Petrushevskii, Fedor Fomich

Born Mar. 24, 1828, in St. Petersburg; died there Feb. 17, 1904. Russian physicist.

Petrushevskii graduated from the University of St. Petersburg in 1851. He became a Gymnasium teacher in St. Petersburg in 1853 and later, beginning in 1857, worked in the same capacity in Kiev. In 1862, Petrushevskii became an instructor at the University of St. Petersburg, where he headed a department from 1865 to 1901. In 1865 he organized the first physics laboratory course for students in Russia. He initiated the construction of the Institute of Physics at the University of St. Petersburg in 1897. Petrushevskii became the first chairman of the Russian Physics Society in 1872, and from 1878 to 1901 he was the first chairman of the Physics Division of the Russian Physical Chemistry Society. In 1891 he became editor in chief for the exact and natural sciences of the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary. Petrushevskii’s research, which began under the guidance of H. F. E. Lenz, concerned such subjects as electromagnetism and optical instrument-making. He did work in chromatics and on the physical properties of oil paints.