Pyotr Lebedev
{{Short description|Russian physicist (1866–1912)}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name = Pyotr Nikolaevich Lebedev
| image = Lebedev petr nikolaevich.jpg
| caption =
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1866|2|24|df=y}}
| birth_place = Moscow, Russian Empire
| nationality = Russian
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1912|3|1|1866|2|24|df=y}}
| death_place = Moscow, Russian Empire
| field = Physicist
| work_institution = Moscow State University
| alma_mater = University of Strasbourg
| doctoral_advisor = August Kundt
| doctoral_students = P. P. Lazarev
| known_for = Demonstration of radiation pressure
| prizes =
| footnotes =
}}
Pyotr Nikolaevich Lebedev ({{Langx|ru|Пётр Никола́евич Ле́бедев}}; 24 February 1866 – 1 March 1912) was a Russian physicist. His name was also transliterated as Peter Lebedew and Peter Lebedev.
{{cite book
|editor-last=Stavrou |editor-first=T. G.
|year=1969
|title=Russia Under the Last Tsar
|url=https://archive.org/details/russiaunderlastt00stav |url-access=registration |page=[https://archive.org/details/russiaunderlastt00stav/page/170 170]
|publisher=University of Minnesota Press
|isbn=978-0816605149
}} Lebedev was the creator of the first scientific school in Russia.
Career
Lebedev made his doctoral degree in Strasbourg under the supervision of August Kundt in 1887–1891. In 1891, he started working in Moscow State University in the group of Alexander Stoletov. There he made his famous experimental studies of electromagnetic waves.
Along with Indian physicist Jagadish Chandra Bose he was one of the first to investigate millimeter waves, generating 50 GHz (6 mm) microwaves beginning in 1895 with a spark oscillator made of two platinum cylinders 1.5 cm long and 0.5 diameter immersed in kerosene at the focus of a parabolic reflector, and detecting the waves with an iron-constantan thermocouple detector.A. A. Kostenko, A. I. Nosich, P. F. Goldsmith, "Historical background and development of Soviet quasioptics at near-millimeter and sub-millimeter wavelengths" in {{cite book
| last1 = Sarkar
| first1 = T. K.
| last2 = Mailloux
| first2 = Robert
| last3 = Oliner
| first3 = Arthur A.
| title = History of Wireless
| publisher = John Wiley and Sons
| date = 2006
| location =
| pages = 478–488
| language =
| url = https://archive.org/stream/HistoryOfWireless#page/n499/mode/2up
| doi =
| id =
| isbn = 0471783013
| author-link1=Tapan Sarkar
| author-link3=Arthur A. Oliner
}}
With this apparatus, he extended the work of Heinrich Hertz to higher frequencies, duplicating classical optics experiments using quasioptical components such as lenses, prisms and quarter-wave plates made of sulfur and wire diffraction gratings to demonstrate refraction, diffraction, double refraction, birefringence and polarization of millimeter waves.
He was the first to measure the pressure of light on a solid body in 1899. The discovery was announced at the International Congress of Physics during Paris Exposition Universelle,P. Lebedew,“Les forces de Maxwell-Bartoli dues à la pression de la lumière” Rapports présentés au Congrès International de Physique 2, 133 (1900). and became the first quantitative confirmation of Maxwell's theory of electromagnetism.
{{cite journal
|last=Lebedew |first=P.
|year=1901
|title=Untersuchungen über die Druckkräfte des Lichtes
|journal=Annalen der Physik
|volume=311 |issue=11 |pages=433–458
|bibcode=1901AnP...311..433L
|doi=10.1002/andp.19013111102
|url=https://zenodo.org/record/1424005
}}
An English translation of the paper as well as a historical review is in.{{Citation |last=Masalov |first=Anatoly V. |title=First Experiments on Measuring Light Pressure I (Pyotr Nikolaevich Lebedev) |date=2019 |work=Quantum Photonics: Pioneering Advances and Emerging Applications |pages=425–453 |editor-last=Boyd |editor-first=Robert W. |url=https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98402-5_12 |access-date=2024-04-16 |place=Cham |publisher=Springer International Publishing |language=en |doi=10.1007/978-3-319-98402-5_12 |isbn=978-3-319-98402-5 |editor2-last=Lukishova |editor2-first=Svetlana G. |editor3-last=Zadkov |editor3-first=Victor N.|url-access=subscription }}
In 1909, he reported that the pressure of light on gas is in agreement with predictions based on Maxwell's theory.{{Cite journal |last=Khramov |first=Yu A |date=1986-12-31 |title=Petr Nikolaevich Lebedev and his school (On the 120th anniversary of the year of his birth) |url=https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1070/PU1986v029n12ABEH003609 |journal=Soviet Physics Uspekhi |volume=29 |issue=12 |pages=1127–1134 |doi=10.1070/PU1986v029n12ABEH003609 |issn=0038-5670|url-access=subscription }}{{Cite journal |last=Lebedew |first=Peter |date=1910-06-01 |title=The Pressure of Light on Gases |url=https://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1910apj....31..385l |journal=The Astrophysical Journal |volume=31 |pages=385 |doi=10.1086/141769 |issn=0004-637X}}
Later life
In 1901, he became a professor at Moscow State University, however, he quit the University in 1911, protesting against the politics of the Ministry of Education. In the same year, he received an invitation to become a professor in Stockholm, which he rejected. He died the next year of a hereditary heart condition.
Legacy
The Lebedev Physical Institute in Moscow and the lunar crater Lebedev are named after him.
See also
References
{{Reflist}}
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Category:Physicists from the Russian Empire
Category:Academic staff of Moscow State University
Category:Saint Petersburg State Institute of Technology alumni