Boris Podolsky

{{Infobox scientist

| name = Boris Podolsky

| native_name = {{Nobold|Бори́с Подо́льский}}

| image = File:Boris Yakovlevich Podolsky.jpg

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| birth_name = Boris Yakovlevich Podolsky

| birth_date = {{birth date|1896|06|29}}

| birth_place = Taganrog, Don Host Oblast, Russian Empire

| death_date = {{death date and age|1966|11|28|1896|06|29}}

| death_place = Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.

| nationality = {{Plainlist|

United States
Russian Empire

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| fields = Physics

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| doctoral_advisor = Paul Sophus Epstein

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| known_for = EPR paradox

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}}

Boris Yakovlevich Podolsky ({{langx|ru|link=no|Бори́с Я́ковлевич Подо́льский}}; June 29, 1896 – November 28, 1966) was a Russian-American physicist of Jewish descent, noted for his work with Albert Einstein and Nathan Rosen on entangled wave functions and the EPR paradox.

Education

In 1896, Boris Podolsky was born into a poor Jewish family in Taganrog, in the Don Host Oblast of the Russian Empire and attended the Taganrog Gymnasium. He moved to the United States in 1913. After receiving a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from the University of Southern California in 1918, he served in the US Army and then worked at the Los Angeles Bureau of Power and Light. In 1926, he obtained an MS in mathematics from the University of Southern California. In 1928, he received a PhD in theoretical physics (under Paul Sophus Epstein) from Caltech.

Career

Under a National Research Council Fellowship, Podolsky spent a year at the University of California, Berkeley, followed by a year at Leipzig University. In 1930, he returned to Caltech, working with Richard C. Tolman for one year. He then went to the Ukrainian Institute of Physics and Technology (Kharkiv, USSR), collaborating with Vladimir Fock, Paul Dirac (who was there on a visit), and Lev Landau. In 1932 he published a seminal early paper on Quantum Electrodynamics with Dirac and Fock,{{Cite journal|last=Tomonaga|first=Sin-itiro|year=1966|title=Development of quantum electrodynamics|journal=Physics Today|language=en|volume=19|issue=9|pages=25–32|doi=10.1063/1.3048465|pmid=17744604|issn=0031-9228|bibcode=1966PhT....19i..25T}} In 1933, he returned to the US with a fellowship from the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton.

In a letter dated November 10, 1933, to Abraham Flexner, founding director of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, Einstein described Podolsky as "one of the most brilliant of the younger men who has worked and published with [Paul] Dirac." In 1935 Einstein and others at the Institute wrote letters of recommendation for Podolsky, addressed to Louis T. More, Dean of the Graduate School of the University of Cincinnati, in which Einstein wrote, "I am happy to be able to tell you that I estimate Podolsky's abilities very highly.. he is an independent investigator of unquestionable talent."[https://www.ias.edu/about/publications/ias-letter/articles/2013-fall/epr-fallout The Advent and Fallout of EPR], Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, Fall 2013{{Citation |last=Pais |first=Abraham |title=‘Subtle is the Lord …’ |date=2005-08-25 |work=‘Subtle is the Lord … ’ |pages=111–137 |url=https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780192806727.003.0006 |access-date=2025-04-15 |publisher=Oxford University PressNew York, NY |isbn=978-0-19-280672-7}} In 1935, Podolsky took a post as professor of mathematical physics at the University of Cincinnati. At the University of Cincinnati he was MS adviser to Chihiro Kikuchi,{{Cite web|url=https://www.lib.umich.edu/faculty-history/faculty/chihiro-kikuchi/memoir|title=Memoir {{!}} Faculty History Project|website=www.lib.umich.edu|access-date=August 31, 2018}} and PhD adviser to Herman Branson{{Cite journal|date=August 14, 2017|title=Herman Branson|journal=Physics Today|issue=8 |page=5815 |language=EN|doi=10.1063/pt.6.6.20170814a|bibcode=2017PhT..2017h5815. }} and Alex Green.{{Cite journal|year=2014|title=Alex E.S. Green|journal=Physics Today|language=en|doi=10.1063/pt.5.6052|issn=1945-0699 |last1=Green |first1=Marcia |issue=4 |page=10340 |bibcode=2014PhT..2014d0340G }} In 1961, he moved to Xavier University, Cincinnati, where he worked until his death in 1966.

