About Igor Evgenevich Tamm

Abstract

Those who cherish the memory of Igor Evgenevich Tamm did not fail, of course, to commemorate it — several obituaries and reports have been published, a collection of reminiscences of Tamm and a bibliography of his works have been issued, and, most importantly, two volumes of the collected works of Tamm.¹ Tamm’s handbook Fundamentals of the Theory of Electricity went into the ninth and tenth printings (Nauka, Moscow, 1976 and 1989). But I had never thought about writing my personal reminiscences of Tamm until I received a phone call from the journal Priroda suggesting exactly that (it happened in 1974). Since the offer was quite unexpected, it produced an impression. Why were others thinking it natural to write about Tamm while I have not even considered doing so?