Konstantinov, Boris

Born June 23 (July 6), 1910, in St. Petersburg; died July 9, 1969, in Leningrad. Soviet physicist. Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (I960; corresponding member, 1953); the academy’s vice-president from 1967. Hero of Socialist Labor (1954). Member of the CPSU from 1959.

Konstantinov studied at the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute (1926–29). From 1927 to 1935 and then from 1940 he worked at the Physicotechnical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, also serving as the institute’s director from 1957 to 1967. From 1937 to 1940 he worked at the Scientific Research Institute of the Music Industry. Beginning in 1947, he was also a professor at the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute.

Konstantinov’s principal scientific works were devoted to theoretical and applied acoustics, nuclear physics, plasma physics, and astrophysics. He conducted studies on the propagation of sound in bounded media and on the nonlinear propagation of sound in gases and proposed the wave theory of sound reverberation in closed spaces. Konstantinov also developed a universal method for the microanalysis of chemical elements and studied the physicochemical properties of stable isotopes and precision methods of isotopic analysis. In 1945 he became head of research on the industrial separation of isotopes, and in 1957, on plasma diagnostics.

Konstantinov was a deputy to the sixth and seventh convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR. A recipient of the State Prize of the USSR (1953), he was awarded the Lenin Prize (1958), two Orders of Lenin, the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, and several medals.