Imyanitov, Ilya Moiseevich

Ilya Moiseevich Imyanitov was born on March 14, 1918 in Torzhok in the family of a railway employee. Soon the family moved to Petrograd, where in 1926 Ilya Imyanitov entered the Eleventh Unified Labor School (the former Annenshule gymnasium). After graduating from school in 1935, I. M. Imyanitov entered the Leningrad Industrial Institute at the Faculty of Engineering and Physics. During the student years of I.M. Imyanitov, the teachers of future physicists were such scientists as G. A. Grinberg , P. P. Kobeko, E. P. Nikolai, V. M. Tuchkevich , Ya. I. Frenkel . Recalling his professors, and in particular Ya. I. Frenkel, Imyanitov said that the lectures of this outstanding scientist and his other colleagues taught students to perceive scientific research not just as a systematic process of acquiring knowledge, but as a dynamic process that generates a new quality as a result of a constant generalization of material and a new research strategy. In 1940, Ilya Moiseevich graduated from the institute with a degree in experimental physics and was sent to work as a research engineer at the Kirov Plant . Together with him, his friend from school, a graduate of the electromechanical faculty of the Polytechnic University, Daniil German, who later became the famous writer Granin, was sent to the Kirov Plant. The friendship of these people subsequently influenced the fate of each of them.

In the very first days of the war, I.M. Imyanitov joined the ranks of the people's militia. In October 1941, he, an ordinary radio operator, was seriously wounded in one of the battles near Leningrad and was sent to the hospital, where he spent the entire siege winter of 1941-42. In 1942, I.M. Imyanitov was evacuated to Sverdlovsk , where after demobilization for disability began to work at the All-Union Electrotechnical Institute. V.I. Lenin. Soon VEI re-evacuated to Moscow, and Ilya Moiseevich joined the Main Geophysical Observatory (GGO), which was also in Sverdlovsk at that time.

While working at GGO, Imyanitov became interested in atmospheric electricity problems. It is likely that this was influenced by Ya. I. Frenkel, who entered the State Civil Society in 1945 and dealt with the formation of fogs, precipitation, and the origin of atmospheric electricity. Frenkel emphasized the essential role of cloud electricity in electrifying the atmosphere and pointed out the need for its experimental study. Since 1945, Ilya Moiseevich devotes all his scientific activity to the study of atmospheric electricity.

Instruments and methods for studying atmospheric electricity

As a result of graduate work led by Frenkel Imyanitov, the theory of parametric converters was created, which allows creating effective electrometers, magnetometers, and an electric field strength meter - an electrostatic fluxmeter . The device that he designed turned out to be so successful that it is still practically unchanged. Only the elemental base and structure of the construction of the measuring circuit changed. The next task was to develop a method for measuring the total vector of the electric field of the atmosphere from an aircraft. This problem was solved theoretically and practically implemented. At the same time, a method and a device was developed for measuring the electric field in a highly ionized medium of the upper atmosphere, used on the third artificial Earth satellite ( Sputnik-3 ), and on geophysical rockets. VV Mikhailovskaya and Ya. M. Schwartz actively participated in the development of devices.

Electricity Free Atmosphere

The development of new instruments for measuring electric field strength made it possible to “tear off” measurements from the surface of the earth and begin research directly in the atmosphere and inside the clouds. Together with his employees, he took part in sensing the upper atmosphere. Using the original rocket electrostatic fluxmeter developed by them, the first data of measurements of the electric field near the surface of the rockets during their flights in the upper atmosphere were obtained. These works were performed in the second half of the 50s - beginning of the 60s. The International Geophysical Year made it possible to launch large-scale studies of atmospheric electricity (land and aviation, ship and Antarctic). During this period, a network of observations of atmospheric electricity in the surface layer was created and the World Atmospheric Electricity Data Center was founded. Using the network, useful information was obtained about the anthropogenic impact on atmospheric electricity.

Electrification of airplanes in clouds and precipitation

In the 50s there was a sharp increase in the fleet of civil aviation and the transition of military aircraft to high-speed all-weather jet aircraft. In this regard, there was a need to deepen knowledge about the physical conditions of flight and the interaction of aircraft with the environment, therefore, the ideas of IM Imyanitov met with understanding among the leaders of the Ministry of Civil Aviation and aviation institutes. Thus, data on the electric field were used in tests of the first radars of civilian aircraft to warn pilots about the danger that clouds can pose. Information about the chargeability of aircraft was necessary for their designers, and data on electric fields near thunderclouds were used to create instructions for civil aviation pilots. The data on the electrification of aircraft in layered rain clouds and electric fields in them were used in methodological letters addressed to employees of aviation hydrometeorological stations and aimed at ensuring the issuance of recommendations to pilots on avoiding areas of increased electrical activity in the clouds.

