Semenov, Nikolai Nikolaevich (1896–1986)

Russian physical chemist who was the first Russian to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1956 for his study of chemical chain reactions, particularly branched-chain reactions, which can accelerate with explosive velocity.

Semenov was born in Saratov and studied at Petrograd (now St Petersburg). He became professor at the Physical-Technical Institute there in 1928. He was director of the Institute for Chemical Physics at the Soviet Academy of Sciences 1931–44, and then moved to Moscow State University.

Semenov did his Nobel prize-winning work in the 1920s and summarized his results in his book Chemical Kinetics and Chain Reactions (1934).

Semenov also played an important part in resisting narrow interpretations of Marxism–Leninism in its application to chemistry.