Dmitry Konstantinovich Chernov, a prominent Russian scientist: metallurgist and inventor, was born on 1 November 1839. He discovered polymorphous transformations in steel and the iron-carbon phase diagram, which is considered to be the dawn of the scientific metallography.
As the founder of extractive metallurgy and steel heating theory, Dmitry Chernov heralded a whole new era in the development of metallurgy. It was Chernov who laid down the basis for steelmaking in our country.
The scientist worked not in the office, but in the field, as a true metallurgist should: Chernov spent all day in the noisy shops of the plant or in the chemical laboratory. He successfully combined research and teaching, having raised an entire galaxy of talented metallurgists.
Chernov’s discovery that molten steel will, upon hardening, form not a wax-like homogeneous mass, but a complex crystalline system laid the foundation for the contemporary vision of the structure of cast steel and metals in general.
Dmitry Chernov gathered a collection of iron crystals. The most valuable specimen in this collection was the famous D.K. Chernov crystal, the description of which can be found on the pages of many extractive metallurgy textbooks.
Having left behind an eternal scientific heritage in metallurgy, the scientist died on 2 January 1921.
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