Leonardo XX century: Alexander Chizhevsky

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

He was called "the Russian Leonardo da Vinci", he was the founder of space biology, aeroionification and heliobiology, biophysicist, artist, poet.

Passion

In Chizhevsky, there was always a passion for experimentation and research. It was a unique mind: the author of fundamental discoveries, scientist-inventor, substantiator of scientific theories, philosopher-cosmist. The youngest Doctor of Sciences (at the age of 21 - Doctor of Historical Sciences), heliobiologist, cosmobiologist, researcher of air ions and the influence of solar activity on earth processes, zoopsychologist, researcher of electrostatic processes in body tissues and blood cells. In 1939, he was elected Honorary President of the first International Congress on Biological Physics and Space Biology, at which he was named "Leonardo da Vinci of the 20th century" by the totality of his merits and was nominated for the Nobel Prize, but he did not succeed in getting it, although the candidacy Chizhevsky was on the list of potential nominees five times.

The sun

The main passion, the main area of research and scientific interest of Chizhevsky is the sun. The hobby of all life, the sun, as the scientist proved, is present in all spheres of our life. It affects us - harvests and years of famine, wars, revolutions, calm years, when the wheel of history smoothly goes on as usual - all this directly depends on the Sun, on its activity. Chizhevsky studied the periods of epidemics and revolutions and revealed a consistent pattern: periods of anxiety and historical upheavals are associated with the activity of the Sun. This theory was described in detail by him in his work "Physical factors of historical development."

Tsiolkovsky

Friendship with Tsiolkovsky lasted over twenty years. And even after the death of the scientist, Chizhevsky maintained close contact and corresponded with his daughter, helping her to equip her father's museum. This friendship was more than just friendship, it was a fruitful example of the interaction of two outstanding personalities. Chizhevsky considered Tsiolkovsky to be his inspirer and teacher, and he was also the main popularizer of the ideas and scientific achievements of Tsiolkovsky. He contributed to the establishment of the world scientific priority of Tsiolkovsky in the field of cosmonautics and aerodynamics, republishing in 1924 his fundamental work "Exploration of world spaces by jet devices". This friendship helped Chizhevsky to determine the sphere of his scientific interests. It helped him feel like a confident researcher - Tsiolkovsky strongly supported Chizhevsky's ideas in the field of heliology and aeroionization, which did not immediately seem significant and were considered a scientific eccentricity.

Ions and Zoology

Chizhesky began a series of experiments on animals in his youth. The essence of the experiments was reduced to teaching animals with negatively charged particles - air ions - and identifying the consequences of such an impact. In the process of experiments, the scientist was able to prove that ionized air has a positive effect on the milk yield of cows, it increases the yield in pigs and sheep, increases the yield of wheat and has a positive effect on the psyche of animals in general and increases their resistance to diseases and viruses. In 1924-1931 Chizhevsky was a researcher at the Practical Laboratory of Zoopsychology of the Main Science of the People's Commissariat for Education. In it, in 1927, they tested an electro-effluvial chandelier - the "Chizhevsky chandelier" - the emitter of these most useful negatively charged particles. Chizhevsky's studies on ionization were translated into a number of foreign languages and in total amounted to 2 volumes.

The medicine

Quite late and forced hobby of the scientist. As a prisoner of the Gulag, he did not stop scientific research. Continuing to study ionization, Chizhevsky became interested in the problem of electrostatic processes in the blood and other tissues of the body. It was in the medical field that he made one of the fundamental discoveries - the structural and systemic organization of moving blood, and he also discovered tissue electrical exchange - the so-called tissue respiration - pulmonary, humoral and cellular. And also discovered the most important physiological phenomenon - electrostatic dynamism, which controls the electrical functions of blood and cells.