What Do You Know About Oleg Lavrentiev?

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SUMMARY

The discussion centers on Oleg Lavrentiev, a significant figure in the development of nuclear fusion technology. Originally a Red Army soldier, Lavrentiev contributed to the hydrogen bomb and nuclear fusion reactor concepts, gaining recognition later in life. He defended his dissertation on electrostatic traps shortly before his 80th birthday and is now acknowledged as one of the fathers of nuclear fusion reactors. Resources for further research include various papers and articles, primarily in Russian, detailing his contributions and life.

PREREQUISITES
  • Understanding of nuclear fusion concepts
  • Familiarity with Russian scientific literature
  • Knowledge of historical context regarding Soviet scientific advancements
  • Basic research skills for navigating academic databases
NEXT STEPS
  • Research "O. Lavrent’ev" in relation to Tokamak technology
  • Explore the paper "On the history of thermonuclear synthesis in USSR" by Lavrent’ev
  • Investigate the UFN (Uspekhi Fizicheskikh Nauk) journal archives for articles related to Lavrentiev
  • Watch the Russian video interview of Lavrentiev for personal insights into his work
USEFUL FOR

Historians, physicists, and anyone interested in the evolution of nuclear fusion technology and the contributions of lesser-known scientists in the Soviet era.

Aufbauwerk 2045
I am interested in the story of Oleg Lavrentiev. He was originally a Red Army soldier from a peasant family. He studied physics in his spare time. On one base there was a technical library and he was able to afford to subscribe to a Russian physics journal.

Lavrentiev developed ideas for a hydrogen bomb and also for a nuclear fusion reactor. He wrote a letter to Stalin and came to the attention of Andrei Sakharov.

Lavrentiev was not well known for most of his life, but he is now recognized as one of the fathers of nuclear fusion reactors. Eventually he was able to attend university and do some research during the Stalin era. Then there is a long gap in my information. He defended his dissertation on electrostatic traps not long before his 80th birthday.

It's hard to find more information about him in English. I am interested in his scientific work and also how he earned his living. Apparently he was reasonably comfortable but never part of the inner circle of nuclear scientists. Maybe there is someone here from Russia who knows more about him?
 
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Have you searched for "Polywell"?
 
David Reeves said:
I have in the past but I was not specifically interested in Lavrentiev. But following your suggestion I did find one paper in English where he is a coauthor.

http://vant.kipt.kharkov.ua/ARTICLE/VANT_2003_1/article_2003_1_43.pdf
I've searched for him in a different language (and hoped my findings would have led me to bilingual websites), but as you said, there doesn't seem to be a lot about him. Often I simply ended up in some listings of memberships. And the fact there are a few famous persons with his name wasn't helpful either. I just thought his Fusionor might have been a more promising approach.
 
Some apparent background here - https://www.euro-fusion.org/newsletter/the-lost-story-of-the-russian-scientist-oleg-lavrentiev/

https://www.iter.org/newsline/56/1186

Thomas Dolan article in Physics Today (October 2011) - http://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/pdf/10.1063/PT.3.1306 (purchase required)

I found a paper citing -
Lavrent’ev O A 2012 On the history of thermonuclear synthesis in USSR, 2-nd edition (in russ.) (Kharkov, Ukraine: Kharkov Phys.-Tech. Institute (KhPhTI))

One may search on "O. Lavrent’ev", or Lavrent’ev with terms like Tokamak, etc. I suspect his articles are mostly in Russian or Ukrainian, so may search using Cyrillic text.

See first three references cited in
http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/774/1/012132/meta
 
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Astronuc said:
Some apparent background here - https://www.euro-fusion.org/newsletter/the-lost-story-of-the-russian-scientist-oleg-lavrentiev/

https://www.iter.org/newsline/56/1186

Thomas Dolan article in Physics Today (October 2011) - http://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/pdf/10.1063/PT.3.1306 (purchase required)

I found a paper citing -
Lavrent’ev O A 2012 On the history of thermonuclear synthesis in USSR, 2-nd edition (in russ.) (Kharkov, Ukraine: Kharkov Phys.-Tech. Institute (KhPhTI))

One may search on "O. Lavrent’ev", or Lavrent’ev with terms like Tokamak, etc. I suspect his articles are mostly in Russian or Ukrainian, so may search using Cyrillic text.

See first three references cited in
http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/774/1/012132/meta

Thanks for the links. It's interesting that he was still working on physics while beating his opponents at chess in his eighties. Also he did not earn his doctorate until 2004, which means he was in his late seventies. I think this a fascinating human interest story.
 
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http://ufn.ru/ufn01/ufn01_8/Russian/r018o.pdf&edit-text=&act=url
is a Google translation of
http://ufn.ru/ru/articles/2001/8/t/
(translated as "Lavrent'ev's proposal forwarded to the CPSU Central Committee on July 29, 1950"
at this paid-journal site http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1070/PU2001v044n08ABEH001122/ )

Similarly,
https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://ufn.ru/ufn01/ufn01_8/Russian/r018m.pdf&sandbox=1
is applied to http://ufn.ru/en/articles/2001/8/r/similar.html
"Role played by O A Lavrent’ev in the formulation of the problem and the initiation of research into controlled nuclear fusion in the USSR"
http://ufn.ru/ufn01/ufn01_8/Russian/r018m.pdf

This technique might help decode documents in Russian.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oleg_Lavrentiev
points to a video (in Russian)...
http://video.mail.ru/list/petr7/382/470.html
Is translation available for video yet? (Is there a new feature in Skype?)

Using https://www.google.com/search?q=Олег+Лаврентьев&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
led to
http://velikieberega.blogspot.com/2012/09/blog-post_7.html
https://translate.google.com/transl...m/2012/09/blog-post_7.html&edit-text=&act=url
(Google Chrome makes this translation process easier)
 
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robphy said:
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http://ufn.ru/ufn01/ufn01_8/Russian/r018o.pdf&edit-text=&act=url
is a Google translation of
http://ufn.ru/ru/articles/2001/8/t/
(translated as "Lavrent'ev's proposal forwarded to the CPSU Central Committee on July 29, 1950"
at this paid-journal site http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1070/PU2001v044n08ABEH001122/ )

Similarly

...

Thank you. Apparently this is a free archive of articles going back to 1918.

The site is UFN (Uspekhi Fizicheskikh Nauk) which is the same journal Lavrentiev subscribed to when he was in the army.

This is amazing.
 
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  • #11
robphy said:
I think that is the same video in my last post... slightly different URL... from wikipedia

Oh sorry. I got excited and missed that. My Russian is quite basic, but someone who really knows the language may like to post a translation?
 
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