Cloud Electricity

The next significant series of works devoted to the study of the electrical structure of clouds using direct aircraft sensing was started in 1949, immediately after the development of an airplane electrostatic fluxmeter. First, underdeveloped convective clouds were studied, then powerful cumulus clouds and, finally, thunderstorms. We studied the electricity of layered clouds and layered clouds with flooded convection. Unique data were obtained on the electric fields in the clouds, including cases of lightning striking the aircraft. Ilya Moiseevich took a personal part in flights, showing calm and restraint in difficult and far from safe situations.

Laboratory simulation of cloud electrification processes

Studying the electrification of airplanes in the clouds, Imyanitov came to the conclusion that non-inductive contact electrification could become a possible process leading to the accumulation of electric charges in the clouds - the process of separation of electric charges between colliding cloud particles due to differences in their physicochemical properties. The hypothesis expressed was in need of confirmation at the experimental level. For this, experiments were conducted in fog chambers simulating a cloud environment. In a number of experiments, ice particles were replaced by particles of various coarse aerosols. The experiments made it possible to explain the process of electrification of volcanic clouds. In experiments with ice particles, the effect of strong electrification during the interaction of particles of ice grains with a cloud of ice crystals was demonstrated.

In recent years, the attention of Ilya Moiseevich has been attracted by the development of meteorology from the standpoint of the economy — the science of strategy and tactics of managing the economy in conditions of limited resources. He proposed an original approach to assessing the effectiveness of meteorological measures - the meteorological filter method - and showed the possibility of using this method by solving some particular problems related to the influence of atmospheric electricity on aviation. The results of this series of works are published in the brochure "Method for assessing the economic efficiency of meteorological events and its applications" (1985).

Ilya Moiseevich was convinced that in the era of rapid technological progress, a new approach to the problems of science, technology, and economy was absolutely necessary. In an article published in 1975 in the Literary Newspaper, he argued that, unlike our ancestors, who lived in a world that has remained unchanged for generations and can be called the "world of things," we live in a "world of processes "When the world around us changes at an incomprehensible speed, and this circumstance requires fundamental changes in the thinking of people involved in science and technology. He showed on a number of examples what detrimental consequences this misunderstanding of this reality of the modern world can lead to. An article published under the title “Typical atypical situation” caused a wide public outcry in the Soviet Union and was reprinted in foreign countries. Even today, this article sounds extremely relevant, convincing in the historical conditionality of ideas and principles, under the sign of which there is a restructuring of our whole life.

Ball Lightning

I. Imyanitov devoted a lot of energy to scientific and popularizing activities. He spoke on television, wrote articles in Soviet encyclopedic publications, published (co-authored with D. Tikhiy) an entertaining book accessible to the widest readership about such an object as ball lightning , a questionnaire was sent to the text of the book, addressed to everyone who came across everyday life with this natural phenomenon. After the book was published, he received more than a thousand letters describing ball lightning and the amazing phenomena that random witnesses took for ball lightning.

In adulthood, Ilya Moiseevich devoted more and more mental energy and time to literary work, to which he was attracted from a young age. He became the author of a number of stories, short stories and essays published in magazines and published in a book publication under the pseudonym Ilya Yanitov. The collection of short stories “Path in the Atmosphere” was very well received in the most diverse reader circles, in which, with its inherent soft humor and hidden bitterness, it shows how tortuous and difficult the path is, leading to the comprehension of truths. The problems of scientific creativity - the ups and downs of the emergence, development and implementation of scientific ideas - the theme that undoubtedly dominates his work, is not limited, however, to those to which he devotes his literary works. Looking closely at the life of modern society, he could not help but think about such problems as the role of the individual in history or the influence of the socio-political processes of our time on the fate of mankind. The result of such thoughts was "Tales of the Presidents" - a kind of political satire, ridiculing the pagan deification of the rulers, exposing the spiritual wretchedness of the temporary workers, on whom life and death of entire nations sometimes depend. But a completely unexpected embodiment of his reflections on life and people was found in the fairy tale Utilities, which appeared on the pages of the children's magazine Iskorka. The heroes of the tale are tiny little people who quietly live among us. They are sympathetic, but distantly watching our lives. Rejoicing and sorrowing with us, utiliti never cease to be amazed by the countless and incomprehensible rules and laws for them, to which people subordinate their lives. Pure-hearted, reasonable and simple-minded, strict and loving, striving “to get to the bottom of everything”, utilities are in many ways akin to their creator, the good storyteller IM Imyanitov. The tale ends sadly: discouraged by the incomprehensibility of the world of people utopits leave them, go to unknown distances.

