Yuri Bazhutov
Yuri Bazhutov | |
|---|---|
| Born | April 21, 1947 Okha, Sakhalin Oblast, Soviet Union |
| Died | March 9, 2018 (aged 70) |
| Residence | Russia |
| Nationality | Russian |
| Alma mater | Moscow Engineering Physics Institute (MEPhI) |
| Known for | Erzion model, Model of Erzion Catalysis |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Nuclear physics, cold nuclear transmutation |
| Institutions | Skobeltsyn Institute of Nuclear Physics, Moscow State University; TsNIIMash; Moscow Automobile and Road Construction Institute (MADI); IZMIRAN |
Yuri Bazhutov (Yuri Nikolaevich Bazhutov, 21 April 1947 – 9 March 2018) was a Russian nuclear physicist, a senior researcher at the Pushkov Institute of Terrestrial Magnetism, Ionosphere and Radiowave Propagation of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IZMIRAN) in Troitsk, and one of the leading figures of Russian research into cold nuclear transmutation and low energy nuclear reactions. He is best known as the author of the Erzion model, a hypothetical heavy-particle catalysis theory that he proposed as an explanation of cold fusion phenomena, and as the founder and permanent organizer of the Russian Conference on Cold Nuclear Transmutation of Nuclei and Ball Lightning.
Biography
Bazhutov was born on 21 April 1947 in Okha, Sakhalin Oblast. His father, a military paramedic, died at the age of 32 when Bazhutov was eight years old; his mother was a pharmacist. After the eighth grade he entered the Suvorov Military School in Stavropol and continued his studies in Sverdlovsk, later attending a specialised physics and mathematics school in Rostov-on-Don, where he took part in city and regional olympiads.
From 1965 to 1971 he studied at the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute (MEPhI), specialising in experimental nuclear physics. From 1971 to 1974 he worked as an engineer and undertook postgraduate study at the Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy. Between 1974 and 1986 he was at the Skobeltsyn Institute of Nuclear Physics of Moscow State University, rising from engineer to senior engineer and junior research fellow, and from 1986 to 1991 he worked at the Central Research Institute of Machine Building (TsNIIMash) in Kaliningrad, Moscow Oblast, as leading engineer, group head and laboratory head.
From 1992 to 1997 he was director of the "Erzion" research and technology centre, which he founded at Moscow State University. Bazhutov was of Erzya descent, a fact of which he was proud, and he named both his hypothetical particle and his firm after his people. From 1992 to 2002 he combined research with teaching as an associate professor in the physics department of the Moscow Automobile and Road Construction Institute (MADI). From 2002 to 2016 he was a senior research fellow at IZMIRAN, where he continued his experiments on the "Fakel" installation. In his final years he began rebuilding his experimental apparatus at the Joint Institute for High Temperatures of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
He held the degree of Candidate of Physical and Mathematical Sciences and was an honorary citizen of the town of Troitsk, Moscow Oblast. He died suddenly on 9 March 2018.
Scientific contributions
Bazhutov's central theoretical work was the Erzion model, which postulates a class of hypothetical heavy, strongly interacting particles he called erzions. As co-author of the Model of Erzion Catalysis (MEC), he argued that erzion-catalysed reactions account for the nature of cold nuclear transmutation, and he applied the model to the interpretation of hydrogen-loading experiments in various metals and to anomalous heat effects reported by other researchers.
In 1999, working on the "Doch-4" telescope at MADI, Bazhutov reported the detection of heavy charged erzions in cosmic rays. He also conducted plasma electrolysis experiments intended to confirm the Erzion theory, and collaborated with Alexander Parkhomov on independent calorimetric checks of claimed anomalous heat production.
He was the author of more than 200 publications and two inventions.
Conference organisation
Beginning in 1993, Bazhutov founded and served as the permanent organizer and chairman of the Russian Conference on Cold Nuclear Transmutation of Nuclei and Ball Lightning (RCCNT&BL), which he ran for 24 consecutive meetings, the last of them in September 2017; preparations for the twenty-fifth conference were under way at the time of his death. The first meetings were organised under the difficult conditions of the breakup of the Soviet Union, and the conferences drew participants from France, Japan, the United States, Italy, China and Taiwan. Colleagues credit these meetings with preserving low energy nuclear reactions as a research direction in Russia.
He was also among the organizers of the 13th International Conference on Cold Fusion (ICCF-13), held at Dagomys, Sochi, in 2007. He served as a member of the International Executive Committee on cold nuclear transmutation and as deputy chairman of the Cold Nuclear Transmutation Committee of the Russian Physical Society.
External links
- LENR-CANR library (papers by Bazhutov, 1982–2014)
- Journal of Condensed Matter Nuclear Science