German Arsenyevich Goncharov was a Russian physicist whose career mostly spent in the former Soviet program of nuclear weapons.
11 Facts About German Goncharov
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Since 1952 until 2004, Goncharov developed and tested Soviet thermonuclear weapons and led a theoretical department at the Soviet nuclear research facility at Arzamas-16 from 1967 to 2004.
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In June 1952, German Goncharov was assigned to work in the department of experimental nuclear reactors at KB-11, usually referred to as Arzamas-16 and now known as All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Experimental Physics, in Sarov, Nizhny Novgorod region.
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German Goncharov worked as a senior laboratory assistant and from September 1952 as an engineer.
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In September 1953, German Goncharov transferred to the post of staff member of the theoretical department.
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German Goncharov was a co-author of a detailed feasibility study undertaken by a team in 1954 and 1955, involving the theory, design and calculations of the next-generation RDS-37 device, an air-delivered two-stage thermonuclear bomb which was detonated in 1956: in the first stage, x-ray radiation was produced from a primary nuclear charge; in the second stage the radiation compressed a thermonuclear core resulting in a fusion reaction.
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German Goncharov proposed methods of measuring the power of underground nuclear tests in 1963.
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German Goncharov was appointed to the post of head of the theoretical department of KB-11 in 1967, a position he held until 2004.
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German Goncharov officially became a doctor of physical and mathematical sciences in 1973 and a professor in 1995.
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German Goncharov worked as chief research officer of the Institute of Theoretical and Mathematical Physics of VNIIEhF from 2002.
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German Goncharov died on 7 September 2009 in Moscow and was buried at the Troyekurovskoye Cemetery.