Vladimir Evgenevich Stepanov

Born Dec. 1 (14), 1913, in the village of Shcheglovka, in what is now Donetsk Oblast. Soviet physicist. Corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1968). Member of the CPSU since 1942.

From 1928 to 1931, Stepanov was a machinist and a worker on a cupola furnace in the Donbas. He graduated from Moscow State University in 1937 and from 1937 to 1941 worked at the Tashkent Observatory. From 1941 to 1946 he served in the Soviet Army. In the years 1946–53, Stepanov worked at the observatory of the University of L’vov, first as a senior research worker and then as director. From 1953 to 1955 he was at Moscow State University, and from 1955 to 1962, at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory. In 1962 he became deputy director, and in 1964 director, of the Siberian Institute of Terrestrial Magnetism, the Ionosphere, and Radio-wave Propagation (Irkutsk). In 1972 he became chairman of the presidium of the East Siberian branch of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.

Stepanov solved transport equations for a magnetic field with allowance for absorption and dispersion. He proved that the magnetic field of certain sunspots has a whirlpool structure, demonstrated the existence of anisotropy in the electrical conductivity of solar plasma, and proposed a mechanism for heating matter in the disturbed chromosphere. Stepanov proved the interconnection of magnetic regions on the sun’s surface. He created a spectrograph having double reflection and a magnetograph capable of simultaneously recording the three components of a field.

Stepanov was a deputy to the ninth convocation of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. He has been awarded five orders and various medals.