Russian Fathers of America

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

By the early 1930s, about two hundred of the largest scientists of Russian origin were working at universities and other leading scientific institutions in the United States. The names of these people were full of pages of newspapers and magazines, before the Second World War, all two hundred Russians appeared in the prestigious yearbook "Who's Who?"

The Americans rightly consider the same Igor Sikorsky as their national genius and give him the most important place in the history of the American twentieth century. But what is remarkable, Igor Ivanovich himself, like many great compatriots who shared the American emigration with him, considered himself a Russian until his death. In this seditious issue, we will look at the most striking examples of what the Russian emigration gave America.

VLADIMIR KOZMICH ZVORYKIN

The Russian father of American television. What did he do in Russia. Graduated with honors from the Technological Institute in St. Petersburg, while still a student, he participated in the experiments of "farsightedness" of the famous professor B. L. Rosinga, as recalled in his 1947 book The Future of Television: “When I was a student (in 1907-1912), I studied with the physics professor Rosinga, who, as you know, was the first to use a cathode ray tube to receive television images. I was very interested in his work and asked permission to help him. We spent a lot of time talking and discussing the possibilities of television. That's when I realized the shortcomings of mechanical scanning and the need for electronic systems. " During the First World War, he served at a field radio station in Grodno, taught at the Officer's radio school in Petrograd.

Reasons for emigration.

In the first revolutionary years, the rank of lieutenant and non-proletarian origin (born into the family of a wealthy merchant) were similar to death. Zvorykin himself later recalled: “It became obvious that there was no need to expect a return to normal conditions, in particular for research work, in the near future … Moreover, I dreamed of working in a laboratory to realize the ideas that I was hatching. the conclusion that for such a job it is necessary to leave for another country, and such a country seemed to me America. The last impetus to leave was the information that the warrant for Zvorykin's arrest had already been signed.

What he did in America.

It was immediately claimed by Westinghouse, the leader in the American electronics market. "I confess, I understood almost nothing from that first story about his invention, but I was very impressed with this man … just fascinated by his persuasiveness," one of his employers would later say about the future inventor of television. In 1923, Zvorykin filed a patent application for an electronic method of image transmission and a few years later completed the creation of an integral electronic television system. In 1929, he went to work at the Radio Corporation of America, where David Sarnov, who was already working here, also a native of the Russian Empire, invited Zvorykin to the position of head of the electronics laboratory.

And soon he showed the world a "high-vacuum television receiver", which is now called a kinescope. And also a transmitting cathode-ray tube - an iconoscope, having managed to highlight blue, red, green colors in its beam and obtain a color image. "The iconoscope is a modern version of the human eye," Vladimir Zvorykin proclaimed at the time. In 1931, the first test broadcasts were made in New York. The improved picture tube and iconoscope of Zvorykin opened a new era in the development of radio electronics. Interestingly, when the Americans tried to assign the title of "father of television" to Zworykin, he was confused:

"I invented the picture tube and I do not claim anything else!" Television remained Zvorykin's main scientific passion, but not the only one. He stood at the origins of the development of electron microscopy. He became a pioneer in the use of electronics in biology and medicine. He has patented inventions in the field of electronic support for guided missiles. And during the Second World War he took up (and again successfully) the development of night vision devices and aerial bombs with an electronic guidance head. One of his colleagues called it "a gift to the American continent."

VLADIMIR NIKOLAEVICH IPATIEV

The Russian father of the American petrochemical industry. What did he do in Russia. After graduating from the Mikhailovsky Artillery School, he worked at St. Petersburg University. In 1916 he became an academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. The recommendation, signed by prominent scientists, emphasized: "The works of Ipatiev are more diverse than the works of Sabatier, who received the Nobel Prize in 1912 … Russia has taken a new, firmer, undoubtedly completely independent position in the study of contact catalysis."