German Goncharov | |
|---|---|
Герман Арсеньевич Гончаров | |
 | |
| Born | (1928-07-28)July 28, 1928 |
| Died | September 7, 2009(2009-09-07) (aged 81) Moscow, Russia |
| Resting place | Troyekurovskoye Cemetery |
| Alma mater | Moscow State University |
| Known for | Soviet program of nuclear weapons |
| Awards | State Prize of Russian Federation Honored Inventor of the USSR Order of Lenin Hero of Socialist Labor Lenin Prize Order of the Red Banner of Labour |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Physics |
| Institutions | All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Experimental Physics |
German Arsenyevich Goncharov (Russian: Герман Арсеньевич Гончаров; 8 July 1928 – 7 September 2009) was aRussianphysicist who worked for theSoviet program of nuclear weapons. From 1952 to 2004, Goncharov developed and tested Sovietthermonuclear weapons; from 1967 to 2004, he led a theoretical department at the Soviet nuclear research facility atArzamas-16.
Goncharov was born in Kalinin (reverted toTver in 1991), 160 km northwest of Moscow. From 1941 to 1943, he was evacuated with his family to the Kuybyshev region (reverted toSamara in 1991). In 1946 he graduated from high school in Kalinin, winning a gold medal.[1]
He enrolled at theMoscow State University in the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics – without taking any entrance exams – and in 1947 transferred to the Physics and Technical Faculty, from which he graduated in 1952. The Faculty was at Laboratory No. 3 of the USSR Academy of Sciences (now theInstitute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics), under the direction ofAbram Alikhanov. While here, he trained in mountaineering in the Caucasus.[1]
In June 1952, Goncharov was assigned to work in the department of experimental nuclear reactors at KB-11, usually referred to as Arzamas-16 and now known asAll-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Experimental Physics (VNIIEhF), inSarov,Nizhny Novgorod region. It was a closed entity, constructed by slave labour from a gulag next to the nuclear facility. In his first year, he was deeply affected by the fact he was not allowed to leave, even to visit his parents, but kept himself distracted by the work.[2] He worked as a senior laboratory assistant and from September 1952 as an engineer. In the same year, Goncharov was sent to work in the theoretical department of KB-11 (whereAndrei Sakharov was departmental head) in Theoretical Sector 1 underIgor Tamm; there he took part in work on the first Soviet thermonuclear weapon, RDS-6s, tested at theSemipalatinsk Test Site on 12 August 1953. In September 1953, Goncharov transferred to the post of staff member of the theoretical department.[1][3]
He 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 afusion reaction. The development of this more-efficient and more-powerful Soviet thermonuclear weapon was galvanized by reports of American success with a high-yield device on 1 March 1954, the first of theCastle Bravo tests. The design was what Sakharov referred to as "the third idea" which he'd originally mulled over in 1949 (the two-stage model was initiated byStanislaw Ulam; an original patent application for the invention was submitted byKlaus Fuchs andJohn von Neumann who were employed atLos Alamos in May 1946). For this work, Goncharov was awarded theOrder of the Red Banner of Labour in 1956. In 1958, his co-design of a further improved device was tested and then put into production. Between 1959 and 1961, he developed original technical ideas, later credited to him as inventions, which were included in all further Soviet nuclear devices, and he co-designed and was involved in the testing several new bombs. He was involved in the design of the principal physical scheme of the RDS-220 bomb, 'Tsar Bomba', the largest-ever nuclear device. For his creative efforts in the work from 1959, he received theLenin Prize in 1962.[1][4][5]
Goncharov proposed methods of measuring the power of underground nuclear tests in 1963. In 1965, using his theoretical results, he suggested a new direction for the design of Soviet thermonuclear weapons of megatonne yields. The first successful test of these improved weapons was conducted in 1966, using his measurement scheme, in tunnels atNovaya Zemlya. This generation of weapons went into mass production and was put into service with theUSSR on land and sea-based missiles. Goncharov was appointed to the post of head of the theoretical department of KB-11 in 1967, a position he held until 2004. He officially became a doctor of physical and mathematical sciences in 1973 and a professor in 1995.[1]
In the period from 1955 to 1983, Goncharov participated in ten aerial and underground nuclear tests at Semipalatinsk, Novaya Zemlya andAzgir, during most of which time he was deputy head of scientific research or a member of the State Commission. In his later years, he studied and wrote about the history of the Soviet nuclear industry and the development of the nuclear arms race: he compiled the multivolume collection of archival documents "The Atomic Project of the USSR. Documents and materials." He was the principal figure in the declassification of Soviet archives on nuclear weapons underBoris Yeltsin. Goncharov worked as chief research officer of the Institute of Theoretical and Mathematical Physics of VNIIEhF from 2002.[1][4]
He died on 7 September 2009 in Moscow and was buried at theTroyekurovskoye Cemetery.[1]
