Улу Панди Мониюм

Улу Панди Мониюм (b. 1884) was a Chechen mystic and self-styled "natural philosopher" who was best known for groundbreaking experiments with electromagnetism, and especially for experiments relating to the levitation of small metal objects.  He never was awarded any formal academic degree, but he conducted most of his work in close collaboration with Prof. Pavel Ivanovich Ustinov, then Chair of the Department of Natural Sciences at Moscow State University.  When Ustinov was liquidated in one of the last of Stalin's Great Purges, in 1936, he "self-exiled" almost immediately to the Far East, but survived for only about eighteen months thereafter.  In October of 1938, he and a traveling companion were ambushed and killed by Mongolian bandits on the shores of Lake Baikal.

At the urging of the German physicist Friiedrich Bolt, Element 115 in the Periodic Table initially was named for him, as "Pandemonium."  It is now known as "Muscovium."