The Most Famous

PHYSICISTS from Russia

This page contains a list of the greatest Russian Physicists. The pantheon dataset contains 851 Physicists, 43 of which were born in Russia. This makes Russia the birth place of the 5th most number of Physicists behind United Kingdom, and France.

Top 10

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary Russian Physicists of all time. This list of famous Russian Physicists is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity. Visit the rankings page to view the entire list of Russian Physicists.

1. Gustav Kirchhoff (1824 - 1887)

With an HPI of 75.18, Gustav Kirchhoff is the most famous Russian Physicist. His biography has been translated into 84 different languages on wikipedia.

Gustav Robert Kirchhoff (German: [ˈgʊs.taf ˈkɪʁçhɔf]; 12 March 1824 – 17 October 1887) was a German physicist, mathematican and chemist who contributed to the fundamental understanding of electrical circuits, spectroscopy and the emission of black-body radiation by heated objects. He also coined the term black body in 1860. Several different sets of concepts are named "Kirchhoff's laws" after him, which include Kirchhoff's circuit laws, Kirchhoff's law of thermal radiation, and Kirchhoff's law of thermochemistry. The Bunsen–Kirchhoff Award for spectroscopy is named after Kirchhoff and his colleague, Robert Bunsen.

2. Andrei Sakharov (1921 - 1989)

With an HPI of 74.80, Andrei Sakharov is the 2nd most famous Russian Physicist. His biography has been translated into 94 different languages.

Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov (Russian: Андре́й Дми́триевич Са́харов; 21 May 1921 – 14 December 1989) was a Soviet physicist and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, which he was awarded in 1975 for emphasizing human rights around the world. Although he spent his career in physics in the Soviet program of nuclear weapons, overseeing the development of thermonuclear weapons, Sakharov also did fundamental work in understanding particle physics, magnetism, and physical cosmology. Sakharov is mostly known for his political activism for individual freedom, human rights, civil liberties and reforms in the Soviet Union, for which he was deemed a dissident and faced persecution from the Soviet establishment. In his memory, the Sakharov Prize was established and is awarded annually by the European Parliament for people and organizations dedicated to human rights and freedoms.

3. Wilhelm Wien (1864 - 1928)

With an HPI of 72.48, Wilhelm Wien is the 3rd most famous Russian Physicist. His biography has been translated into 88 different languages.

Wilhelm Carl Werner Otto Fritz Franz Wien (German: [ˈvɪlhɛlm ˈviːn] ; 13 January 1864 – 30 August 1928) was a German physicist who, in 1893, used theories about heat and electromagnetism to deduce Wien's displacement law, which calculates the emission of a blackbody at any temperature from the emission at any one reference temperature. He also formulated an expression for the black-body radiation, which is correct in the photon-gas limit. His arguments were based on the notion of adiabatic invariance, and were instrumental for the formulation of quantum mechanics. Wien received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1911 for his work on heat radiation. He was a cousin of Max Wien, inventor of the Wien bridge.

4. Mikhail Lomonosov (1711 - 1765)

With an HPI of 70.08, Mikhail Lomonosov is the 4th most famous Russian Physicist. His biography has been translated into 86 different languages.

Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov (; Russian: Михаил Васильевич Ломоносов, IPA: [mʲɪxɐˈil vɐˈsʲilʲjɪvʲɪtɕ ləmɐˈnosəf] ; 19 November [O.S. 8 November] 1711 – 15 April [O.S. 4 April] 1765) was a Russian polymath, scientist and writer, who made important contributions to literature, education, and science. Among his discoveries were the atmosphere of Venus and the law of conservation of mass in chemical reactions. His spheres of science were natural science, chemistry, physics, mineralogy, history, art, philology, optical devices and others. The founder of modern geology, Lomonosov was also a poet and influenced the formation of the modern Russian literary language.

5. Arnold Sommerfeld (1868 - 1951)

With an HPI of 68.06, Arnold Sommerfeld is the 5th most famous Russian Physicist. His biography has been translated into 63 different languages.

