Ilya Mikhailovich Frank (Russian:Илья Михайлович Франк; 23 October 1908 – 22 June 1990) was a Sovietphysicist who received the 1958Nobel Prize in Physics, jointly withPavel Alekseyevich Cherenkov andIgor Y. Tamm, also of the Soviet Union.[1] He received the award for his work in explaining the phenomenon ofCherenkov radiation. He received the Stalin prize in 1946 and 1953 and the USSR state prize in 1971.
Ilya Frank was born on 23 October 1908 inSt. Petersburg. His father,Mikhail Lyudvigovich Frank, was a talented mathematician descended from aJewish family, while his mother, Yelizaveta Mikhailovna Gratsianova, was aRussian Orthodoxphysician. His father participated in the student revolutionary movement, and as a result was expelled fromMoscow University. After theOctober Revolution, he was reinstated and appointed professor. Ilya's uncle,Semyon Frank, a philosopher, was expelled from Soviet Russia in 1922 together with 160 other intellectuals. Ilya had one elder brother, Gleb Mikhailovich Frank, who became an eminentbiophysicist and member of theAcademy of Sciences of the USSR.[2]
Ilya Frank studied mathematics andtheoretical physics atMoscow State University. From his second year he worked in the laboratory ofSergey Ivanovich Vavilov, whom he regarded as his mentor. After graduating in 1930, on recommendation of Vavilov, he started working at the State Optical Institute in Leningrad. There he wrote his first publication—aboutluminescence— with Vavilov. The work he did there would form the basis of his doctoral dissertation in 1935.[2]
In 1934, Frank moved to the Institute of Physics and Mathematics of theUSSR Academy of Sciences (which shortly would be moved to Moscow, where it was transformed into the Institute of Physics). Here he started working onnuclear physics, a new field for him. He became interested in theeffect discovered byPavel Cherenkov, that charged particles moving through water at high speeds emit light. Together withIgor Tamm, he developed a theoretical explanation: the effect occurs when charged particles travel through an optically transparent medium at speeds greater than thespeed of light in that medium, causing ashock wave in theelectromagnetic field.[2] The amount of energy radiated in this process is given by theFrank–Tamm formula.
The discovery and explanation of the effect resulted in the development of new methods for detecting and measuring the velocity of high-speednuclear particles and became of great importance for research innuclear physics.Cherenkov radiation is also widely used in biomedical research for detection ofradioactive isotopes. In 1946, Cherenkov, Vavilov, Tamm, and Frank were awarded aStalin Prize for their discovery, and 1958 Cherenkov, Tamm, and Frank received theNobel Prize in Physics.[2]
In 1944, Frank was appointed professor and became head of a department at the Institute of Physics and of the Nuclear Physics Laboratory (which was later transferred to the Institute of Nuclear Research). Frank's laboratory was involved in the (then secret) study ofnuclear reactors. In particular, they studied the diffusion and thermalization ofneutrons.[2]
In 1957, Frank also become director of the Laboratory of Neutron Physics at theJoint Institute for Nuclear Research. The laboratory was based on the neutron fast-pulse reactor (IBR) then under construction at the site. Under Frank's supervision the reactor was used in the development ofneutron spectroscopy techniques.[2]
Frank married the notedhistorian, Ella Abramovna Beilikhis, in 1937. Their son, Alexander, was born in the same year, and would continue much of the studies of his father as a physicist.[2]
Image of Ilya Frank on a 2008 Russian stamp
Frank died on 22 June 1990 inMoscow at the age 81.
