Kalitin, Nikolai Nikolaevich

Born in the family of a rural teacher. In the same year, his parents moved to the suburbs of St. Petersburg , Pavlovsk , where Nikolai grew up, studied, and then worked until 1941 . He received primary home education, then until 1904 he studied at Tsarskoye Selo Grammar School .

Due to difficult material conditions, he combined his studies at the gymnasium with the work of an observer at the station of the Magnetic Meteorological Observatory in Pavlovsk, founded by the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences in 1878 . After graduating from high school, he entered St. Petersburg University at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics in the astronomy group, which he graduated in 1911 .

As a student, N. Kalitin published 4 scientific papers, spoke as a speaker in the Astronomical Society and participated in the expedition of the Academy of Sciences in Turkestan on solar eclipse , where he made aerological observations and observations on atmospheric electricity .

After university, N. Kalitin took up astrophysics - the study of the dispersion of light in interstellar space. Studying the radiation properties of the atmosphere, he became so interested in them that he moved away from astronomy and took up solely actinometry . From 1911 he worked at the Main Physical (later Geophysical) Observatory, where he then headed the Department of Actinometry and Atmospheric Optics.

At the beginning of the First World War, reserve commander Kalitin was called up for military service and appointed a teacher at the Gatchina Aviation School. Teaching cadets of meteorology, aerology and aeronautical navigation, Nikolai himself studied flying. Having received the rank of pilot, he flew on airplanes, free balloons and airships , while serving in the Higher Military Aeronautical School. Kalitin also successfully used the time of military service for scientific work; when demobilized from the army in 1918 , he already had 17 publications.

Daughter - N.N. Kalitina (b. 1926).

After returning to the Pavlovsk Observatory after the revolution, N. Kalitin began developing the scientific foundations of actinometry and soon became a leading specialist in this field; in fact, he created a new section of geophysics in the USSR. Before him, observations of solar radiation were carried out only in a few observatories, and these works were in the nature of subordinate questions. Thanks to the hard work of N. N. Kalitin, a network of actinometric stations was created according to a unified plan with purposeful tasks, which served to the rapid development of actinometry in the USSR.

In 1925, N. N. Kalitin organized a Permanent Actinometric Commission at the Main Geophysical Observatory, whose tasks included: the development of radiation dosage methods for helioaerotherapy in Soviet resorts; development of methods and devices for treating patients with the help of solar radiation; development of various types of photarios ; the study of ultraviolet, visible and infrared radiation as therapeutic factors; studies of the radiation properties of plant leaves; study of the radiation conditions of greenhouses and greenhouses to create their rational designs; radiation problems of factory actinometry - the development of methods and equipment for radiation measurements in hot shops, the fight against powerful radiation flows that are harmful to workers, etc.

On the initiative of Kalitin and under his editorship in 1926, a special journal, the Bulletin of the Permanent Actinometric Commission of the GGO, began to be published, which was the only printed actinometry publication in the world. At the International Congress of Actinometrists in Copenhagen in 1929, according to a report by N. N. Kalitin, a proposal was made to build actinometric work following the example of the USSR.

N. N. Kalitin is the author of more than 250 scientific papers and 32 inventions. His book - "Actinometry" (1938), was the result of numerous studies of the scientist, and played an important role in the development of geophysics.

Among the merits of N. Kalitin in the field of instrumentation and the development of radiation measurement techniques: dozens of original instruments proposed and built that excelled foreign analogues, including a vacuum pyranometer for recording scattered radiation , photometers for observing daytime diffused illumination, a device for measuring near-solar radiation of various wavelengths; a device for measuring the polarization of sky light in various parts of the spectrum; a device for measuring the brightness of the sky and radiation from various areas of the sky.

For the first time in the world, N. N. Kalitin built a device for determining the transparency of natural waters.

In addition to scientific activities, Professor N. N. Kalitin conducted pedagogical work, giving lectures and reports in the field of meteorological and actinometric knowledge at the Agrometeorological and Polytechnic Institutes , the Institute for the Advancement of Physicians and several other research medical institutes.

• Order of the Red Banner of Labor ,
• Honored Scientist of the RSFSR

• Soloviev V. A., Nikolai Nikolaevich Kalitin , “Meteorology and Hydrology”, 1949, No. 3
• Soloviev V. A., In memory of N. N. Kalitin, "Nature", 1950, No. 2.