• I. M. Imyanitov, K. S. Shifrin Current state of research on atmospheric electricity , UFN , 1962, vol. 76, issue 4
• Daniil Granin "I am going to a thunderstorm"
• Sputnik-3

Books

• 1953 Imyanitov I. M. Measurement of elements of atmospheric electricity / V. N. Kedrolivansky, M. S. Sternzat. Meteorological instruments. - L .; M: Hydrometeoizdat, 1953.
• 1955 Imyanitov I. M. Measurement of elements of atmospheric electricity / L. G. Kachurin. Laboratory work on meteorology. - L .; M .: Gidrometeoizdat, 1955.
• 1957 Imyanitov IM Instruments and methods for studying the electricity of the atmosphere. - M.: Gostekhizdat, 1957.
• 1965 Imyanitov I.M., Chubarina E.V. Electricity of the free atmosphere.- L .: Gidrometeoizdat, 1965.
• 1969 Imyanitov I. M. Measurement of elements of atmospheric electricity / L. G. Kachurin. A guide to laboratory work on experimental atmospheric physics. - L .: Gidrometeoizdat, 1969.
• 1970 Imyanitov I.M. Electrification of airplanes in clouds and precipitation. — L .: Gidrometeoizdat, 1970.
• 1971 Imyanitov I.M., Chubarina E.V., Schwartz Y. M. Electricity of clouds. — L .: Gidrometeoizdat, 1971.
• 1980 Imyanitov I.M., Tikhiy D. Ya. Beyond the Boundary of the Laws of Science. — M.: Atomizdat , 1980.
• 1981 Imyanitov I.M., Evteev B.F., Kamaldina I.I. Methodical letter: Physical and meteorological conditions leading to the defeat of aircraft by atmospheric-electric discharges outside cumulonimbus clouds. — L .: Gidrometeoizdat, 1981.
• 1984 Evteev B. F. .. Imyanitov IM Methodical letter: Reasons for the static electrification of aircraft and measures to reduce its danger. — L .: Gidrometeoizdat, 1984
• 1985 Laboratory simulation of contact electrification of cloud particles / I. P. Dyakonova, I. M. Imyanitov, A. I. Kartsivadze, N. N. Klimin, L. S. Mordovina, V. P. Morozov, O. A. Faber, E. V. Chubarina.— L .: Hydrometeoizdat, 1985.
• 1985 Imyanitov IM Method for assessing the economic efficiency of a meteorological event and its applications. — L .: Gidrometeoizdat, 1985.
• 1989 Imyanitov I. M .. Chubarina E. V. Electrical characteristics of the atmosphere and clouds // Clouds and Cloud Atmosphere: Reference Book / Ed. I. P Mazina, A. Kh. Khrgiana . — L.: Gidrometeoizdat, 1989.

• 1963 " Invention " (short story)
• 1965 “ Positive Feedback ” (short story)
• 1965 " TK " (story) https://web.archive.org/web/20080225085457/http://www.az-design.ru/Projects/AZLibrCD/Fantast/TZ_janitov.shtml
• 1966 " First Steps " (short story)
• 1975 “ Typical atypical situation ” (article)
• 1967 The Instrument .
• 1978 " Marginal notes. Reflections at the Bookshelf
• 1978 " Peace of the Gods "
• 1981 " Tales of the Presidents "
• 1982 " Path in the atmosphere "
• 1982 " Tests " (fragments of the story) http://nt.ru/tp/nf/is.htm
• 1982 " First Steps to the Cloud "
• 1984 “ Teacher and student ” (fairy tale) http://lib.uka.ru/lib2/27/Yanitov/Yanitov_Uchitel_i_uchenik.htm
• 1984 “ When You Become Little ” ( short story)
• 1985 “ When Courage was Invented ” (parable) http://bookz.ru/authors/il_a-anitov/ef6baacb7df5/1-ef6baacb7df5.html
• 1987 “The Healer ” (short story) http://books.rusf.ru/unzip/add-2003/xussr_ty/yaniti13.htm?1/1