Moisei Aleksandrovich Markov

Born Apr. 30 (May 13), 1908, in Rasskazovo, present-day Tambov Oblast. Soviet physicist; academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1966; corresponding member, 1953).

Markov graduated from Moscow State University in 1930. Since 1934 he has been at the Institute of Physics of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. He is a member of the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR; since 1967 he has been academician-secretary of the Division of Nuclear Physics of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. He has been chairman of the Interdepartmental Commission for Nuclear Physics since 1971.

Markov’s main work has been in quantum mechanics and the physics of elementary particles. He proposed the theory of nonlocalizable fields in the form of the noncommutativity of field and coordinate (1940). In 1953 he developed a compound model of elementary particles, on the basis of which he predicted the possibility of excited states of hadrons (resonances; 1955). Markov conducted fundamental research on neutrino physics (1957). He demonstrated the expediency of conducting neutrino experiments at great depths underground and the possibility of conducting such experiments in accelerators (1958). He was the first to advance the hypothesis that, with increasing energy, the total scattering cross sections of leptons in nucleons tend toward the elastic scattering cross sections in point nucleons (1963). He advanced the idea of the possible existence of elementary particles of extremely great mass (maximons) and also of friedmons (particles with microscopic total mass and dimensions that are virtually closed universes in structure). He has been awarded two Orders of Lenin, the Order of the Badge of Honor, and various medals.