History of department

Department of Physics Emperor Alexander II Kyiv Polytechnic Institute was created in 1898 by Professor G.G. de Metz, who was its head from 1898 to 1922.

The first head of the Department of Physics of “KPI” Professor G.G. de Metz

At the Kiev Polytechnic Institute, considerable attention has always been paid to the physical education of engineers. Highly qualified specialists were involved in the training of technical personnel, whose scientific and pedagogical activities significantly influenced the development of physical science in Ukraine and in other scientific centers.

      Physical research and physical education at the KPI were started by Professor of Physics Georgy Georgievich de Metz. Georgy Georgievich was born on May 8, 1861 in Odessa in a Belgian subjects family. He studied at the Richelievskaya and Nikolaevskaya grammar schools. Upon graduation in 1881, he received a gold medal and immediately entered the mathematical department of the physics and mathematics faculty of Novorossiyskii University. And again, upon graduation, he received a gold medal for his work “An Outline of Anomalous Dispersion.” On May 31, 1885, G.G. de Metz was approved as a candidate to prepare for a professorship in physics, and in the fall he was sent for two years to the University of Strasbourg. There, at the founder of the world’s first scientific school in experimental physics, Professor A. Kundt, G.G. de Metz developed as a researcher and visionary educator. There, under the leadership of the founder of the world’s first scientific school in experimental physics, Professor A. Kundt, G.G. de Metz was formed as a researcher and visionary educator. Later, Professor de Metz will apply the best achievements of the A. Kundt school when creating a physics laboratory at the Kiev Polytechnic Institute:

“When choosing problems for student studies in the new physics laboratory, I was guided mainly by the old but proven list of problems of the Physics Institute of the University of Strasbourg, which was once compiled by the its famous founder Professor Kundt, now deceased. Till today, as his former student, I am influenced by the personality of this first-class scientist and irreplaceable leader. Outstanding physicists were brought up in his Strasbourg school, so I think it is useful for the new laboratory not to deviate far from the good examples of the school, which has received strong recognition. But, of course, you can’t take everything literally, since the goals of different laboratories are not always the same”.