Tamm, Igor Yevgenyevich (1895-1971)

Russian theoretical physicist who, with Paul Cherenkov and Ilya Frank, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1958 for their discovery and interpretation of the blue light (Cherenkov radiation) emitted from water exposed to radioactivity from radium. They showed that the radiation arises when a charged particle travels through a medium (liquid or solid) at greater than the speed of light in the medium. They were able to predict the direction and polarization of the radiation.

Tamm, the son of an engineer, was born in Vladivostok, Russia, and educated at the universities of Edinburgh and Moscow. He taught at the Moscow University 1924-34, and then moved to the Physics Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in Moscow.