Vitaly Ginzburg: Nobel Laureate and Soviet Physicist

Biography

Vitaly Ginzburg was born to a Jewish family in Moscow on 4 October 1916— the son of an engineer, Lazar Yefimovich Ginzburg, and a doctor, Augusta Wildauer who was a graduate from the Physics Faculty of Moscow State University in 1938. After attending his mother's alma mater, he defended his qualifications of the candidate's (Kandidat Nauk) dissertation in 1940, and his comprehensive thesis for the doctor's (Doktor Nauk) qualification in 1942. In 1944, he became a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Among his achievements are a partially phenomenological theory of superconductivity, the Ginzburg–Landau theory, developed with Lev Landau in 1950; the theory of electromagnetic wave propagation in plasmas (for example, in the ionosphere); and a theory of the origin of cosmic radiation. He is also known to biologists as being part of the group of scientists that helped bring down the reign of the politically connected anti-Mendelian agronomist Trofim Lysenko, thus allowing modern genetic science to return to the USSR.

In 1937, Ginzburg married Olga Zamsha. In 1946, he married his second wife, Nina Ginzburg (nee Yermakova), who had spent more than a year in custody on fabricated charges of plotting to assassinate the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.

As a renowned professor and researcher, Ginzburg was an obvious candidate for the Soviet bomb project. From 1948 through 1952 Ginzburg worked under Igor Kurchatov to help with the hydrogen bomb. Ginzburg and Igor Tamm both proposed ideas that would make it possible to build a hydrogen bomb. When the bomb project moved to Arzamas-16 to continue in even more secrecy, Ginzburg was not allowed to follow. Instead he stayed in Moscow and supported from afar, staying under watch due to his background and past. As the work got continuously more classified, Ginzburg was phased out of the project and allowed to pursue his true passion, superconductors. During the Cold War, the thirst for knowledge and technological advancement was never-ending. This was no different with the research done on superconductors. The Soviet Union believed an the research done on superconductors would place them ahead of their American counterparts. Both sides sought to leverage the potential military applications of superconductors.

Ginzburg was the editor-in-chief of the scientific journal Uspekhi Fizicheskikh Nauk. He also headed the Academic Department of Physics and Astrophysics Problems, which Ginzburg founded at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology in 1968.

Ginzburg identified as a secular Jew, and following the collapse of communism in the former Soviet Union, he was very active in Jewish life, especially in Russia, where he served on the board of directors of the Russian Jewish Congress. He is also well known for fighting anti-Semitism and supporting the state of Israel.

In the 2000s (decade), Ginzburg was politically active, supporting the Russian liberal opposition and human rights movement. He defended Igor Sutyagin and Valentin Danilov against charges of espionage put forth by the authorities. On 2 April 2009, in an interview to the Radio Liberty Ginzburg denounced the FSB as an institution harmful to Russia and the ongoing expansion of its authority as a return to Stalinism.

Ginzburg worked at the P. N. Lebedev Physical Institute of Soviet and Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow since 1940. Russian Academy of Sciences is a major institution where mostly all Nobel Prize laureates of physics from Russia have done their studies and/or research works.

Stance on religion

Ginzburg was an avowed atheist, both under the militantly atheist Soviet government and in post-Communist Russia when religion made a strong revival. He criticized clericalism in the press and wrote several books devoted to the questions of religion and atheism. Because of this, some Orthodox Christian groups denounced him and said no science award could excuse his verbal attacks on the Russian Orthodox Church. He was one of the signers of the Open letter to the President Vladimir V. Putin from the Members of the Russian Academy of Sciences against clericalisation of Russia.

Nobel Prize

Vitaly Ginzburg, along with Anthony Leggett and Alexei Abrikosov were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2003 for their groundbreaking work on the theory of superconductors. The Nobel Prize recognized Ginzburg's work in theoretical physics, specifically his contributions to understanding the behavior of matter at extremely low temperatures.

His collaboration with Lev Landau in 1950 led to the development of the Ginzburg-Landau theory, which became paramount to later work on superconductors. Landau had been working on superconductors for years before their partnership, with Landau publishing many papers between 1941 and 1947 on the properties of quantum fluids at extremely low temperatures. Lev Landau would later receive a Nobel Prize in 1962 for this research on the properties of the superfluid liquid helium in 1941. Before their collaboration, Landau had just done research on liquid helium and other quantum fluids, but Ginzburg allowed them to go a step further.

Ginzburg introduced the concept of an order parameter, which would allow them to characterize the state of the superconductor. To do this, they derived a complex set of equations that would allow them to describe the behavior of the superconductor. These equations provided a model from which researchers can understand the transition between a normal and superconducting state, as well as be able to predict various properties of other superconductors. Using these equations, they were also able to introduce the Ginzburg-Landau Parameter. This parameter used a separate set of equations in order to classify if they were looking at a Type-I or Type-II superconductor. This advancement allowed Anthony Leggett to build upon it and complete his own research on superconductors.

This research on superconductors allowed many new technological advancements to unfold, including some we can see in everyday life. The use of superconductors can be seen in MRI machines, engines, and new Maglev trains.

Death

A spokeswoman for the Russian Academy of Sciences announced that Ginzburg died in Moscow on 8 November 2009 from cardiac arrest. He had been suffering from ill health for several years, and three years before his death said "In general, I envy believers. I am 90, and [am] being overcome by illnesses. For believers, it is easier to deal with them and with life's other hardships. But what can be done? I cannot believe in resurrection after death."

Prime Minister of Russia Vladimir Putin sent his condolences to Ginzburg's family, saying "We bid farewell to an extraordinary personality whose outstanding talent, exceptional strength of character and firmness of convictions evoked true respect from his colleagues". President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev, in his letter of condolences, described Ginzburg as a "top physicist of our time whose discoveries had a huge impact on the development of national and world science."

Ginzburg was buried on 11 November in the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow, the resting place of many famous politicians, writers and scientists of Russia.

Family

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The first wife (in 1937–1946) is a graduate of the Faculty of Physics of Moscow State University (1938) Olga Ivanovna Zamsha (born 1915, Yeysk), candidate of physical and mathematical sciences (1945), associate professor at MEPhI (1949–1985), author of the “Collection of problems on general physics" (with co-authors, 1968, 1972, 1975). The second wife (since 1946) is a graduate of the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics of Moscow State University, experimental physicist Nina Ivanovna Ginzburg (née Ermakova) (October 2, 1922 — May 19, 2019).

Daughter — Irina Vitalievna Dorman (born 1939), graduate of the Faculty of Physics of Moscow State University (1961), candidate of physical and mathematical sciences, historian of science (her husband is a cosmophysicist, doctor of physical and mathematical sciences Leib (Lev) Isaakovich Dorman).

Granddaughter — Victoria Lvovna Dorman, American physicist, graduate of the physics department of Moscow State University and Princeton University, deputy dean for academic affairs at the Princeton School of Engineering and Applied Science; her husband is physicist and writer Mikhail Petrov.

Great cousin — Mark Ginzburg.

Other honors and awards