19 December marks the 115th anniversary of the birth of the outstanding Czechoslovak theoretical physicist Václav Votruba (19/12/1909 – 11/09/1990), one of the first Vice-Directors of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research.

He is considered the first Czechoslovak scientist engaged in quantum physics and systematics of elementary particles. In addition, Professor Votruba became famous as the founder of the school of Czech theoretical physicists. Despite his achievements in science, it was the education of the younger generation of scientists that he considered his vocation.

After graduating from Charles University in Prague in 1933, he simultaneously worked as a mathematics and physics teacher at Prague schools and as a research assistant at the Institute of Theoretical Physics of the Faculty of Natural Sciences of Charles University. During the Second World War, in 1941-1943, he was an official at the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute in Prague. In 1943-1944, he teached at a gymnasium. Later, he was conscripted as a labourer to construct a railway tunnel in Prague.

In May 1945, he became a docent at the Institute of Theoretical Physics. In the 1946-1947 academic year, he trained at the University of Zurich under the guidance of Professor Friedrich Wenzel and Nobel laureate Wolfgang Pauli. In 1952-56, he delivered lectures on theoretical physics and quantum mechanics at Comenius University in Bratislava, Charles University, and the Czech Technical University.

Václav Votruba held the post of a JINR Vice-Director from March 1956 until the summer of 1959. At the first session of the Scientific Council on 24-26 September 1956, Professor Votruba gave two talks on the directions he was responsible for: consideration of the personnel representing the JINR Member States, in addition to the USSR countries, and a research plan for the Laboratory of Theoretical Physics. During the first two years of the Institute’s work, the number of employees from countries outside the USSR increased from 44 to 122, with many of them being world-renowned researchers; the problem of attracting experimental physicists was solved.

Václav Y. Votruba was actively engaged in forming the structure of the Institute’s scientific directions, the international team, and the equipment support of research. Votruba made a significant contribution to establishing cooperation between JINR and CERN.

While working at JINR, he rescued his student Milos Lokaichek, a Czechoslovak physicist, from prison. During the visit of President of Czechoslovakia Antonín Zápotocký to Dubna, Votruba asked him to free the physicist convicted for his religious views.

In 1959-67 he headed the Department of Theoretical Physics at the Czech Technical University in Prague. In addition, on his return to Czechoslovakia, he continued his teaching career as a Professor.

Václav Votruba was fluent in several languages: German, Russian, English, and French. He was Chief Editor of the Czechoslovak Physical Journal and its English version. He wrote a number of textbooks for universities. All his scientific papers, especially university textbooks, were distinguished by an exceptional clarity of interpretation of even the most complicated matters.

Václav Votruba devoted his research to nuclear physics, quantum field theory, particle physics, symmetry in elementary particle theory, and quantum electrodynamics. He was the first in the world to solve the problem of an electron-positron pair production in the collision of a photon with an electron. He suggested the idea that pi-mesons could be interpreted as a three-charged state of elementary particles with isotopic spin 1. He used the isotopic spin algebra to order the system of elementary particles.

Laureate of the State Prize of Czechoslovakia “For Merit to Society”, Honorary Member of the Union of Czech Mathematicians and Physicists, Academician of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, Václav Votruba is considered the founder of the theory of elementary particles in this country.

In 2003, the Doppler Institute of the Faculty of Nuclear Physics and Physical Engineering of the Czech Technical University established the Václav Votruba Prize for the best doctoral thesis in theoretical physics.