Obituary of Kusiel Shifrin (1918-2011)

Sad news came from a small town - Albany, Oregon, USA. Professor Kusiel Solomonovich Shifrin - a member of Russian Physical and Optical Societies, International Geophysical Union, Italian Geophysical Association, Fellow of American Optical Society, outstanding scientist - passed away on the 2nd of June. Kusiel S. Shifrin was born on 26th of July 1918 in Mstislavl (Belarus). In 1940 he graduated simultaneously two departments: Department of Physics and Department of Mathematics and Mechanics of the Leningrad State University. Since 1940 to 1943 he had studied as a postgraduate student with the Ioffe Physical - Technical Institute being supervised by Yakov I. Frenkel. After he defended his thesis for candidate’s degree (equivalent of Ph.D.) in 1943, he served with the A. F. Mozhaysky Air Forces Academy, and then he had taught physics with the Kazan Aviation Institute. Since 1946, for over 20 years, he had been a head of the Atmospheric Optics Laboratory of the A. I. Voyeykov Main Geophysical Observatory. In 1951, he defended his thesis for D.Sc. degree. Since 1969 he had been a Head of the Oceanic Optics Department of the Shirshov Institute of Oceanology of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. Since 1992 to 2003 he had been a Research Professor of the Oregon State University (USA). Kusiel S. Shifrin is one of creators of the semiconductors theory. The theory he built as early as in 1943 allowed to predict and to explain for the first time a number of effects determining the semiconductor techniques performance and ways of its development. He was a leader of the worldwide known scientific school in atmospheric and ocean optics. He fundamentally contributed to the direct and inverse problems of scattering of light by differently (regularly or randomly) shaped particles as well as to a number of other important fields of the atmospheric and ocean physics. He is a founder of microwave radiometry, which is one of the most efficient remote sensing methods for the atmosphere, different meteorological formations in it, its pollution, and underlying surfaces. Published by him are over 400 scientific works including two well known (translated into English) classical monographs (“Scattering of Light in a Turbid Medium” and “Physical Optics of Ocean Water”), 5 volumes of “Tables on Light Scattering” and 8 team monographs. He organized (1973) and had led for 20 years the Working Group on Ocean Optics (WGOO) at the “Commission for the Problems of the World Ocean” at the USSR Academy of Science. The Working Group had held eleven plenary sessions and published nine its proceedings. Since 1940 to 1992 he had taught with different Russian universities (in Leningrad, Moscow and Kazan). These sorrowful days we would like to especially mention exceptionally high human features of Kusiel. He was a deeply honest, of rare modesty, very kind, ultimately benevolent and charming person and an expert in literature. He always radiated the cordiality and readiness to be of help for anybody who turned to him. These splendid Kusiel’s qualities combined with his extremely great scientific erudition, surprising sense of novelty, powerful scientific potential won unordinary deep respect and love of enormous number of people who were in contact with him in different countries and at different times. This revealed itself quite recently, in 2008, when we celebrated 90-year jubilee of Kusiel Shifrin. Kusiel’s demise is the infinite loss for the world scientific community. Without doubts, his name will enter in history of native and world science. Memory about him will remain in new fundamental scientific results he obtained, in fine monographs he wrote, in the powerful scientific school he created. Fond memories of Kusiel Shifrin will be saved for ever in our hearts, in hearts of everybody who was lucky to be in touch with this brilliant scientist, outstanding Teacher and wonderful man. K.S. Shifrin’s colleagues, friends and disciples