GINZBURG, VITALY LAZAREVICH

GINZBURG, VITALY LAZAREVICH (1916– ), Russian physicist and Nobel laureate. Ginzburg was born in Moscow and obtained his Ph.D. in physics (1940) from Moscow State University. In 1941 he joined the Lebedev Physical Institute of the U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences (FIAN), where he remained, including the period in World War II when the Institute was evacuated to Kazan. He research was greatly influenced by the Russian physicists I.E. Tamm and L.D. Landau (Nobel Prize in physics in 1962). Ginzburg won the Nobel Prize in   physics in 2003 for his contributions to understanding superconductivity, which allows electric currents to pass through some metals and other materials (superconductors) at very low temperatures. Type 1 superconductors displace magnetic flow to allow the passage of electric currents. Type 2 superconductors allow the passage of electric currents despite the persistence of magnetic fields. The distinction is important to the practical applications of superconductivity such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in medicine. His main theoretical contribution was to recognize the role of wave function in superconducting materials. Ginzburg also made important contributions to the design of Soviet thermonuclear weapons, especially by suggesting 6lithium as the source for generating tritium3 hydrogen in the reaction. He had a broad interest in the development and applications of theoretical physics and astrophysics. He succeeded in becoming a corresponding member (1953) and a full member (1966) of the U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences despite the antisemitism of the Stalinist era. He was editor of Russia's principal physics journal (Physics-Uspekhi) from 1998. His democratic and pro-Israel views are set out in his autobiography. (Michael Denman (2nd ed.)