Igor Tamm

2026-01-21 09:31:18

Igor Tamm (Vladivostok, Russian Empire, July 8, 1895 – April 12, 1971, Moscow, USSR) was a Soviet physicist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics together with Pavel A. Cherenkov and Ilya M. Frank for the discovery and theoretical explanation of the Vavilov-Cherenkov effect (1958). Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1953). An outstanding theoretical physicist, after the first studies in the field of crystal optics, he developed a method of interpreting the interaction of nuclear particles. Together with I. M. Frank developed a theoretical interpretation of the radiation of electrons moving through matter at a speed exceeding the speed of light (Cherenkov effect) and the theory of cosmic ray flows. Contributed to the development of thermonuclear reaction control methods. Together with A. D. Sakharov, he developed the principles of plasma retention in a tokamak. Among his students are S. P. Shubin, E. L. Feinberg, V. L. Ginzburg, L. V. Keldysh, D. I. Blokhintsev, M.A. Markov, A.D. Sakharov, V.G. Kadyshevsky, S.A. Altshuler, D.A. Kirzhnits, A.A. Vlasov. Hero of Socialist Labor (1954). Laureate of two Stalin prizes (1946, 1953).