ZELDOVICH, YAKOV BORISOVICH

ZELDOVICH, YAKOV BORISOVICH (1914–1987), Soviet astrophysicist; originally a specialist in nuclear physics. Zeldovich was born in Minsk and studied in Leningrad. From 1931 he worked at the Institute of Chemical Physics of the Academy of Science of the U.S.S.R. During World War II he contributed research to the war effort. He later worked at the Institute of Cosmic Research at the Space Research Institute of the Soviet Academy of Sciences in Moscow (ASUSSR), and from 1964 at the Academy's Institute of Applied Mathematics. In 1958 he was made a member of the Academy of Sciences. Professor at the University of Moscow from 1966, he was one of the founders of contemporary theories of combustion, detonation, and shock waves and the author of a number of works on the theory of the last stages of the evolution of stars and galaxies which involved the theory of general relativity and the theory of gravitational collapse. He has also proposed a number of experiments and methods for verifying cosmological theories. Zeldovich was awarded a Lenin Prize, four Stalin Prizes, and three times hailed as a Hero of Socialist Labor. (The Shorter Jewish Encyclopaedia in Russian)