Vulf, Georgii

(also lurii Viktorovich Vul’f, or Wulff). Born June 10 (22), 1863, in Nezhin; died Dec. 25, 1925, in Moscow. Soviet crystallographer; corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1921).

In 1885, Vul’f graduated from the University of Warsaw. He became a professor at the universities of Kazan (1897), Warsaw (1899), and Moscow (1918). In 1911, together with a progressive group of professors, he resigned from Moscow University as a sign of protest against the reactionary policy of the Ministry of Education. At that time he transferred to the Shaniavskii People’s University, but in 1917 he returned to Moscow University.

Vul’f invented a visual, graphic method for processing the results of the measurement of crystals by means of a stereographic net that was named after him. He provided a new method for developing all the symmetry groups of crystals. Vul’f was also the author of works in the field of crystal growth, the study of liquid crystals, and crystal optics. He was the first in Russia to conduct experiments on the X-ray structural studies of crystals. In 1913 he discovered the law of interference of X rays reflected by the atomic planes of crystals and, independently of W. H. Bragg, derived the basic formula of X-ray structural analysis (the Bragg-Vul’f formula).