Members of the St. Petersburg Club of physicists. Sitting (from left to right): P. Ehrenfest, A. Yoffe, D. Rozhdesvensky, T. Afanasyev-Ehrenfest. Standing (from left to right): V. Chulanovsky, G. Weihardt, L. Isakov, G. Perlitz, V. Bursian, J. Schmidt.
Connections
Wife: Olga Antonowna Dobiasch-Roschdestwenskaja
Olga Antonowna Dobiasch-Roschdestwenskaja, Soviet educator, historian, paleographer, author, 1874-1939.
colleague: Paul Drude
colleague: Vladimir Aleksandrovich Fock
Vladimir Aleksandrovich Fock (or Fok; Russian: Влади́мир Алекса́ндрович Фок) (December 22, 1898 – December 27, 1974) was a Soviet physicist, who did foundational work on quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics.
Dmitry Sergeevich Rozhdestvensky was a prominent Soviet scientist, educator, and one of the greatest physicists who specialized in the field of optical science. He is noted for his work in the theory of atomic spectra (1920-1924), which was important for interpreting spectra in the period before quantum mechanics. He is considered to be one of the founders of the optical industry in the Soviet Union.
Background
Dmitry Sergeevich Rozhdestvensky was born on April 7, 1876, in St. Petersburg, Russian Empire. Rozhdestvensky’s father, Sergey Yegorovich Rozhdestvensky, was a director of a Saint Petersburg Gymnasium and a prominent author of numerous history tutorials for students.
Education
Rozhdestvensky’s parents encouraged him in his studies, and from childhood, he studied foreign languages. He graduated in 1894 from the Gymnasium, with a silver medal, and entered St. Petersburg University. Rozhdestvensky graduated from the mathematical section of the university in 1900 and remained at the university to prepare for a teaching career.
From 1901 to 1903 Rozhdestvensky worked with the physicist Paul Drude at the Institute of Physics in Giessen. On his return to Russia, he became a laboratory assistant at St. Petersburg University. He chose as the subject of his research the study of the course of anomalous dispersion near lines of absorption in sodium vapors.
The lack of major specialists in optics at the university obliged Rozhdestvensky to work virtually independently, and he devised an original experimental method of research, which later was widely used. This project served as the theme for his master’s dissertation, which he defended in 1912 and for which he was awarded the Mendeleev Medal of the Academy of Sciences. Extending his method to potassium, rubidium, and cesium vapors, Rozhdestvensky in 1915 defended his doctoral dissertation on simple relationships in the spectra of alkali metals.
In 1916 he was elected professor and head of the Physics Institute of Petrograd University and began to work with a group of scientists and engineers on the preparation of optical glass, in which the Russian army was seriously lacking during World War I.
Soon after the October Revolution Rozhdestvensky presented a detailed project for the organization of a State Optical Institute, which was created in 1918 and of which he was director until 1932. At the Institute, Rozhdestvensky created a leading school, from which came important Soviet scientists including A. N. Terenin, V. A. Fok, Y. F. Gross, S. E. Frish, and V. K. Prokofiev.
After being elected the corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union in 1925 and, in 1929, academician, Rozhdestvensky headed the Spectroscopic Commission until the end of his life.
Rozhdestvensky’s work in the theory of atomic spectra (1920-1924) was important for interpreting spectra in the period before quantum mechanics. This research was especially useful in the development of quantum mechanical methods of calculating spectral terms worked out by V. A. Fok.
Achievements
Views
Rozhdestvensky’s research centered basically on three problems: anomalous dispersion near the lines of absorption in atomic spectra, the theory of atomic spectra, and the theory of the microscope. His quantitative research on anomalous dispersion was based on the experimental method that he developed of combining two spectral instruments, a diffraction grating, and an interferometer, to obtain alternating light and dark bands. The visual demonstration of so-called hooks was an original way of showing refraction near the lines of absorption. This research made it possible for the first time to measure the numerical values of the ratios of intensity in the double lines of the alkali metals and the absolute values of the probability of quantum transitions, which play a very important role in the theory. The method was also successfully used for the study of discharge in gases.
Membership
In 1925 Rozhdestvensky was elected the corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union.
Interests
foreign languages
Connections
In 1908 Dmitry Rozhdestvensky was married to Olga Antonowna Dobiasch-Roschdestwenskaja, who later became one of the most prominent historians specializing in the Medieval history, as well as paleographer, writer. She became the first woman in the Russian Empire who obtained a Master's degree in 1915 and a doctoral degree in history in 1918. Also, she served as a tenured professor at the Leningrad State University and a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences in 1929.