorsky

Just a few years after the Wright brothers successfully flew their first plane, Igor Sikorsky built the first four engine plane.  Then, in 1939, Sikorsky would fly the first helicopter prototype.  Although he was born in Kiev, Russia (now the Ukraine), Sikorsky had emigrated to the United States about twenty years before flying his helicopter.

According to the National Aviation Hall of Fame, Sikorsky was first inspired as a child by his mother telling him about Leonardo da Vinci's attempts to design a flying machine, and by age twelve he had already made a model helicopter powered by rubber bands.

In 1927, he built a series of twin engine amphibious airplanes, which are essentially small passenger planes that can land on water.  These proved to be extremely successful for him, as Pan American Airways needed them to create air routes to South and Central America.  These small amphibious planes led to his creation of the American Clipper plane; later planes in this series would travel across every ocean in the world.

Sikorsky's achievements in the advancement of aeronautics would lead to modern helicopters that are vital in emergency medical and rescue situations.  The military and emergency medical services would have lost countless lives if it weren't for helicopters.  His four engine plane and amphibious planes built for Pan American Airways laid the foundation for modern commercial flight.

American Clipper Plane

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/543984/Igor-Sikorsky
http://www.nationalaviation.org/sikorsky-igor/
http://www.biography.com/people/igor-sikorsky-9483585

The Discovery of Viruses

Bacteriophage

Dmitry Ivanovsky (1864-1920)  is the Russian microbiologist credited with the discovery of viruses.  A virus is a subcellular organism that has to use another cell to carry out its life cycle.  Its membrane is usually covered in protein "spikes" that penetrate host cells.  It uses the host cell's genetic material to produce more viruses until the membrane of the host is dissolved and the new viruses are released  In 1890 Ivanovsky was studying mosaic disease that had infected tobacco plants in Crimea; at the time mosaic disease was thought to be cause by bacteria.  However, in filtering sap to isolate the bacteria, Ivanovsky found that the infected sap could cause healthy plants to become sick.  After further research he concluded that an "exceedingly small parasitic microorganism" was responsible for the mosaic disease, rather than a regular bacterium.

Ivanovsky

It is interesting to note that, despite the discovery of viruses being such a huge achievement, Ivanovsky abandoned his studies on them after defending his doctoral dissertation.  Scientists at the time, including Ivanovsky, didn't realize the importance of his discovery for the future of medical treatment (the difference in giving antibiotics for bacterial infections and vaccines to prevent viruses).  It turns out that Ivanovsky was also extremely modest, and never made public his discoveries.  Many of his theories of virology have been confirmed in the modern study of it. 

http://www.odec.ca/projects/2004/lija4j0/public_html/history.htm

http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Dmitri_Iosifovich_Ivanovsky.aspx

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/298235/Dmitry-Iosifovich-Ivanovsky