1. Vitaly Ginzburg spent his career in the former Soviet Union and was one of the leading figure in former Soviet program of nuclear weapons, working towards designs of the thermonuclear devices.
16 Facts About Vitaly Ginzburg
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Vitaly Ginzburg became a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and succeeded Igor Tamm as head of the Department of Theoretical Physics of the Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
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Vitaly Ginzburg is 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.
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In 1946, he married his second wife, Nina Vitaly Ginzburg, who had spent more than a year in custody on fabricated charges of plotting to assassinate the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.
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From 1948 through 1952 Vitaly Ginzburg worked under Igor Kurchatov to help with the hydrogen bomb.
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Vitaly Ginzburg was the editor-in-chief of the scientific journal Uspekhi Fizicheskikh Nauk.
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Vitaly Ginzburg headed the Academic Department of Physics and Astrophysics Problems, which Ginzburg founded at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology in 1968.
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Vitaly 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.
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Vitaly Ginzburg is well known for fighting anti-Semitism and supporting the state of Israel.
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Vitaly Ginzburg defended Igor Sutyagin and Valentin Danilov against charges of espionage put forth by the authorities.
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On 2 April 2009, in an interview to the Radio Liberty Vitaly Ginzburg denounced the FSB as an institution harmful to Russia and the ongoing expansion of its authority as a return to Stalinism.
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Vitaly Ginzburg was an avowed atheist, both under the militantly atheist Soviet government and in post-Communist Russia when religion made a strong revival.
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Vitaly Ginzburg criticized clericalism in the press and wrote several books devoted to the questions of religion and atheism.
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Vitaly Ginzburg 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.
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Vitaly Ginzburg introduced the concept of an order parameter, which would allow them to characterize the state of the superconductor.
16.
Prime Minister of Russia Vladimir Putin sent his condolences to Vitaly 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".