Eduard Vladimirovich Shpolsky (23.09.1892-21.08.1975) - a Soviet physicist, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences (1933). Born in Voronezh. Graduated from Moscow University. He began his scientific work (1913) at the A. L. Shanyavsky City University under P. P. Lazarev. In 1918 —28 he worked at the Research Institute of Physics and Biophysics and taught at Moscow University (1919-38), and from 1932 was head of a chair at the Moscow Pedagogical Institute.
His research was in the fields of spectroscopy, biophysics, photochemistry and the history of physics. Discovered (1952) the appearance of quasi-line spectra of aromatic hydrocarbons at low temperatures (the Shpolsky effect). Carried out studies on the fine-structure electronic-vibrational spectroscopy of complex organic compounds.
He was an active participant in the whole course of the development of physics in the USSR, the author of a number of reviews on many branches of physics and on the history of physics, and of the two-volume course “Atomic Physics”, which went through many editions. One of the founders, and for a long time editor-in-chief (from 1936), of the journal “Uspekhi Fizicheskikh Nauk”. USSR State Prize (1970). S. I. Vavilov Gold Medal (1962).