Pavel Cherenkov, mathematician and physicist, and discoverer of the radiation that bears his name

28 July 1904, Novaya Chigla (Russia) - 6 January 1990, Moscow (Russia)

Pavel Alekseyevich Cherenkov graduated in physics and mathematics from Voronezh University in 1928 and two years later joined the Lebedev Institute of Physics, one of the most prestigious institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences, as a researcher.

In 1932, under the orders of the physicist Sergey Vavilov, he began studying the luminescence emitted by certain liquids when irradiated by gamma rays.

In 1934, he observed the emission of blue light from a bottle of water subjected to radioactive bombardment. From his analysis, he deduced that this effect consists of the emission of a bluish light from a liquid when electrons or other charged atomic particles move through the liquid at speeds faster than the speed of light. It proved to be of great importance in later experimental work in nuclear physics and for the study of cosmic rays. It was therefore called the "Cherenkov effect".

It is a type of shock wave that produces the bluish glow characteristic of nuclear reactors.

Radiation detectors called Cherenkov counters use this effect to make their measurements and have become standard equipment in atomic research to observe the existence and velocity of high-speed particles. For example, such a device was installed on Sputnik III.

In 1958, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, together with Soviet physicists Ilya Frank and Igor Tamm, for the discovery and interpretation of Cherenkov radiation.