Viktor Cherdyntsev

Born May 4 (17), 1912, in Moscow; died there Aug. 16, 1971. Soviet physicist and geochemist. Doctor of sciences in physics and mathematics (1947).

A student of V. I. Vernadskii and V. G. Khlopin, Cherdyntsev served on the staff of the Radium Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR from 1930 to 1944 and on the staff of the Institute of Astronomy and Physics of the Academy of Sciences of the Kazakh SSR from 1944 to 1960. From 1946 to 1960, he was also the head of the subdepartment of experimental physics at the Kazakh University in Alma-Ata; he became a professor at the university in 1948. In 1960 he became the head of the laboratory of absolute age determination at the Geological Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in Moscow.

Cherdyntsev’s main works dealt with the geochemistry of isotopes, nuclear geophysics, and radiogeology. Cherdyntsev was the first to substantiate the origin of heavy elements in massive stars. In 1954, together with P. I. Chalov, he discovered the spontaneous fission of the uranium isotopes ²³⁴U and ²³⁸U; the spontaneous fission of the two uranium isotopes is called the Cherdyntsev-Chalov effect. Cherdyntsev demonstrated the importance of radioactive and radiogenic isotopes, such as ⁴He and ⁴⁰Ar, in the study of the earth’s upper mantle.