Isaak Kikoin - Biography

Isaak Konstantinovich Kikoin (Исаак Константинович Кикоин) (March 28, 1908, Žagarė, Lithuania - December 28, 1984, Moscow, USSR) was a Soviet physicist and academic. He was awarded the Stalin/Lenin Prize six times (1942, 1951, 1953, 1959, 1967, 1980), named a Hero of Socialist Labor (1951), and was a recipient of the Kurchatov Medal (1971).

Kikoin was with Igor Kurchatov as one of the founders of the Kurchatov Atomic Energy Institute, which developed the first Soviet nuclear reactor in 1946. This was the lead-in to the Soviet atomic bomb project with the first atomic bomb test taking place in 1949.

In 1970, Kikoin (jointly with Kolmogorov) started issuing Kvant magazine, a popular science magazine in physics and mathematics for school students and teachers.

See also

• Russian Alsos