Viktor Ambartsumian
He studied alongside other major Soviet scientists such as Lev Landau, Sergei Sobolev, Sergey Khristianovich and George Gamow.Gerasimovich viewed Ambartsumian and other young astrophysicists as "undisciplined and in too much of a rush to publish untested theories and poorly documented research."McCutcheon notes that while in the West some have questioned Ambartsumian's possible role in the terror, "there is no hard evidence to suggest that he was guilty of anything more serious than surviving at a time when others did not."[2] Ambartsumian led the evacuation of part of the faculty of Leningrad State University to Elabuga, Tatarstan in 1941, after the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union.[31] In the same year, he co-founded the Armenian Academy of Sciences along with scientists and scholars Hovsep Orbeli, Hrachia Acharian, Artem Alikhanian, Abram Alikhanov, Manuk Abeghian and others.[47] Several symposiums of the International Astronomical Union and numerous conferences were held in Byurakan in attendance of Jan Oort, Fritz Zwicky, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, Pyotr Kapitsa, Vitaly Ginzburg, and others.Chandrasekhar noted the "early scepticism with which this discovery was received by the astronomers of the 'establishment' when I first gave an account of [Ambartsumian's] paper at the colloquium at the Yerkes Observatory in late 1950."[60] Chandrasekhar noted that Ambartsumian's discovery of stellar associations had "far-reaching implications for subsequent theories relating to star formation.[2] At the 1958 Solvay Conference on Physics in Brussels he gave a famous report in which he emphasized the extraordinary character of the activity of galactic nuclei (AGN).In December 1973 the crewed Soyuz 13 mission operated the "Orion-2 ultraviolet Cassegrain telescope with a quartz objective prism built in the Byurakan Observatory."[63] These activities, especially the space missions, when for example a special crewed spaceship had to be devoted to an experiment from the smallest Soviet republic, needed powerful backing, both in Kremlin corridors and within the top-secret rocket industry establishment.This was achieved due to Ambartsumian's political skills, with the active support of Mstislav Keldish, the then President of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.Ambartsumian's calculations, Cormack argued, "suggest that even in 1936 computed tomography might have been able to make significant contributions to, say, the diagnosis of tumors in the head."[68] "As well as being one of the giants of astronomical research in the 20th century, Viktor Ambartsumian was also a great leader and organizer of science in Armenia, in Russia, and on the international level."[27] Rouben Paul Adalian wrote that Ambartsumian "exercised enormous influence in the advancement of science in Soviet Armenia, and was revered as his country's leading scientist."[2] As president of the principal coordinating body for scientific research in Soviet Armenia, Ambartsumian played a significant role in promoting the sciences in the country."[73] Overall, Apoyan criticizes Ambartsumian's role in science administration, arguing that he had a tendency to "fail projects that did not directly serve his fame.Oganjanyan and Silantiev note that Ambartsumian was rumored to have seen Mergelyan as a rival for the academy's president and decided to "get rid of the competitor forever.At the 1952 IAU General Assembly in Rome he declared: "We believe that the joint study of such large problems as that of the evolution of celestial bodies will contribute to the cultural rapprochement of different nations, and to a better understanding among them."[87] For over four decades,[e] he headed Gitelik, the Armenian branch of the all-Soviet organization Znaniye (Knowledge), founded in 1947 to continue the pre-war atheist work of the League of Militant Godless.[f] In 1969 Ambartsumian visited San Lazzaro degli Armeni in Venice, home of the Armenian Catholic congregation of the Mekhitarists and was declared an honorary member of its academy.[103] Mark H. Teeter wrote in a 1981 report that Ambartsumian is "one of a rather limited group of Soviet scholars of international stature who claim that dialectical materialism has assisted them in their work."[78] Graham notes that his "praise of dialectical materialism has been voiced again and again over the years; these affirmations have come when political controls were rather lax as well as when they were tight.In 1971 he was among leading 14 Soviet scientists who signed a letter to U.S. President Richard Nixon in support of Angela Davis and appealed him to "give her an opportunity of continuing her scientific work.[122] In September 1990 Ambartsumian and four other Armenians, including writer Zori Balayan and actor Sos Sargsyan, went on a hunger strike at the Hotel Moskva in Moscow to protest the military rule over Nagorno-Karabakh declared by Mikhail Gorbachev.Donald Lynden-Bell characterized Ambartsumian as a "broad-shouldered thickset man of medium height, quick intellect and strong character."[26] Chandrasekhar opined in 1988:[61] After he visited Byurakan for the First Soviet-American Conference on Communication with Extraterrestrial Intelligence in 1971, William H. McNeill wrote that Ambartsumian is a "world famous astronomer and a man of enormous local prestige.[41][156] Fadey Sargsyan, Ambartsumian's successor as President of the Armenian Academy of Sciences, stated in 1998 that he went "beyond the limits of his scientific fields and in his own lifetime [became] a great national figure.Roderick Oliver Redman called it "a welcome addition to the comparatively few general texts of solid worth which are now available"[186] and noted that in a short time it had found "many appreciative readers in both German and English speaking countries."[188] A. David Andrews described it as a "valuable textbook", which "contains examples of [Ambartsumian's] unique and fruitful approaches to stubborn astronomical problems.
Russian EmpireTbilisiGeorgiaByurakanByurakan ObservatoryLeningrad State UniversityStellar associationRoubenStalin prizeGold Medal of the Royal Astronomical SocietyBruce MedalForMemRSLomonosov Gold MedalNational Hero of ArmeniaState Prize of RussiaAstrophysicsPulkovo ObservatoryYerevan State UniversityThesisDoctoral advisorAristarkh BelopolskyViktor SobolevBenjamin MarkarianGrigor GurzadyanRussianArmenianastrophysicistastronomerstheoretical astrophysicsSoviet ArmeniaArmenian Academy of SciencesAstrofizikaTiflisArmenian ApostolicTskhinvaliVardenisDiyadinLake SevanRusso-Turkish WarSaint Petersburg UniversityClassical GreekHovhannes TumanyanSiriusgeophysicsOrmsby M. MitchelgymnasiumsSolar Systemextraterrestrial lifetheory of relativityAshot HovhannisyanAlexander MiasnikianHerzen Pedagogical InstituteOrest KhvolsonVladimir SmirnovLev LandauSergei SobolevSergey KhristianovichGeorge GamowBoris GerasimovichSubrahmanyan ChandrasekharprorectorGreat PurgeStalinNikolai Aleksandrovich Kozyrevforced-labor campMatvei Petrovich BronsteinElabugaTatarstanNazi invasion of the Soviet UnionYerevanHovsep OrbeliHrachia AcharianArtem AlikhanianAbram AlikhanovManuk AbeghianSpringerByurakan Astrophysical ObservatoryMount AragatstarpaulinSchmidt telescopeCarl Zeiss AGMarkarian galaxiesOrder of LeninInternational Astronomical UnionJan OortFritz ZwickyPyotr KapitsaVitaly GinzburgNikita KhrushchevLeonid BrezhnevThe New York Timesbasic researchastronomycosmogonytheoretical physicsmathematical physicsnebulaestar systemsextragalactic astronomystellar associationsactivity of galactic nucleigeneral relativityblack holesstellar systemstar formationMilky WayO and B spectral typesT Tauriflare starsopen clustersgalaxyYerkes Observatoryquasarsradiative transferopticsradiophysicsoceanologySalyut 1Orion 1Soyuz 13Cassegrain telescopeZeitschrift für PhysikSturm-Liouville problemvibrating stringeigenvaluesRadon's problem