Sergei Medvedev

Born May 5 (17), 1891, in Moscow; died there Aug. 13, 1970. Soviet physical chemist; academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1958; corresponding member, 1943). Honored Worker in Science and Technology of the RSFSR (1943).

Medvedev graduated from the University of Heidelberg (1914) and Moscow University (1918). He took an active part in the founding of the Middle Asian University in Tashkent and was head of the Central Chemical Laboratory of the Uzbek Sovnarkhoz (Council of the Economy). From 1922 until his death, he worked at the L. Ia. Karpov Institute of Physicochemistry. In 1938 he became head of a subdepartment at the M. V. Lomonosov Moscow Institute of Fine Chemical Technology.

Medvedev’s main works were devoted to the mechanisms of oxidation reactions, as well as to radical and ion polymerization. Having shown that polymerization is a chain process, Medvedev laid down the principles for the theory of polymerization. His research work facilitated the development of methods for the industrial synthesis of many polymers. He was awarded the S. V. Lebedev Prize of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR for a series of studies on the polymerization of hydrocarbon monomers in the presence of alkali metals and their organic compounds (1971, posthumously). He received the State Prize (1946), the Order of Lenin, two other orders, and numerous medals.