February 4, 1846: Nikolay Alekseevich Umov is born
Nikolay Alekseevich Umov (1846-1915)
Scientific fields: Mathematics, Physics
Known for: Umov effect, Umov-Poynting vector
Nikolay Alekseevich Umov was a famous Russian physicist and mathematician, the first who introduced in physics such basic concepts, as speed and direction of movement of energy and density of energy in the given point of space.
During his work in Odessa in 1873-1874, Umov published first papers representing major ideas of energy movement. In his first works of this period, he considered potential energy as kinetic energy of some environments “imperceptible for us”. From this hypothesis, he draw a conclusion: it is always possible to specify a place where the energy is in. Subsequently, after having formulated the concept of density and movement of energy, he wrote differential equations of energy movement in the elastic media and in the fluid.
In 1875, Umov has solved a general problem of distribution of electric currents in conducting surfaces of any kind. In 1888-1891 he investigated experimentally the diffusion in water solutions, polarization of light in opaque media, also discovering the effect of chromatic depolarization of light.(1)
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