Ivan Tolstoy (scientist)

Ivan Tolstoy (March 30, 1923– February 18, 2023) was an American geophysicist and popular science writer. His research interests included seafloor geology and topography, seismology, ocean and atmospheric acoustics and seismic wave propagation. [1]

Biography

Ivan Tolstoy was born to in Baden-Baden, Germany, to a Russian noble family of of Andre Tolstoy and Maria Shuvalova emigrated from Russia due to the October Revolution. He studied Sorbonne University, Paris, graduating in geology in 1945. In 1946 he moved to the United states (naturalized in 1948[1]) and enrolled the Columbia University for graduate studies. (MA in 1948 and Ph.D. in 1951[1]). After receiving the Ph.D. degree he became research scientist at Columbia, later professor of geophysics at Florida State University and later vising professor at Leeds University. [2][1][3]

He is credited for the discovery of T phases in underwater seismology (1950[4]) and for the mapping of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.[2][3] He is the namesake of the Biot–Tolstoy–Medwin diffraction model used in acoustics.

Books

Science

  • Ocean Acoustics (with Clarence S. Clay Jr.), McGraw Hill, NY, 1967. also Russian transl., Akoustika Okeana Ed.Mir, Moscow, 1969
    • Rissuan translation: Акустика океана: теория и эксперимент в подводной акустикеАкустика океана: теория и эксперимент в подводной акустике, 1969
    • Ocean Acoustics , 2nd enlarged ed. Am. Inst.Phys., 1987
  • Wave Propagation , McGraw Hill, NY, 1973
  • The Pulse of a Planet , New Am.Library, Signet, 1971
  • James Clerk Maxwell, a biography , Canongate, 1981, U.Chicago Press, 1982
  • The Knowledge and the Power, reflections on the history of science, Canongate, 1990

Other

  • Lands of Exile (autobiography), Kindle, 2012

Honors

Personal

He had three children, all US born: from the first marriage to Mary Louise Simon: Alexandra (1947); from the second marriage to Margie Lugthart: Eline Tolstoy (1965), Maya Tolstoy (1967). Since 1975 he lived in Knockvennie, Castle Douglas, Scotland.[1] Both marriages ended in divorces and his last companion was Maureen Biggar.[3]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Home page
  2. ^ a b c d Ivan Tolstoy, 1923–2023, Acoustics Today
  3. ^ a b c Kevin Krajick, Ivan Tolstoy, Who Elucidated Travels of Sound Through Oceans and Air, and Helped Map Seabeds, Dies at 99, April 04, 2023
  4. ^ Ivan Tolstoy and Maurice Ewing, "The T phase of Shallow FocusEarthquakes>, Bull Seism Soc of Am, vol 40, pp 25-51,(1950)
  5. ^ J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 89, p 2465 (1991), doi:10.1121/1.400978
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