Tamm was born in Vladivostok, Russian Empire (now Russia).
He was Nobel Laureate in Physics for the year 1958 together with Pavel Alekseyevich Cherenkov and Il'ja Mikhailovich Frank for the discovery and the interpretation of the Cherenkov-Vavilov effect.
In 1951 together with Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov proposed a tokamak system of the realization of CTF on the basis of toroidal magnetic thermonuclear reactor and soon after the first such devices were built by the INF, resulting the T-3 Soviet magnetic confinment device from 1968, when the plasma parameters unique for that time were obtained, of showing the temperatures in their machine to be over an order of magnitude higher than what was expected by the rest of the community. The western scientists visited the experiment and varified the high temperatures and confinement, sparking a wave of optimism for the prospects of the tokamak as well as construction of new experiments, which is still the dominant magnetic confinement device today.
Tamm died in Moscow, Soviet union (now Russia).
Tamm was a mentor to Leonid Isaakovich Mandelshtam in science and life.