Igor Kurchatov
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Igor "The Beard" Kurchatov |
Igor Vasilyevich Kurchatov (Russian:
И́горь 'аси́льевич Курча́тов) (
January 8,
1903 –
February 7,
1960) was a
Soviet/
Russian physicist. He was the leader of the
Soviet atomic bomb project. Kurchatov was born in
Simsky zavod,
Ufa Guberniya (now city of
Sim,
Chelyabinsk Oblast). He studied
physics at Crimea State University and ship building at the
Polytechnical Institute in
Petrograd. In
1925 he moved to the
Physico-Technical Institute, where he worked (under
Abram Fedorovich Ioffe) on various problems connected with
radioactivity. In
1932 he received funding for his own nuclear science research team, which built the Soviet Union's first
cyclotron (
September 21,
1939).
Igor Kurchatov and his apprentice
Georgy Flyorov discovered the basic ideas of the uranium chain reaction and the nuclear reactor concept in the 1930's. In 1942 Kurchatov declared: "At breaking up of kernels in a kilogram of uranium, the energy released must be equal to the explosion of 20,000 tons of trotyl." This announcement was practically verified during the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
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Kurchatov at around age 20. |
When war broke out between
Germany and the USSR in
1941, Kurchatov switched his research first to protecting shipping from
magnetic mines, and later to
tank armour. In
1943 the
NKVD obtained a copy of a secret
British report by the
MAUD Committee concerning the feasibility of atomic weapons, which led
Stalin to order the commencement of a Soviet nuclear programme (albeit with very limited resources). Ioffe recommended Kurchatov to
Molotov, and Kurchatov was appointed director of the nascent programme later that year.
The
Soviet atomic bomb project remained a relatively low priority until information from spy
Klaus Fuchs and later the destruction of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki goaded Stalin into action. Stalin ordered Kurchatov to produce a bomb by
1948, and put the ruthless
Lavrenty Beria in direct command of the project. The project took over the town of
Sarov in the Gorki Oblast (now
Nizhny Novgorod Oblast) on the
Volga, and renamed it
Arzamas-16. The team (which included other prominent Soviet nuclear scientists such as
Julii Borisovich Khariton and
Yakov Borisovich Zel'dovich) was assisted both by public disclosures made by the and by further information supplied by Fuchs, but Kurchatov and Beria (fearing the intelligence was misinformation) insisted his scientists retest everything themselves. Beria in particular would use the intelligence as a third-party check on the conclusions of the teams of scientists.
On
August 29,
1949 the team detonated
First Lightning, its initial test device (a plutonium implosion bomb) at the
Semipalatinsk Test Site. Kurchatov later remarked that his main feeling at the time was one of relief, as he was confident that had the weapon failed, Stalin would have had him shot.
Kurchatov subsequently worked on the Soviet
hydrogen bomb program (
1953), but later worked for the peaceful use of nuclear technology, and advocated against nuclear bomb tests.
During the A-bomb programme, Kurchatov swore he wouldn't cut his beard until the 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". Kurchatov died in
Moscow in
1960 of a blood clot in his brain.
*
Dark Sun: The Making Of The Hydrogen Bomb by Richard Rhodes (ISBN 0684824140)
* PBS documentary
Citizen Kurchatov*
Biography of Igor Kurchatov (in Russian)*
Annotated bibliography of Igor Kurchatov from the Alsos Digital Library
