Igor Tamm
Soviet physicist (1895-1971) · Russia · On the map · Scientists · Died at 75
A Soviet physicist who explained why certain particles glow blue when moving faster than light travels through water - work that earned him a Nobel and still underpins radiation detection today.
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, Creativity makes life valuable. Man is the sole creator; he stands out from the swarming masses of petty little folks.
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About this person
Igor Yevgenyevich Tamm was born 8 July 1895 in the Russian Empire. In 1934, working with Pavel Cherenkov and Ilya Frank, he developed the theoretical explanation for Cherenkov radiation - the electromagnetic shock wave that produces a characteristic blue glow. The trio shared the 1958 Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery and its demonstration. Along the way Tamm predicted the phonon, the quantum unit of vibrational energy in solids. In 1951 he and Andrei Sakharov proposed the tokamak, a magnetic-confinement design that became the blueprint for fusion reactor research worldwide. He died 12 April 1971.
