Nikolai Vasilevich Belov

Born Dec. 2 (14), 1891, in Janów, Poland. Soviet crystallographer and geochemist; academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences (AN SSSR; 1953) and corresponding member (1946); Hero of Socialist Labor (1969).

Belov graduated from Petrograd Polytechnic Institute (1921). In 1938 he became director of the structure department of the Institute of Crystallography of the AN SSSR. In 1946 he became a professor at the University of Gorky, and in 1953, at Moscow University. His principal works are in crystal chemistry, structural mineralogy, and geochemistry. Belov and his school have deciphered more than 60 complex structures, primarily silicates (The Second Chapter of the Crystal Chemistry of Silicates), derived 1,651 groups of antisymmetry, and developed and applied a number of direct methods for deciphering structures.

Since 1957 he has been chairman of the National Committee of Soviet Crystallographers and since 1966, president of the International Union of Crystallographers. He received the State Prize of the USSR (1952) and the M. V. Lomonosov Gold Medal of the AN SSSR (1966). Belov has been awarded two Orders of Lenin, the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, and medals.