Born Nov. 22 (Dec. 4), 1852, in St. Petersburg; died May 11, 1934, in Leningrad. Soviet physicist. Honorary member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1920; corresponding member, 1895).
Khvol’son graduated from St. Petersburg University in 1873. From 1876 he taught at the university, where he became a professor in 1891, and at other higher educational institutions in St. Petersburg. His chief works dealt with electricity, magnetism, photometry, and actinometry. Khvol’son proposed designs for an actinometer and a pyrheliometer that were long used at Russian meteorological stations. Beginning in 1896, he was primarily involved in the compilation of the five-volume Physics Course, which helped raise considerably the level of physics instruction and was for a long time the chief textbook in higher educational institutions. This work was translated into German, French, and Spanish.
Khvol’son received the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.