Vladimir Fock

Born on 22 December 1898 in St Petersburg, Russia, physicist Vladimir Fock made seminal contributions to quantum theory and general relativity. He enrolled at the University of Petrograd (formerly St Petersburg) in 1916 but left his studies to serve in the army during World War I. In 1918 he returned to the university, from which he graduated in 1922 and where he would remain for the rest of his career. Fock was given the opportunity to study abroad in Göttingen and Paris for a year when he was awarded a grant in 1927. After returning to the Soviet Union, he pursued fundamental research in quantum mechanics and general relativity, developing the Hartree–Fock method in 1930 and the Dirac-Fock-Podolsky formalism of quantum electrodynamics in 1932. Also in 1932 he became professor of theoretical physics at Leningrad University (formerly Petrograd University); published the first Russian textbook on quantum theory; and became a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Like many of his country’s scientists, Fock was arrested several times in the 1930s during the Great Purge. Nevertheless, he would continue his fundamental work in theoretical physics over the next several decades. Among his career milestones were his promotion to full membership in the USSR Academy of Sciences in 1939 and the publishing of his influential monograph The Theory of Space, Time and Gravitation in 1955. He was also awarded the Stalin Prize in 1946 and the Lenin Prize in 1960. Fock died at age 76 in 1974.

Date in History: 22 December 1898