Avenarius, Mikhail Petrovich

Mikhail Petrovich Avenarius was the son of a Lutheran pastor Peter Alexandrovich Avenarius (1794-1854); Born in Tsarskoye Selo on September 7 ( 19 ), 1835 .

After graduating from the 5th St. Petersburg Gymnasium (1854), and then St. Petersburg University (1858), for some time he was a supernumerary teacher of the 2nd gymnasium . In 1862 he went abroad, where for two years, he first attended university courses in Berlin and worked in the laboratory of Professor Magnus , and then in Heidelberg under the direction of Professor Kirchhoff .

In 1865 he returned to Russia and was appointed to Kiev University , assistant professor in the department of physics, since 1866 - professor. He worked at the university until 1890. All these years, only occasionally left Kiev, traveling abroad for scientific purposes, and in the last years of his life - to the village during the summer holidays to improve health. On one of his trips to Germany, he acquired a very valuable physical library, which contained a complete set of Annalen der Physik , a German scientific journal devoted to problems of physics.

In 1875, he organized at the Physics Department of Kiev University the first in Ukraine laboratory of experimental physics and a physical laboratory workshop for students. In 1876 ​​he was elected a corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences ^[3] . In 1884 he was promoted to acting state councilor .

He died on September 4 ( 16 ), 1895 in Kiev.

The works of M.P. Avenarius are devoted to thermoelectric phenomena and molecular physics . He investigated the dependence of the thermoelectromotive force on the temperature of the junctions, and derived a formula for this dependence ( Avenarius law ). He studied the liquid state and vapor with changing temperature and pressure, in particular, determined the critical temperatures of various liquids. During the years 1877-1886. in the Kiev laboratory, Avenarius and his students, O. E. Straus and A. I. Nadezhdin , obtained critical values ​​for many substances that entered the main fund of physical quantities and remained unchanged for a long time.

• Wife - Varvara Nikolaevna Terpigoreva (1842-1911).
  • Daughter - Ekaterina Mikhailovna Avenarius (1873-1925), was married to a sworn solicitor, prosecutor, lawyer Boris Stepanovich Vrasky.
    • Granddaughter - art historian, book critic and bibliographer Olga Borisovna Vraskaya (married to Levin, 1905-1985), was married to the son of journalist, editor and publisher D. A. Levin Boris (cousin of sculptor V.I. Ingal , auto designer Yu.A. Dolmatovsky and songwriter E. A. Dolmatovsky ).

• Goldman A.G. Mikhail Petrovich Avenarius and the Kiev School of Experimental Physics . - UFN , T.44, August 1951.
• Hramov Yu. A. Avenarius Mikhail Petrovich // Physicists: Biographical Reference / Ed. A.I. Akhiezer . - Ed. 2nd, rev. and add. - M .: Nauka , 1983 .-- S. 6-7. - 400 p. - 200,000 copies. (per.)