Georgy Nikolayevich Flerov, also spelled Flyorov (; 2 March 1913 – 19 November 1990), was a Soviet physicist who is known for his discovery of spontaneous fission and his important contribution towards crystallography and material science, for which, he was honored with many awards.

Biography

Flerov was born on 2 March 1913 in Rostov-on-Don in Russia. His grandfather was a priest in the Russian Orthodox Church—his mother was Jewish. After finishing schooling in 1929, he was trained as a mechanic and later as an electrician, first working as a technician at the Kirov Plant. Flerov's urgings to "build the uranium bomb without delay" eventually led to the development of the Soviet atomic bomb project.

In the 1970s, he claimed as his discovery two transition metal elements: seaborgium and bohrium.

He founded the Flyorov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions (FLNR), one of the main laboratories of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna in 1957, and was director there until 1989. Also during this period, he chaired the Scientific Council of the Soviet Academy of Sciences.

Honours and awards

  • Hero of Socialist Labour (1949)
  • Two Orders of Lenin (1949, 1983)
  • Order of the October Revolution (1973)
  • Order of the Red Banner of Labour, three times (1959, 1963, 1975)
  • Order of the Patriotic War, 1st class (1985)
  • Lenin Prize (1967)
  • Stalin Prize, twice (1946, 1949)
  • Marian Smoluchowski Medal (1974)
  • USSR State Prize (1975)
  • Honorary Citizen of Dubna
  • The element flerovium (atomic number 114) named after him in 2012

References

  • Significant Flerov Dates
  • Annotated bibliography of Georgy Flerov from the Alsos Digital Library
  • A draft of Flerov's letter to Stalin