Biography

Prof. Nikolay Neprimerov was a Soviet and Russian physicist, professor at Kazan State University, and a Doctor of Technical Sciences. For many years, he contributed articles to the republican newspapers and periodicals of Kazan University. He wrote a novella about the daily military life of frontline aviation. For over four decades, Prof. Nikolay Neprimerov specialized in the physics of oil-bearing strata recovery.

Prof. Nikolay Neprimerov (Preobrazhensky) was born on May 1, 1921, in the village of Annovka, Voronezh region, to a family of a forester and a rural school teacher. In 1926, the family moved to Kazan, where he graduated with honors from School No. 83 in 1939.

That same year, he was drafted into the army, where he served as an aviation technician until 1946, four of those years on the frontline. He was awarded the Order of the Red Star and several medals.

In 1946, he began his studies at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics at Kazan University, a place he would be associated with for the rest of his life. A named scholar, he graduated with honors in 1951 and stayed on for postgraduate studies under Associate Professor S.A. Altshuler.

Prof. Nikolay Neprimerov was married to Galina Neprimerova since 1959. Their eldest granddaughter, Maria Bergemann, graduated from the Physics Faculty of Kazan University in 2005 and has been the head of a research group at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Heidelberg since 2014.

Scientific and Teaching Activities

Photo 2. Prof. Nikolay Neprimerov setting up equipment for his PhD thesis (1953)

In 1954, he prematurely defended his Ph.D. thesis, and in 1963, his doctoral thesis. As a postgraduate student, he created a specialization in magnetic radio spectroscopy and participated in the establishment of a problem laboratory in the same field. By 1960, he was heading the Department of Radioelectronics at the Physics Faculty with a new specialization in Radiophysical Measurements.

During these years, he developed a unique approach to scientific research. In his Ph.D. thesis, he built not one, but sequentially three different experimental setups. He studied the rotation of the polarization plane of microwaves, measured the dispersion of magnetic susceptibility, and determined the dielectric constant for all 36 substances he researched. This allowed him to both qualitatively and quantitatively link the Macaluso-Corbino effect with electron paramagnetic resonance and provide a theoretical justification for this link. In 1955, he signed the first industrial contract in the history of Kazan State University with the Tatneft production association, which has continued for 40 years.

Prof. Nikolay Neprimerov undertook comprehensive, in-depth studies of transport phenomena in porous media. He extensively studied phase transitions in oil, thermal, hydrodynamic, and physicochemical regimes in the development of oil and gas fields. For a more reliable understanding of the processes occurring underground, he also researched thermal and mineral water deposits, touching upon the thermal regime of the Earth as a whole.

With more than 250 researched deposits and unique instrumental equipment, he was able to create a fundamentally new technology for optimal oil layer production by the early 1980s, based on a deep penetration into the essence of the displacement process of one fluid by another from a deformable porous medium. Its application has increased the pace of extraction, improved the degree of oil recovery from the depths, and significantly reduced extraction costs. Based on this technology, redevelopment projects for the Aznakaevo, Eastern Leninogorsk, Shugurovsky, and Berezovsky areas of the Romashkino oil field in Tatarstan were drawn up.

In 1979, Prof. Neprimerov created a special faculty for retraining personnel for the oil industry at Kazan State University. Over 10 years, more than 200 people from all regions of the country graduated.

In 1988, a state-funded laboratory of Physical Dynamics of Heterogeneous Media was established at the Department of Radioelectronics at the initiative of the rector of Kazan State University, the general director of Tatneft, and the first secretary of the Tatarstan CPSU. After stepping down as head of the department in 1992, Prof. Nikolay Neprimerov became the main scientific researcher there. He was a three-time laureate of the first prize of Kazan State University for the best research work in 1957, 1962, and 1993.

Alongside his intensive scientific activities, Prof. Nikolay Neprimerov worked on improving the theory and practice of the educational process. The Department of Radioelectronics, which he established, prepared 650 graduates of Kazan State University. At the Sunday University he organized, he delivered scientific sermons to the people of Kazan every week, gathering a large audience.

Prof. Nikolay Neprimerov, throughout his long life, was a member of many scientific and scientific-technical councils, state committees, ministries, and the USSR Academy of Sciences. He served as a state expert of the USSR State Planning Committee and was also involved in the scientific councils not only of the physics and geology faculties of Kazan State University but also of councils at the Kazan Technical University and the Institute of Professional Technical Pedagogy of the APN of the USSR.

On his seventieth birthday, he completed the work of his creative life by publishing the book "Creation." For his seventy-fifth birthday, another fundamental work, "Physical Dynamics," was prepared for publication. He wrote about his frontline years in the novella "Technicians."

In 2011, on the 90th birthday of the professor, an article about him entitled "Nikolay Neprimerov: 'There is no 'black box' for physicists—we know what is at the input, what is at the output, and what is inside'" was published in "BUSINESS Online."

A film titled "The Genius of Oil" was made about Prof. Nikolay Neprimerov, and in 2015, he was honored at the "Student Spring" at KFU.

He passed away in his 96th year of life on January 11, 2017.

Awards

Order of the Patriotic War, 2nd class (1985)
Order of the Red Star (1945)
Medal "For Battle Merit" (1944)
Medal "For the Defense of Leningrad"
Medal "For the Victory Over Germany in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945" (1945)
Medal "For the Capture of Königsberg"
Jubilee Medal "Twenty Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945" (1965)
Jubilee Medal "Thirty Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945" (1976)
Jubilee Medal "Forty Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945" (1985)
Jubilee Medal "50 Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945" (1995)
Jubilee Medal "50 Years of the Armed Forces of the USSR" (1969)
Medal "For Valiant Labor in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945" (1970)
Medal "Veteran of Labor" (1983)
Jubilee Medal "60 Years of the Armed Forces of the USSR" (1979)
Jubilee Medal "70 Years of the Armed Forces of the USSR" (1988)
VDNKh USSR Medal (1986)
USSR Inventor Badge (1987)
Badge "25 Years of Victory" (1970)
Badge "Winner of the Socialist Competition — 1977"
Russian Federation Government Award in the Field of Science and Technology (2018), awarded posthumously. No. 2827-r, Moscow, December 18, 2018.

Degrees and Titles

By the decision of the Council of Kazan State University named after V.I. Ulyanov-Lenin, dated May 27, 1954, for work on "Paramagnetic Resonance and Rotation of the Polarization Plane in the Microwave Range," he was awarded the degree of Candidate of Physical and Mathematical Sciences. Moscow, January 12, 1955.
By the decision of the Higher Attestation Commission dated June 23, 1956, he was confirmed as an associate professor in the department of "Experimental Physics." Moscow, July 17, 1956.
By the decision of the Higher Attestation Commission based on the defense held at the Council of the Moscow Institute of Petrochemical and Gas Industry named after academician I.M. Gubkin on March 26, 1963, for the work "Experimental Study of Some Questions of Subsurface Hydromechanics and Physics of the Reservoir-Well System," he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Technical Sciences. Moscow, July 21, 1965.
By the decision of the Higher Attestation Commission dated March 16, 1968, he was confirmed as a professor in the department of "Radioelectronics." Moscow, April 21, 1966.
Laureate of the Russian Federation Government Award in the field of science and technology.

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