Cherenkov, << chihr yihn KAWF or chuh REHNG kawf, >> Pavel Alekseyevich (1904-1990), a Russian physicist, was awarded the 1958 Nobel Prize in physics for discovering and interpreting what has come to be known as the Cherenkov effect or Cherenkov radiation in the study of high-energy particles. Cherenkov identified this phenomenon when he observed that a bottle of water subjected to radioactive bombardment emitted blue light. He theorized that this effect was caused by charged atomic particles moving faster than the speed of light in water. The Cherenkov radiation is analogous with the more well-known phenomenon called a sonic boom.
This discovery of the Cherenkov effect was of great importance in later experiments in nuclear physics and in the study of cosmic rays, high-energy particles that reach the earth from space (see Cosmic rays ). Cherenkov later worked on a detector for observing the velocity of high-speed particles. He shared the Nobel Prize with fellow Russians Ilya Frank and Igor Tamm (see Frank, Ilya M. ; Tamm, Igor Yevgenyevich ).
Cherenkov was born on July 28, 1904, into a peasant family in the Voronezh region of Russia. In 1928, Cherenkov graduated from the Physico-Mathematic Faculty of Voronezh State University. In 1930, he took up a post in the Lebedev Institute of Physics in the U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences. There he rose to the position of professor of experimental physics. He died on Jan. 6, 1990.
