Georgy Nikolaevich Flerov
Future Academician G.N.Flerov was born on the 2nd of March, 1913 in Rostov-on-Don, into the family of Nikolai Michailovich and Elizaveta Pavlovna Flerovs. On leaving school in 1929 he worked as a general laborer, an engine-house greaser, an electrician. In 1931 he moved to Leningrad and began working in “Krasnyi putilovets” factory.
In 1933 the young worker was sent to Leningrad Polytechnic Institute to get education, the engineering and physical faculty. Here he majored consequently in thermal physics, high voltage technique and experimental nuclear physics. The last has become the matter of all his life. Georgi Nikolaevich got engaged in research at the laboratory of I.V.Kurchatov in 1937, being a student yet.
Under I.V.Kurchatov’s direction G.N.Flerov has completed his diploma work devoted to investigation of interaction between neutrons of different energies and nuclei. To get the neutrons of required energy he invented a very witty way of their deceleration by putting them through appropriately warmed oil.
In 1938 Georgi Nikolaevich began working at the laboratory of I.V.Kurchatov in Leningrad Polytechnic Institute. From the very beginning of his scientific career G.N.Flerov proved himself to be a brilliant physicist-experimenter, showed extraordinary persistence and firmness of purpose in solving the most difficult problems in nuclear physics. (>>>)
