Background
Alyaksandr Sadousky was born on November 24, 1859, in Vitsebsk, Belarus, descending from a Szlachta (gentry) family.
University Embankment, 7/9, St. Petersburg, Russia, 199034
From 1877 to 1881 Alyaksandr studied at Saint Petersburg University at the faculty of Physics and mathematics.
Alyaksandr Sadousky was born on November 24, 1859, in Vitsebsk, Belarus, descending from a Szlachta (gentry) family.
Alyaksandr received his primary education at home. In 1872, he entered the Aleksandrovsky Russian gymnasium in Helsinki, Finland and finished it successfully in 1877. The same year Alyaksandr entered the physics and mathematics faculty of the University of St. Petersburg, graduating from it in 1881.
Sadousky began his academic career in 1882 and taught mathematics and physics at gymnasiums and private schools, and at higher educational establishments of St. Petersburg such as the Institute of Civil Engineers (nowadays Saint-Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering), Saint Petersburg Mining Institute (nowadays Saint Petersburg Mining University) and the Naval Academy (nowadays N. G. Kuznetsov Naval Academy).
In 1890 Sadousky was appointed the head of the chair of general and theoretical physics at the Institute of Mines. Four years later he took the position of a professor at the University of Yuryev (now Tartu University in Estonia), becoming dean of the faculty of physics and mathematics in 1905, and the university’s Provost in 1906 – 1907.
In July 1915 Sadousky was invited by the Military Industrial Committee of Russia to the Russian Precise Mechanics and Optics Enterprise as a consultant to address problems related to production of optical glass for military uses. In 1916 Alyaksandr became the head of the chair of physics at the Naval Academy. In 1919 Sadousky left for Prague, and continued his academic career at Charles University.
Sadousky’s first scientific researches dealt with the studies of electromagnetic properties of various substances. He demonstrated experimentally the abnormal behaviour of bismuth in the magnetic field. Those findings were presented in his master’s dissertation defended successfully in 1894. He performed scientific research in the field of optics and spectroscopy.
In 1898, Sadousky proved theoretically the existence of rotary effect of light waves, falling on a crystal (Sadovsky effect), he calculated the rotary moments and proved the possibility of direct transformation of light energy into mechanical one. The consistency of A. Sadousky’s theoretical findings was experimentally proved only in 1935 by the American scientist R. Beth and received world-wide recognition. A. Sadousky developed also the spectral method of measuring temperature.
Alyaksandr Sadousky was a member of the Russian Physics and Chemistry Society.