Mikhail Vasilievich Lomonosov

Library of Congress

[b. Denisovka, Russia, November 8, 1711, d. St. Petersburg, Russia, April 15, 1765]

Although little known among English-speaking nations, Lomonosov is recognized as a great author and scientist in Russia -- he even has a large naval vessel named for him. He created the system of higher education in Russia and made Moscow University possible; in 1940 the university was renamed the M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University. Lomonosov also was a first-rate poet and writer of fiction. As a scientist he anticipated many discoveries attributed in the West to much later physicists, geologists, astronomers, and inventors.

ADVERTISEMENT

The Russian chemist and physicist Mikhail Vasilevich Lomonosov (1711-1765) proposed advanced scientific theories, but the diversity of his activities and interests hindered him from gaining widespread recognition.

Mikhail Lomonosov was born on Nov. 8, 1711, in the village of Denisovka. There being few opportunities for education in his native village, he ran away at the age of 19 to Moscow, where he entered a theological seminary and began to study for the priesthood.

Having displayed outstanding abilities as a scholar, young Lomonosov was chosen in 1735 to attend lectures given at the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg. This experience changed the whole direction of his career. The St. Petersburg Academy was at this time promoting a series of studies on the material resources of Siberia for which it needed trained chemists and metallurgists. From 1736 to 1741 Lomonosov studied these subjects in Germany, first at the University of Marburg, where he gained a thorough grounding in the basic sciences, and later at the famous mining academy at Freiburg.

On his return to Russia, Lomonosov became a member of the St. Petersburg Academy, and the remainder of his life was devoted almost exclusively to its affairs. He soon emerged as the contentious leader of the group of native Russian scientists in the academy opposed to the clique of foreign members, largely German, who had been imported into its membership at its foundation to stimulate Russian science. In 1745 he was appointed professor of chemistry at the academy, where he built a chemical laboratory for instruction and research. Here he gave one of the earliest courses in practical instruction in chemistry.

Although Lomonosov published much on various aspects of physics and chemistry, his works were mainly in the form of dissertations with a limited circulation. His many activities seem to have prevented him from completing many of his projects, and much of his original work was never published.

Lomonosov's physical and chemical work was characterized by its emphasis on the use of atomic and molecular modes of explanation. In a century when most scientists regarded heat as material substance, he argued that heat was in fact a form of motion - the result of the motion of the molecules which constitute matter. His essentially physical approach to chemistry led him to place great emphasis on quantitative measurements. In this he was certainly ahead of his time, although the claims that he anticipated Antoine Laurent Lavoisier in stressing the conservation of mass in chemical reactions and recognizing the chemical role of air in combustion are certainly exaggerated.

Lomonosov's other scientific interests were electricity, light, mineralogy, meteorology, and astronomy. He observed the transit of Venus in 1761 and concluded that Venus had an atmosphere "similar to, or perhaps greater than that of the earth." He also made significant contributions to the philological study of the Russian language, including the development of a scientific vocabulary, and wrote a controversial history of Russia.

Although Lomonosov was a man of immense talent, his creative energies were somewhat thwarted by his domineering nature and quarrelsome disposition. He died from influenza in St. Petersburg on April 4, 1765.

Further Reading

A highly laudatory biography is by the famous Russian chemist Boris N. Menshutkin, Russia's Lomonosov: Chemist, Courtier, Physicist, Poet (trans. 1952). See also Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov on the Corpuscular Theory, translated with an introduction by Henry M. Leicester (1970). The literary and cultural background of Lomonosov's work is given in Hans Rogger, National Consciousness in Eighteenth-century Russia (1960). Scientific aspects are discussed in Alexander Vucinich, Science in Russian Culture: A History to 1860 (1963).

For more information on Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov, visit Britannica.com.

(1711 - 1765), chemist, physicist, poet.

Mikhail Lomonosov was born in a small coastal village near Arkhangelsk. His father was a prosperous fisherman and trader. At age nineteen Lomonosov enrolled in the Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy in Moscow, a religious institution where he learned Latin and was exposed to Aristotelian philosophy and logic. In 1736 he was one of sixteen students selected to continue their studies at the newly established secular university at the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. Immediately the Academy sent him to Marburg University in Germany to study the physical sciences under the guidance of Christian Wolff, famous for his versatile interest in the links between physics and philosophy. He also spent some time in Freiberg, where he studied mining techniques. He sent several scientific papers to St. Petersburg. After five years in Germany, he returned to St. Petersburg and began immediately to present papers on physical and chemical themes. In 1745 he was elected full professor at the Academy.

Lomonosov drew admiring attention not only as "the father of Russian science" but also as a major modernizer of national poetry. He introduced the living word as the vehicle of poetic expression. According to Vissarion Belinsky, who wrote in the middle of the nineteenth century: "His language is pure and noble, his style is precise and powerful, and his verse is full of glitter and soaring spirit." According to Evelyn Bristol: "Lomonosov created a body of verse whose excellence was unprecedented in his own language."

