Nikolay Semenov
Facts
Photo from the Nobel Foundation archive.
Nikolay Nikolaevich Semenov
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1956
Born: 3 April 1896, Saratov, Russia
Died: 25 September 1986, Moscow, USSR (now Russia)
Affiliation at the time of the award: Institute for Chemical Physics of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Moscow, USSR (now Russia); Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, USSR (now Russia)
Prize motivation: “for their researches into the mechanism of chemical reactions”
Prize share: 1/2
Work
During chemical reactions, atoms and molecules regroup and form new constellations. When molecules formed during a reaction readily react with molecules present from the beginning, a chain reaction can occur. Explosions and fire are examples of chain reactions. During the 1930s Nikolay Semyonov analyzed conditions and sequences of events involved in chain reactions from a theoretical and mathematical standpoint. Among other things, he found that the theoretical results corresponded with observations of the reactions between phosphorus and oxygen and between hydrogen and oxygen.
Nobel Prizes and laureates
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