Alternate Names
Shajn, Grigory Abramovich; Shayn, Grigory Abramovich
BornOdessa, (Ukraine), 13 April 1892
DiedMoscow, (Russia), 27 August 1956
Astrophysicist and observatory director Grigory Shain helped to rebuild the infrastructure of Soviet astronomy in the wake of the Bolshevik Revolution and provided early evidence for nonsolar abundances in carbon stars and for a galactic magnetic field.
Shain was born into a poor joiner’s family; much of his broad erudition was due to his perseverance and determination to educate himself. In 1912, he enrolled in the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics at Yurev (Dorpat) University, but his education was not completed until 1919 at Perm (following his service in World War I). Shain earned a magister’s degree from the provincial Tomsk University (1920) and, in the following year, joined the staff of Pulkovo Observatory. He married astronomer Pelageya Fyodorovna Sannikova.
In 1925, Shain and his wife were dispatched to Pulkovo’s astrophysics branch...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsSelected References
Kulikovsky, P. G. (1975). “Shayn, Grigory Abramovich.” In Dictionary of Scientific Biography, edited by Charles Coulston Gillispie. Vol. 12, pp. 367–369. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.
Pikelner, S. B. (1957). “G. A. Shain (1892–1956).” Istoriko-astronomicheskie issledovaniia 3: 551–607.
Shklovskii, I. S. (1991). Five Billion Vodka Bottles to the Moon: Tales of a Soviet Scientist. New York: W. W. Norton, esp. pp. 148–156.
Struve, Otto (1958). “G. A. Shajn and Russian Astronomy.” Sky & Telescope 17, no. 6: 272–274.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this entry
Cite this entry
Gurshtein, A.A. (2014). Shain, Grigory Abramovich. In: Hockey, T., et al. Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9917-7_1262
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9917-7_1262
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4419-9916-0
Online ISBN: 978-1-4419-9917-7
eBook Packages: Physics and AstronomyReference Module Physical and Materials ScienceReference Module Chemistry, Materials and Physics