Nikolai Timofeevich Gudtsov

Born Nov. 1 (13), 1883, in Meshchovsk, in present-day Kaluga Oblast; died Jan. 29, 1957, in Moscow. Soviet specialist in physical metallurgy. Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1939).

Gudtsov graduated from the St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute in 1912. In 1930 he became a professor at the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute; beginning in 1943 he was a professor at the Moscow Institute of Steel. Developing the scientific ideas of B. K. Chernov and A. A. Baikov, Gudtsov founded a new school in the fields of physical metallurgy and the thermal treatment of steel. He worked out the theory of solid solutions, the theory of the crystallization of steel, the physical theory of liquation, the theory of tempering hardened steel, and the theory of the graphitization of steel. He studied the effect of impurities on the structure and properties of steel. Gudtsov prepared the USSR’s first fundamental courses for higher educational institutions, entitled “Special Steel, Its Properties, Treatment, and Use” (1920–28) and “Metallography and the Thermal Treatment of Steel” (1924–32). A recipient of the State Prize of the USSR (1943), he was awarded the Order of Lenin, two other orders, and various medals.