Vitaly Ginzburg

Life & Legacy

Vitaly Lazarevich Ginzburg ForMemRS (Russian: Вита́лий Ла́заревич Ги́нзбург; 4 October [O.S. 21 September] 1916 – 8 November 2009) was a Russian physicist who was honored with the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2003, together with Alexei Abrikosov and Anthony Leggett for their "pioneering contributions to the theory of superconductors and superfluids."
He spent his career in the former Soviet Union and was one of the leading figure in former Soviet program of nuclear weapons, working towards designs of the thermonuclear devices. He became a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and succeeded Igor Tamm as head of the Department of Theoretical Physics of the Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (FIAN). After the fall of the Soviet-Union Ginzburg presented himself as an atheist and became an outspoken critic of the Russian Orthodox clergy's influence in Russian society. Yet simultaneously, he publicly identified as an agnostic Jew, served on the board of directors of the Russian Jewish Congress, vocally fought what he considered anti-semitism in Russian society and was a very active supporter and fundraiser for Israel and Zionist causes.