April 15, 1896 – Birth of Nikolai Semyonov, great physicist, chemist, mathematician, and Nobel Prize winner

He studied physics, chemistry, and mathematics at the University of Saint Petersburg and, in 1920, began directing laboratories and institutes for Physical Chemistry in Leningrad, Moscow, and other parts of the USSR.

Initially interested in the study of molecular physics and electronic phenomena, in 1922, together with Piotr Kapitsa, he discovered a method to measure the magnetic field of an atomic nucleus, which would later be improved by Otto Stern and Walther Gerlach.

In 1925, together with Yákov Frenkel, he studied the kinetics of the condensation and adsorption of vapors. In 1927, he studied the ionization of gases, as well as the chemistry of the electron and, a year later, together with Valdímir Fok, he created the theory of the broken discharge of dielectrics.

Later he dedicated himself to chemical kinetics with great contributions throughout his career and to the field of chemical chain reactions.

He received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1956 together with the English chemist Cyril Norman Hinshelwood, for their research on the mechanism of chemical reactions.

If you want to know more about this scientist, click on the following link: Nikolai Nikolayevich Semyonov