15 Facts About Ilya Frank

Ilya Mikhailovich Frank was a Soviet winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1958 jointly with Pavel Alekseyevich Cherenkov and Igor Y Tamm, of the Soviet Union.

Ilya Frank received the award for his work in explaining the phenomenon of Cherenkov radiation.

Ilya Frank received the Stalin prize in 1946 and 1953 and the USSR state prize in 1971.

Ilya Frank was born on 23 October 1908 in St Petersburg.

Ilya Frank's father, Mikhail Lyudvigovich Frank, was a talented mathematician descended from a Jewish family, while his mother, Yelizaveta Mikhailovna Gratsianova, was a Russian Orthodox physician.

Ilya Frank's father participated in the student revolutionary movement, and as a result was expelled from Moscow University.

Ilya Frank studied mathematics and theoretical physics at Moscow State University.

In 1934, Frank moved to the Institute of Physics and Mathematics of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

Ilya Frank became interested in the effect discovered by Pavel Cherenkov, that charged particles moving through water at high speeds emit light.

In 1946, Cherenkov, Vavilov, Tamm, and Ilya Frank were awarded a Stalin Prize for their discovery, and 1958 Cherenkov, Tamm, and Ilya Frank received the Nobel Prize in physics.

In 1944, Ilya Frank was appointed professor and became head of a department at the Institute of Physics and of the Nuclear Physics Laboratory.

Ilya Frank's laboratory was involved in the study of nuclear reactors.

In 1957, Ilya Frank become director of the Laboratory of Neutron Physics at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research.

Ilya Frank married the noted historian, Ella Abramovna Beilikhis, in 1937.

Ilya Frank died on 22 June, 1990 in Moscow at the age 81.