Yuri Romanov (physicist)

Last updated

Yuri Romanov
Born
Yuri Aleksandrovich Romanov

(1926-06-17)17 June 1926
Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Died1 November 2010(2010-11-01) (aged 84)
Sarov, Russia
Nationality Russian
CitizenshipFlag of Russia.svg  Russia
Alma mater Moscow State University
Moscow Aviation Institute
Known for Soviet atomic bomb project
Awards Lenin Prize Medal.JPG Lenin Prize (1958)
Order of the Red Banner of Labour OBVERSE.jpg Order of the Red Banner of Labour (1952)
Scientific career
Fields Physics
Institutions

Yuri Aleksandrovich Romanov ( ‹See Tfd› Russian : Юрий Александрович Романов; 17 June 1926 – 1 November 2010) was a Russian physicist who spent his career in the former Soviet program of nuclear weapons.

Contents

Biography

He was born in Moscow into a family with a strong engineering background. He went to school No.64 in Moscow in 1933. In 1941, he was evacuated to the Ural Mountains with his mother and sister. He passed the external examinations for 10th grade in 1942 and began a correspondence course of the Moscow State University in Sverdlovsk Oblast. On his return to Moscow in 1943, he joined the motor faculty of the Moscow Aviation Institute, while continuing his University studies. He moved to the engineering and physical faulty of the Moscow Mechanical Institute of Munitions as a third-year student. In 1947, he graduated with honours from his Moscow State University course. The following year he entered postgraduate study under Igor Tamm. [1]

On 10 June 1948, Tamm headed a new group of theorists which included Andrei Sakharov, Vitaly Ginzburg, Semyon Belenky and Romanov. They followed up Sakharov's ideas for a new thermonuclear weapon and went to KB-11 (now the All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Experimental Physics) in the closed city of Sarov, Nizhny Novgorod. He started as a junior researcher, then senior, then head of department. In 1952, he received a degree in Physical and Mathematical Sciences with a thesis on kinetic processes of neutrons. This work on neutrons and efficiency continued, along with calculations on nuclear reaction kinetics and energy release of the Soviet Union's first thermonuclear weapon, the RDS-6, tested in 1953; for this he was awarded the Stalin Prize, the first of several awards. He was a leading developer of the RDS-37 - the first Soviet two-stage thermonuclear weapon - most specifically concerned with the power output. Romanov transferred to the new Scientific Research Institute-1011 as head of the theoretical department in 1955. Two years later, his team had developed a new megatonne-yield bomb design. He gained a Ph.D. in Physical and Mathematical Sciences in 1958 and was appointed to professorship of theoretical physics in 1962. [1] [2]

From the early 1960s, from his own initial ideas, Romanov supervised many underground nuclear irradiation experiments to evaluate the effects of nuclear explosions on equipment in space. He returned to KB-11 in 1967 as deputy supervisor and, in 1969, head of the theoretical sector 2. He remained there for nearly three decades, working on anti-missile defence and became chief scientific officer. He was a member of a number of commissions and committees which assessed theses and awarded prizes. In addition to his nuclear weapon and defence research, he wrote papers on the quasilinear theory of plasma turbulence, cosmic plasmas, gravitational spinors, laser-driven thermonuclear fusion and long-range fields. [3] [4] [1]

Amongst his hobbies, he enjoyed playing chess and piano (particularly Chopin and Beethoven). He was also known for writing amusing poetic portraits of friends and colleagues. [1]

He died in Sarov. [1]

Awards and honors

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrei Sakharov</span> Soviet nuclear physicist and human rights activist (1921–1989)

Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov was a Soviet physicist and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, which he was awarded in 1975 for emphasizing human rights around the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Igor Tamm</span> Soviet physicist (1895–1971)

Igor Yevgenyevich Tamm was a Soviet physicist who received the 1958 Nobel Prize in Physics, jointly with Pavel Alekseyevich Cherenkov and Ilya Mikhailovich Frank, for their 1934 discovery and demonstration of Cherenkov radiation. He also predicted the quasi-particle of sound: the phonon; and in 1951, together with Andrei Sakharov, proposed the Tokamak system.

RDS-6s was the first Soviet attempted test of a thermonuclear weapon that occurred on August 12, 1953, that detonated with a force equivalent to 400 kilotons of TNT.

RDS-37 was the Soviet Union's first two-stage hydrogen bomb, first tested on 22 November 1955. The weapon had a nominal yield of approximately 3 megatons. It was scaled down to 1.6 megatons for the live test.