Arnold Johannes Wilhelm Sommerfeld, (German: [ˈzɔmɐˌfɛlt]; 5 December 1868 – 26 April 1951) was a German theoretical physicist who pioneered developments in atomic and quantum physics, and also educated and mentored many students for the new era of theoretical physics. He served as doctoral supervisor and postdoc supervisor to seven Nobel Prize winners and supervised at least 30 other famous physicists and chemists. Only J. J. Thomson's record of mentorship offers a comparable list of high-achieving students. He introduced the second quantum number, azimuthal quantum number, and the third quantum number, magnetic quantum number. He also introduced the fine-structure constant and pioneered X-ray wave theory.

6. Pavel Cherenkov (1904 - 1990)

With an HPI of 66.52, Pavel Cherenkov is the 6th most famous Russian Physicist. His biography has been translated into 77 different languages.

Pavel Alekseyevich Cherenkov (Russian: Па́вел Алексе́евич Черенко́в [ˈpavʲɪl ɐlʲɪkˈsʲe(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ tɕɪrʲɪnˈkof]; July 28, 1904 – January 6, 1990) was a Soviet physicist who shared the Nobel Prize in physics in 1958 with Ilya Frank and Igor Tamm for the discovery of Cherenkov radiation, made in 1934.

7. Igor Kurchatov (1903 - 1960)

With an HPI of 65.66, Igor Kurchatov is the 7th most famous Russian Physicist. His biography has been translated into 56 different languages.

Igor Vasilyevich Kurchatov (Russian: Игорь Васильевич Курчатов; 12 January 1903 – 7 February 1960), was a Soviet physicist who played a central role in organizing and directing the former Soviet program of nuclear weapons, and has been referred to as "father of the Russian atomic bomb". As many of his contemporaries in Russia, Kurchatov, initially educated as a naval architect, was an autodidact in nuclear physics and was brought by Soviet establishment to accelerate the feasibility of the "super bomb". Aided by effective intelligence management by Soviet agencies on the American Manhattan Project, Kurchatov oversaw the quick development and testing of the first Soviet nuclear weapon, which was roughly based on the first American device, at Semipalatinsk in the Kazakh SSR in 1949. Kurchatov, a recipient of many former Soviet honors, had an instrumental role in modern nuclear industry in Russia. His rapid decline in health is mainly attributed to a 1949 radiation accident in Chelyabinsk-40.: 107–108 Kurchatov died in Moscow in 1960, aged 57.

8. Alexei Alexeyevich Abrikosov (1928 - 2017)

With an HPI of 64.97, Alexei Alexeyevich Abrikosov is the 8th most famous Russian Physicist. His biography has been translated into 78 different languages.

Alexei Alexeyevich Abrikosov (Russian: Алексе́й Алексе́евич Абрико́сов; June 25, 1928 – March 29, 2017) was a Soviet, Russian and American theoretical physicist whose main contributions are in the field of condensed matter physics. He was the co-recipient of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Physics, with Vitaly Ginzburg and Anthony James Leggett, for theories about how matter can behave at extremely low temperatures.

9. Igor Tamm (1895 - 1971)

With an HPI of 64.95, Igor Tamm is the 9th most famous Russian Physicist. His biography has been translated into 76 different languages.

Igor Yevgenyevich Tamm (Russian: И́горь Евге́ньевич Тамм; 8 July 1895 – 12 April 1971) 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.

10. Nikolay Basov (1922 - 2001)

With an HPI of 64.50, Nikolay Basov is the 10th most famous Russian Physicist. His biography has been translated into 74 different languages.

Nikolay Gennadiyevich Basov (Russian: Никола́й Генна́диевич Ба́сов; 14 December 1922 – 1 July 2001) was a Russian Soviet physicist and educator. For his fundamental work in the field of quantum electronics that led to the development of laser and maser, Basov shared the 1964 Nobel Prize in Physics with Alexander Prokhorov and Charles Hard Townes.

People

Pantheon has 47 people classified as Russian physicists born between 1711 and 1974. Of these 47, 9 (19.15%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living Russian physicists include Alexey Ekimov, Yuri Oganessian, and Andre Geim. The most famous deceased Russian physicists include Gustav Kirchhoff, Andrei Sakharov, and Wilhelm Wien. As of April 2024, 4 new Russian physicists have been added to Pantheon including Alexey Ekimov, Anatoli Bugorski, and George Volkoff.