V. I .Vernadsky
V.I. Vernadsky (1863-1945) is the prominent Russian scientist of the 20th century. His scientific interests covered many disciplines such as geology, biogeochemistry, crystallography, mineralogy, geochemistry, radiology, biology and philosophy.
The research and organizational activity of V.I. Vernadsky exerted a great influence upon the development of sciences about the Earth, on formation of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
V.I. Vernadsky was born in St. Petersburg on March 12, 1863. He graduated from Physics and Mathematics Department of the Petersburg University in 1885 and after that two years enlarged his education in the Universities of Western Europe.
In the beginning of his scientific activities, V.I. Vernadsky worked as a soil scientist. In the 1880s he participated in the expeditions which had been organized by his teacher V.V. Dokuchaev (the founder of the modern soil science). Studying the mineral composition of different soils of various regions of Russia, Vernadsky became deeply interested in mineralogy and chrystallography. These sciences for long years became the main areas of his scientific activitiy as a professor.
In 1906 prof. V.I. Vernadsky was elected a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
V.I. Vernadsky was one of the first scientists who predicted the possibility of controlling the rate of the radioactive decay and using radioactive elements as energetic raw materials. At the same time he organized a special commission which began searching uranium ores in the various regions of Russia. In 1916 the first uranium deposit was discovered in the Middle Asia, and in 1918 its ores gave the first milligrams of radium in Russia.
In 1918 V.I. Vernadsky himself organized the Ukranian Academy of Sciences and became its first president.
In the early 1922 V.I. Vernadsky managed to organize the Radium Institute in Petersburg which is actively working up to our time.
In 1922 Vernadsky began studying meteorites and cosmic dust. He published a series of papers in this area. In 1935 he organized the Committee on meteorites at the Academy of Sciences and guided the works of this Committee up to the end of his life.
A.Y. Fersmsan, the nearest pupil of V.I. Vernadsky and his successor in the area of the development of geochemistry wrote about his teacher: “His general ideas will be studied and elaborated during centuries and one will discover new pages in his works which will serve as the source for new searches. Many scientists will learn his creative thought which is acute, stubborn and articulated, always genial, but sometimes poorly understood. As for young generations, he always will be a teacher in science and a striking example of a fruitfully lived life”.