Lomonosov's work in science was of an encyclopedic scope; he was actively engaged in physics, chemistry, astronomy, geology, meteorology, and navigation. He also contributed to population studies, political economy, Russian history, rhetoric, and grammar. He brought the most advanced scientific theories to Russia, commented on their strengths and weaknesses, and advanced original ideas. He sided with Newton's atomistic views on the structure of matter; questioned the existence of the heat-generating caloric, a popular crutch of eighteenth-century science; and endorsed and commented on Huygens's clearly manifested inclination toward the wave theory of light. He raised the question of the scientific validity of the notion of instantaneous action at a distance that was built into Newton's notion of universal gravitation, conducted experimental research in atmospheric electricity, made the first steps toward the formulation of conservation laws, suggested a historical orientation in the study of the terrestrial strata, and claimed the presence of atmosphere at the planet Venus. In the judgment of Henry M. Leicester, Lomonosov's scientific papers revealed "a remarkable originality and ability to follow his theories to their logical ends, even though his conclusions were sometimes erroneous."

In a series of odes, Lomonosov combined his poetic gifts with his scientific engagement to produce scientific poetry. These odes dealt with scientific themes and were dedicated to the popularization of rationalist methods in obtaining socially valuable knowledge. "A Letter on the Uses of Glass," one such ode, relied on rich and poignant metaphors to portray the invincible power of scientific ideas of the kind advanced by Kepler, Huygens, and Newton. This poem, an ode in praise of the scientific world outlook, is the first Russian literary work to hail Copernicus's heliocentrism.

The appearance of Lomonosov's papers on physical and chemical themes in the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences journal Novy Kommentary (New Commentary) during the 1750s marked the beginning of a new epoch in Russia's cultural history. They were the first publications of scientific papers by a native Russian scholar to appear in the same journal with contributions by established naturalists and mathematicians of Western origin and training. The papers, presented in Latin, dealt with major scientific problems of the day and were noticed by reviewers in Western scholarly journals.

Few of his Russian contemporaries understood the intellectual and social significance of Lomonosov's achievements in science and of his enthusiastic advocacy of Baconian views on science as the commanding source of social progress. His relations with the members of the St. Petersburg Academy and with distinguished members of the literary community were punctuated by stormy conflicts, personal and professional. He showed a tendency to magnify the animosity, overt or latent, of German academicians toward Russian personnel and Russia's cultural environment. Particularly noted were his outbursts against G. F. Müller, A. L. Schlozer, and G. Z. Bayer, the founders of the Norman theory of the origin of the Russian state. On one occasion, he was sent to jail as a result of complaints by foreign colleagues regarding his abusive language at scientific sessions of the Academy. In the face of mounting complaints about his behavior, Catherine II signed a decree in 1763 forcing Lomonosov to retire; however, before the Senate could ratify the decree, the empress changed her mind. Part of Lomonosov's obstinacy stemmed from his desire to see increased Russian representation in the administration of the Academy. In fairness to Lomonosov, it must be noted that he had high respect for and maintained cordial relations with most German members of the Academy.

Lomonosov went through a series of skirmishes with theologians who protected the irrevocability of canonized belief from the challenges launched by science, and even wrote a hymn lampooning the theologians who stood in the way of scientific progress. While attacking theological zealots, he never deviated from a candid respect for religion - and he never alienated himself from the church. Small wonder, then, that two archimandrites and a long line of priests officiated at his burial rites. After his death, the church recognized him as one of Russia's premier citizens, and many learned theologians took an active part in building the symbolism of the Lomonosov legend.

In his time, and shortly after his death, Lomonosov was known almost exclusively as a poet; only isolated contemporaries grasped the intellectual and social significance of his achievements in science. A good part of his main scientific manuscripts languished in the archives of the St. Petersburg Academy until the beginning of the twentieth century. Lomonosov was known for having made little effort to communicate with Russian scientists in and outside the Academy. On his death, a commemorative session was attended by eight members of the Academy, who heard a short encomium delivered by Nicholas Gabriel de Clerc, a French doctor of medicine, writer on Russian history, newly elected honorary member of the Academy, and personal physician of Kirill Razumovsky, president of the Academy. While de Clerc praised Lomonosov effusively, he barely mentioned his work in science.

Bibliography

Leicester, Henry M. (1976). Lomonosov and the Corpuscular Theory. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Menshutkin, B. N. (1952). Russia's Lomonosov, Chemist, Courtier, Physicist, Poet, tr. I. E. Thal and E. J. Webster, Princeton, NJ.: Princeton University Press.

Pavlova, G. E., and Fedorov, A. S. (1984). Mikhail Vasil'evich Lomonasov: His Life and Work, Moscow: Mir.

—ALEXANDER VUCINICH

(mēkhəyēl' vəsē'lyəvĭch ləmənô'səf) , 1711–65, Russian scientist, scholar, and writer, an outstanding figure in 18th-century Russia. Lomonosov was the son of a prosperous fisherman. Concealing his peasant background, he obtained an extraordinarily broad education. He was chosen by the St. Petersburg Academy to study the sciences and philosophy in Germany. In 1741 he received a lifetime appointment to the Russian Academy of Sciences. In his experiments he anticipated such modern principles as the mechanical nature of heat and the kinetic theory of gases. To promote education, Lomonosov wrote a history of Russia (1766) and a Russian grammar (1755). In his poetry he adopted tonic versification, thus altering the character of Russian prosody. For his reform of the Russian literary language he chose an idiom midway between the Old Church Slavonic and spoken Russian.

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)