TAMM 388 



TAMM, IGOR' EVGEN'EVICH (Physicist) 



I. E. Tamm was born July 8, 1895. He graduated from Mos- 

 cow University in 1918 and then taught at several universities. 

 From 1924 to 1941 and again in 1954, he was at Moscow Uni- 

 versity. Beginning in 1934, he has worked at the Physics Insti- 

 tute of the U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences. Tamm was a Corre- 

 sponding Member of the U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences from 

 1933 until 1953 when he was elected an Academician. He was a 

 Hero of Socialist Labor. In 1958 he received a Stalin Prize and 

 also the Nobel Prize. All of Tamm's students are well known 

 physicists and theoreticians. 



Tamm's theoretical investigations are in quantum mechanics 

 and its applications, in radiation, in cosmic rays, and inter- 

 action of nuclear particles. In 1932 he formulated a quantum 

 theory on the scattering of light in solid bodies and developed 

 the relativistic quantum mechanics theory of light scattering by 

 electrons. In the quantum theory of metals, Tamm and S. P. 

 Shubin gave a theory of the photoeffect in metals in 1931. In 

 1932 he predicted the existence of special surface states of 

 electrons on crystals known as the Tamm levels. In 1934 he 

 developed mathematically a quantitative theory of nuclear forces 

 based on exchange interaction of electrons and neutrinos. In 

 1937 he and I. M. Frank worked out the theory of Cherenkov ef- 

 fect, the radiation emitted by a rapidly moving electron. For 

 this work he received the Nobel Prize. In 1945 he gave an ap- 

 proximate method for calculating the interaction of nuclear 

 elementary particles. Tamm, with A. D. Sakharov, proposed in 

 1950 the utilization of an electric discharge in plasma, which is 

 placed in a magnetic field, for obtaining a controlled thermo- 

 nuclear reaction. Tamm is the author of a textbook. Basis of 

 the Theory of Electricity (1929, 6th ed., 1956). 



Tamm has attended the Pugwash Conferences. 

 Bibliography: 



Uber die Wechselwirkung der freien Elektronen mit der 



Strahlung nach der Diraschen Theorie des Elektrons und 



nach Quantenenlektrodynamik. Zeitschrift fur physik, 1930, 



Bd 62, #7-8. 



Uber eine mogliche Art der Elektronenbindung an Kristal- 



loberflachen. Physikalische Zeitschrift der Sowjetunion, 



1932, _1, #6. 



and S. Al'tshuler . Magnetic moment of the neutron. Doklady 



Akad. Nauk S.S.S.R., 1934, 1, #8. 



Exchange forces between neutrons and protons and Fermi's 



theory. Priroda, 1934, 133, #3374. 



