Borgman, Ivan

Born Feb. 12 (24), 1849, in St. Petersburg; died May 4 (17), 1914, in St. Petersburg. Russian physicist.

In 1870, Borgman graduated from St. Petersburg University. He taught simultaneously there (from 1888, he was a professor) and at other educational institutions in St. Petersburg. Borgman’s major works pertained to the investigation of electrical and magnetic phenomena, the nature of electrical oscillations, and discharges in gases. Borgman was head of the St. Petersburg school of physicists. In 1906 he was elected a member of the State Council on behalf of the Academy of Sciences and St. Petersburg University, but, as a sign of protest against the dissolution of the State Duma, he left it in 1907. He was the first elected rector of the university (1905) but left this post in 1910 because of a violation of students’ rights by the police. Borgman was one of the organizers of the Russian Physico-Chemical Society. From 1875 to 1902 he was an editor of the physical section of the Zhurnal Russkogo fiziko-khimicheskogo obshchestva (Journal of the Russian Physico-Chemical Society).