Yulii Khariton facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Yulii Khariton
|
|
|---|---|
| Юлий Харитон | |
Khariton on a Russian stamp issued on the 100th anniversary of his birth
|
|
| Born | February 27, 1904 |
| Died | December 18, 1996 (aged 92) Sarov, Russia
|
| Siglum | Yu.K |
| Citizenship |  Russia |
| Alma mater | Leningrad Polytechnical Institute, Soviet Union University of Cambridge, United Kingdom |
| Known for | Soviet program of nuclear weapons |
| Awards | Hero of Socialist Labour (1949, 1951, 1954) Lenin Prize (1956) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Physics |
| Institutions | Laboratory No. 2 Institute of Chemical Physics |
| Thesis | Scintillation produced by alpha-particles (1928) |
| Doctoral advisor | Ernest Rutherford |
| Other academic advisors | Abram Ioffe |
Yulii Borisovich Khariton (Russian: Юлий Борисович Харитон; born February 27, 1904 – died December 18, 1996) was a very important Russian physicist. He was a main scientist in the Soviet Union's program to create nuclear weapons.
When the Soviet Union started its program to build the atomic bomb in 1943, Yulii Khariton became the "chief designer". He worked on this program for almost 40 years. In 2004, a Russian postal stamp was made with his picture to celebrate 100 years since his birth.
Contents
Biography of Yulii Khariton
Early Life and Education
Yulii Borisovich Khariton was born in Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire, on February 27, 1904. His family was Jewish and middle class. His father, Boris Osipovich Khariton, was a journalist and editor. He had a law degree from Kiev University.
Boris Khariton worked for a newspaper called Rech. He was well-known in political groups in Russia. After the Russian Revolution in 1917, he disagreed with the new government, the Bolsheviks. Because of his views, his father was sent away from Russia in 1922. He went to the Baltic states with other professors and journalists.
His father stayed in Latvia until the Soviet Union took over in 1940. Then, at 64 years old, he was arrested. He was sent to a Gulag, which was a forced labor camp, where he later died.
Yulii's mother, Mirra Yakovlevna Burovskaya, was a theatre actress. She left Russia in 1910 for medical treatment in Europe. Yulii was six years old when she left. An Estonian woman hired by his father took care of him. Yulii's mother never returned to Russia.
Yulii was not allowed to contact his parents after he started working on secret projects in the Soviet Union. He could not travel freely outside the country.
Yulii was taught at home by his Estonian housekeeper. She taught him German. When he was eleven, he started going to a regular school. In Saint Petersburg, he went to a trade school and finished at age fifteen. He then worked at a mechanical workshop, learning how to use machines.
In 1920, he started studying mechanical engineering at the Leningrad Polytechnical Institute. But he soon changed to physics, which he found more exciting. He studied physics with famous Russian physicists like Abram Ioffe and Nikolay Semyonov. Khariton was very interested in Semyonov's work, which mixed physics and chemistry.
Semyonov saw Khariton's talent and supported his research. Khariton studied how phosphorus glows when mixed with oxygen. He wrote about his findings in both German and Russian. In 1926, Khariton finished his physics degree. He then prepared for his first trip to England.
Before leaving, he met Pyotr Kapitsa, who helped him get a scholarship. Khariton went to the University of Cambridge in England in 1926. There, he worked on his PhD in physics with Ernest Rutherford, a very famous scientist. He also worked with James Chadwick. Khariton earned his PhD from Cambridge University in 1928.
Joining the Soviet Nuclear Program
In 1928, Khariton thought about living in Germany to be closer to his mother. But he was worried by the political messages of the Nazi Party. So, he returned to the Soviet Union. His mother later moved to Palestine.
In 1931, he joined the Institute of Problems of Chemical Physics. He became the head of the explosion laboratory until 1946. He worked closely with another Russian physicist, Yakov Zeldovich. They studied chemical chain reactions that release heat.
In 1935, he earned another high degree in physical and mathematical sciences. During this time, Khariton and Zeldovich experimented with chain reactions of uranium. In 1939, they presented papers on how nuclear fission chain reactions work. This was just before World War II.
During World War II, Khariton used his knowledge of explosions to study Soviet and foreign weapons. He continued to lead the Institute of Chemical Physics.
In 1943, physicist Igor Kurchatov asked Khariton to join the Soviet atomic project. This project was at Laboratory No. 2 of the Russian Academy of Sciences. In May 1945, Khariton was part of a team sent to Berlin. They were looking into Nazi Germany's atomic bomb research. Khariton found 100 tons of uranium oxide, which was sent to Moscow. This helped speed up the Soviet Union's own nuclear work.
After the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a special committee was formed. Khariton was made the scientific director of KB-11. This was a secret design bureau located in the closed city of Sarov. Its job was to develop Soviet nuclear weapons. Today, it is known as the All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Experimental Physics (VNIIEF). Khariton stayed as its scientific director for 46 years. He was so important that he had his own private train car.
He became a member of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union in 1946. He became a full member in 1953.
In 1949, Khariton and Kirill Shchelkin reported on the first Soviet nuclear weapon, the RDS-1. It was tested on August 29, 1949. Khariton was respectful to political leaders. But he also supported the scientists working under him. Andrei Sakharov, another physicist, said Khariton was "zealous and unsparing of himself." Khariton spoke up for scientists when they wanted to change their focus. He supported requests not to detonate the RDS-220, the largest bomb ever, because of the dangers of radioactive fallout.
Awards and Legacy
Yulii Khariton received many important awards for his work:
- Hero of Socialist Labour (1949, 1951, 1954)
- Stalin Prize (1949, 1951, 1953)
- Order of Lenin (1949, 1956, 1962, 1964, 1974, 1984)
- Lenin Prize (1956)
- Order of the October Revolution (1971)
- Order of the Red Banner of Labour (1945)
- Order of the Red Star (1944)
- Gold Medal of I. V. Kurchatov (1974)
- Great Gold Medal of M. V. Lomonosov (1982)
In October 1997, a street in Sarov was renamed Akademik Khariton Street in his honor. In February 2004, a bronze statue of him was placed near the House of Scientists of VNIIEF. In 2004, a Russian stamp was made to celebrate 100 years since his birth.
See also
In Spanish: Yuli Jaritón para niños
- Russian Alsos
- Kharitonchik
