Iakov Kivovich Syrkin

Born Nov. 23 (Dec. 5), 1894, in Minsk; died Jan. 8, 1974, in Moscow. Soviet physical chemist. Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1964; corresponding member, 1943).

Syrkin graduated from the Ivanovo-Voznesensk Polytechnic Institute in 1919. He also worked at the institute and during the years 1925–31 was a professor there and head of the subdepartment of physical chemistry. From 1931 to 1974 he was head of the subdepartment of physical chemistry at the M. V. Lomonosov Moscow Institute of Fine Chemical Technology. From 1931 to 1952 he also headed the laboratory of molecular structure that he had organized at the L. Ia. Karpov Institute of Physical Chemistry. From 1967 to 1974, Syrkin directed the department on the structure of simple and complex inorganic compounds at the N. S. Kurnakov Institute of General and Inorganic Chemistry of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.

Syrkin’s research dealt mainly with chemical thermodynamics and chemical kinetics, including reactions in gases and solutions, mechanisms of chemical reactions, reactivities of π-complexes, catalytic conversions, and the use of tracers. He also did experimental and theoretical work on molecular structure, the experimental studies involving dipole moments, vibrational spectra, magnetochemistry, and electron paramagnetic resonance and the theoretical work dealing with the quantum chemistry of organic and inorganic compounds. Syrkin received the State Prize of the USSR in 1943. He was also awarded three orders and various medals.