Work

Working with Albert Einstein and Nathan Rosen, Podolsky conceived the EPR paradox.{{Cite book |last=Pais |first=Nach Abraham |title=Subtle Is the Lord: The Science and the Life of Albert Einstein |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0192806727 |publication-date=November 3, 2005 |pages=494}} This famous paper stimulated debate as to the interpretation of quantum mechanics, culminating with Bell's theorem and the advent of quantum information theory.

In 1933, Podolsky and Lev Landau had the idea to write a textbook on electromagnetism beginning with special relativity and emphasizing theoretical postulates rather than experimental laws. This project did not come to fruition due to Podolsky's return to the United States, where he had immigrated in 1913. However, in the hands of Lev Landau and E. Lifshitz, the outline they produced became The Classical Theory of Fields (1951).Lev Davidovich Landau and E.M. Lifshitz, [https://books.google.com/books?id=X18PF4oKyrUC The Classical Theory of Fields] (Pergamon Press Ltd, 1951). On the same basis, Podolsky and K. Kunz produced Fundamentals of Electrodynamics, Marcel Dekker Press (1969), to which Podolsky's son, Robert, contributed most of the questions at the end of each chapter.

Possible contact with Soviet spies during World War II

A 2009 book by John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr and Alexander Vassiliev, Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America, identifies Podolsky as a contact (QUANTUM) who met twice with Soviet secret services in 1942 and 1943.{{Cite book |last=Haynes |first=John Earl |url=https://doi.org/10.12987/9780300155723 |title=Spies |last2=Klehr |first2=Harvey |last3=Vassiliev |first3=Alexander |date=2017-12-06 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0-300-15572-3}} The evidence for these contacts is somewhat indirect. Early during World War II, several VENONA cables identify a contact named QUANTUM who sought out Soviet intelligence in 1942 and asked for a position in the USSR to work on processing Uranium 235. A 1943 VENONA cable shows QUANTUM provided relatively simple equations known as Graham's law of gaseous diffusion (known since 1848) which can be used to separate fissile U-235 from unwanted U-238.{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/1943_22-23jun_separation_reaction|title=Explanation of scientific separation reaction|date=June 22, 1943|others=National Security Agency}} QUANTUM was paid $300 for this information according to a VENONA cable.{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/1943_21jun_kvant|title=Meeting with KVANT in Washington|date=June 21, 1943|others=National Security Agency}} The Soviets never contacted him again because they felt QUANTUM was unreliable.{{Cite web|url=https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/112856|title=Wilson Center Digital Archive|last=Archive|first=Wilson Center Digital|website=digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org|language=en|access-date=August 30, 2018}}John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr and Alexander Vassiliev, Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America (Boston: Yale University Press, 2009). A former KGB officer named Alexander Vassiliev took notes from the KGB archive after the fall of the USSR which suggested that QUANTUM was Podolsky.{{Cite web|url=https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/collection/86/vassiliev-notebooks|title=Wilson Center Digital Archive|last=Archive|first=Wilson Center Digital|website=digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org|language=en|access-date=September 15, 2018}}

In popular culture

Podolsky is played by the actor Gene Saks in the 1994 Hollywood film I.Q.

References

Other sources

= Primary source materials =

[http://www.exhibit.xavier.edu/conf_qm_1962/ Conference on the Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, 1962]. University Archives, Xavier University.
[http://archon.nbi.dk/index.php?p=collections/findingaid&id=7&q=podolsky&rootcontentid=42222#id42222 Niels Bohr Scientific Correspondence, Supplement, 1910–1962]. Niels Bohr Archive.