Anatoly Aleksandrovich Vlasov was a Russian, later Soviet, theoretical physicist prominent in the fields of statistical mechanics, kinetics, and especially in plasma physics.

Yevgeny Ivanovich Zababakhin, was a Soviet physicist who was one of the senior chief designers of nuclear discharges of the Soviet nuclear weapons.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yuri Trutnev (scientist)</span> Soviet physicist (1927–2021)

Yuri Alexeyevich Trutnev was a Russian physicist and a professor of engineering at the National Research Nuclear University MEPhI.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Semen Altshuler</span> Soviet physicist (1911–1983)

Semyon Alexandrovich Altshuler was a Soviet physicist known for his work in resonance spectroscopy and in particular for theoretical prediction of acoustic paramagnetic resonance in 1952.

Oleg Alexandrovich Lavrentiev was a physicist who worked on the Soviet atomic bomb project and whose research contributions were fundamental to the understanding of thermonuclear fusion.

German Arsenyevich Goncharov was a Russian physicist whose career mostly spent in the former Soviet program of nuclear weapons. Since 1952 until 2004, Goncharov developed and tested Soviet thermonuclear weapons and led a theoretical department at the Soviet nuclear research facility at Arzamas-16 from 1967 to 2004.

Vyacheslav Petrovich Feodoritov (February 28, 1928 - January 2, 2004), k.N, was a Russian physicist in the former Soviet program of nuclear weapons. He was a co-designer of the first two-stage Soviet thermonuclear device, the RDS-37, and became a chief of laboratory at Arzamas-16, now known as the All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Experimental Physics.

Yuri Nikolayevich Babayev, k.N, was a Soviet physicist who spent a long career in the former Soviet program of nuclear weapons, and known as one of the principles who designed the Tsar Bomba, the largest-ever nuclear weapon.

Mikhail Petrovich Shumayev was a Soviet nuclear physicist, engineer and chemist. He was a co-developer of the RDS-37, the Soviet Union's first two-stage thermonuclear bomb.

Evsei Markovich RabinovichD.N, was a Russian physicist of Ukrainian origin who participated in the former Soviet program of nuclear weapons, and was one of the designers of the two-stage RDS-37 thermonuclear discharges and its successor, the RDS-220, the largest ever bomb.

Viktor Borisovich Adamskyk.N was a Russian physicist of Ukrainian origin known for his work on the former Soviet program of nuclear weapons.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yevgeny Avrorin</span>

Yevgeny Nikolayevich Avrorin, D.N, was a Russian physicist whose career was spent in the former Soviet program of nuclear weapons.

Valentin Nikolayevich Klimov was a Russian theoretical physicist and mathematician. He was a co-developer of the RDS-37 and worked on statistical mechanics, plasmas and nuclear reactors.

Vitaliy Aleksandrovich Aleksandrovich was a Soviet chemist of Ukrainian origin who also became part of the Soviet program that developed nuclear weapons from the late 1940s. He was a co-author of the design report of the first Soviet two-stage thermonuclear bomb, the RDS-37.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Viktor Davidenko</span> Soviet military engineer and physicist (1914 - 1983)

Viktor Aleksandrovich Davidenko was a Soviet engineer in the Soviet program of nuclear weapons, working mainly on military nuclear reactors for fissile materials.

Grigory Yemelyanovich Klinishov was a Soviet Russian physicist and recipient of the Lenin Prize. He was one of the creators of the Soviet hydrogen bomb RDS-37.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "Yuri Aleksandrovich Romanov (Романов Юрий Александрович)". www.biblioatom.ru. Retrieved 28 October 2018.
  2. ↑ Goncharov, G.A. (1996). "American and Soviet H-bomb development programmes: historical background". Uspekhi Fizicheskikh Nauk, Russian Academy of Sciences. 39 (10): 1033–1044. doi:10.1070/PU1996v039n10ABEH000174. S2CID   250861572.
  3. ↑ Bakunin, O.G. (2018). "Quasilinear theory of plasma turbulence. Origins, ideas, and evolution of the method". Physics-Uspekhi. 61 (1): 52–83. Bibcode:2018PhyU...61...52B. doi:10.3367/UFNe.2017.03.038096. S2CID   125581946.
  4. ↑ Gorbatenko, M.V.; Romanov, Y.A. (1969). "New covariant approach to spinor-field theory". Theoretical and Mathematical Physics. 1 (2): 171–182. Bibcode:1969TMP.....1..171G. doi:10.1007/BF01028043. S2CID   124733614.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.