Bronstein Matthew Petrovich General data:
02.12.1906 - 18.02.1938
Place of birth: Vinnytsia city, Podolsk province, Russian Empire (now Vinnitsa region, Ukraine).
Studied in: Leningrad State University (since 1991 St. Petersburg State Universitу) (1926-1930);
Key interests: astrophysics, cosmology, general theory of relativity, theoretical astrophysics, physics, theoretical physics, geophysics. PhD Thesis: without the protection of desertion (1934 ); ScD Thesis: Quantization of gravitational waves (1935 );
Biography:
He was born on December 2, 1906 in Vinnytsia city of Podolsk Province of Russian Empire (now Vinnytsia region, Ukraine) in the family of a doctor. There were three children in the family: the younger twin brother Isidore, and sister Mikhalina, four years older than them.
In addition to Ukrainian, he mastered many languages, including Japanese, Spanish, French, German, English and Latin, Georgian, Hebrew, and Turkish.
The boys studied at home and took external exams at the gymnasium, although the older sister graduated from the aristocratic Olginsky gymnasium in Kyiv City.
In 1923 the brothers entered the electrical engineering school, but the following year they were forced to leave it.
In 1925 he began attending the "Physical Section of the Kyiv Student Circle of Nature Researchers" at the Kyiv Higher Institute of Public Education named after MP Drahomanov. PS Tartakovsky was the leader of the circle where he began to study theoretical physics.
In 1926 he became a member of the section of researchers of the Kyiv regional branch of the Union of Educators. The young scientist considered the question of a continuous X-ray spectrum, the quantum theory of the Laue effect, and the motion of electrons near the fixed center of the field.
During 1926-1930 he studied at Leningrad State University. He published his first scientific works in 1925, that is, before he became a student. These works were devoted to the study of the photonic structure of X-rays. He worked under the guidance of physicist OO Friedman, theoretically showed the expansion of the space of our universe. He obtained new fundamental results in the field of astrophysics and geophysics, among which the Hopf-Bronstein formula for determining the surface temperature of the Sun is mentioned in the first place. He wrote a popular science book "Solar Matter".
In 1927-1928 he took part in the publication of the student astronomical journal "Astrocabical Journal" at Leningrad State University.
From 1930 he worked in the theoretical department of JI Frenkel at the Leningrad Institute of Physics and Technology, for some time he served as head of the Department of Theoretical Physics. He performed a number of works on semiconductors, then focused on relativistic quantum theory. Here in 1932 he lectured to graduate students on the general theory of relativity.
In 1931, at the initiative of students of Leningrad State University, he taught them a course in the mechanics of continuous media. In 1934/35, when nuclear physics was just unfolding, the associate professor read a course on the theory of the atomic nucleus for young employees.
In 1931 he compiled the first review of cosmology in the journal "Successes of Physical Sciences".
By 1932 he had completed a translation of the English monograph by PA Dirac, Fundamentals of Quantum Mechanics.
In 1934, for his achievements in astrophysics (after the introduction of scientific degrees in 1934) he was awarded a candidate's degree without defending a dissertation. At that time, work on stellar atmospheres was supplemented by work on white dwarfs and on the effect of electron-positron pairs on thermal equilibrium at high - stellar - energy densities.
In 1935 he defended his doctoral dissertation "Quantization of gravitational waves", devoted to the so-called cG-theory of gravity. According to the scientist's reasoning, the very concepts of space and time, and hence the formulation of the general principle of relativity and the equations of gravity, must undergo a very profound transformation in this theory. Based on the general scheme of field quantization given by Heisenberg and Pauli, he considered gravity in the weak field approximation, when it is possible not to take into account the geometric nature of the gravitational field and consider it as a tensor field in flat space-time.
On May 16, 1936, the Academic Council of the Leningrad Institute of Physics and Technology approved him as a full member of the institute (in the 1930s there was such an academic title).
Many of his revolutionary ideas are set out in the article "The ether and its role in old and new physics."
In 1937 he proved the impossibility of the decay of a photon, linking it with the fact of the expansion of the universe.
His article "Quantum Statistics" for Volume 2 of the Physical Dictionary, published in 1937, was probably his last work (only one copy was accidentally preserved, where a fragment of his article remained, in other copies it is missing, so they tried to replace the article with article by another author).
On August 6, 1937, the theoretical physicist was arrested by the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs of USSR in Kyiv city. Convicted by the Military Board of the Supreme Court of the USSR on February 18, 1938 in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) to execution, and executed on the same day, while Stalin authorized the signature of another shooting list, which included M.P. Bronstein, February 3).
By decision № 44-028 603/56 of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR of May 9, 1957, he was rehabilitated.
During his life he worked in the field of quantum theory, astrophysics, semiconductor theory, cosmology and the theory of quantum gravity.
Note, in particular, that the scientist worked on solving Einstein's equations. He believed that the cosmological problem, and especially the problem of temporal asymmetry, could be solved only within the framework of the General Theory of Relativity (contrary to Georges Lemaître's opinion), and that quantum relativistic theory was necessary for this. So, according to Bohr's hypothesis, we must take into account the conservation of energy, which Bronstein did effectively, assuming the cosmological term Λ in the equations of the General Theory of Relativity depend on time.
At the same time he wrote scientific and art books for teenagers, who highly valued S.Ya. Marshak and K. I. Chukovsky.
Main publications:
1. К вопросу о релятивистском обобщении принципа неопределенности/ Бронштейн М. П.// ДАН. 1934. T. 1. С. 388-390
2. Zur relativistischen Erweiterung des Unbestimmtheitsprinzipes)/Bronshteyn M. P.//C. R. Acad. Sci. URSS. 1934. Bd. 1, S. 390-392
3. Бронштейн М. П. Солнечное вещество: Костер. Сб. 2. Л.: Детиздат, 1934
4. Бронштейн М. П. Солнечное вещество.-Год XVIII-Альманах восьмой. М., 1935. С. 413-460
Sources:
1 Горелик Г.Е. Матвей Бронштейн и квантовая гравитация. К 70-летию нерешенной проблемы // УФН 2005, №10
2 ru.wikipedia.org
3 Горобец Б С. Круг Ландау (главы из книги*)
4 Хронология жизни М. П. Бронштейна
