Born Moscow, Russia, 24 February/8 March 1866
Died Moscow, Russia, 1/14 March 1912
Petr Lebedev’s principal contribution to astronomy lay in demonstrating the existence of an extremely small physical pressure that light exerts on bodies. Such a pressure had been theoretically predicted by James Maxwell .
Lebedev was originally trained in business and engineering but then decided to study physics at the University of Strasbourg, under the guidance of August Kundt. He returned to his native land in 1891 and obtained a position at Moscow University; his first published research was on the Mossotti-Clausius theory of dielectrics. Lebedev was awarded his Ph.D. in 1900 for the above-mentioned research on light pressure. He also studied terrestrial magnetism.
Along with the solar wind, Lebedev’s experimental demonstration of light pressure has helped to explain why comet tails are directed outward from the Sun. But as a politically progressive educator during a reign of reactionary...
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Anon. (2000). “Lebedev, Pyotr Nikolayevich (1866–1912).” In The Biographical Dictionary of Scientists, edited by Roy Porter and Marilyn Ogilvie. Vol. 2, p. 599. 3rd ed. New York: Oxford University Press.
Lebedew, Peter (1901). “Untersuchungen über die Druckkräfte des Lichtes.” Annalen der Physik, 4th ser., 6: 433–458.
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Gurshtein, A.A. (2014). Lebedev, Petr Nikolaevich. In: Hockey, T., et al. Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9917-7_833
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