The physicist who built the dosimetry for F-1's first criticality and founded the Soviet reactor radiation safety system
In 1944, demobilized after his third serious wound, Dubovsky appeared before Kurchatov on crutches. Kurchatov asked, "How will you work in that condition?" A month later Dubovsky returned without the crutches, using only a cane, and was hired at Laboratory No. 2.
A Soviet nuclear physicist from Kharkov University. Demobilized after being wounded at the front, he joined Kurchatov's Laboratory No. 2 in 1944, where he carried out radiation dosimetry measurements and gamma-ray shielding experiments during the assembly of the F-1 reactor, built neutron counters from scratch, and performed the plutonium accumulation calculations. He was one of the handful who remained in the control room when F-1 went critical on 25 December 1946; he went on to found the Soviet reactor radiation safety system and directed the physical startups of the Obninsk nuclear power plant (1954) and the Mayak plutonium production reactors.
Career Timeline
- 1940Graduated Kharkov University, Faculty of Physics and Mathematics; worked at Kharkov Institute of Physics and Technology
- 1941–1943Front-line service, infantry battalion commander; demobilized after three wounds
- 1944–1946Laboratory No. 2, F-1 reactor: dosimetry, gamma shielding, neutron counters, plutonium accumulation calculations
- 1947–1952Head of radiation safety group; physical startups of Mayak (Combine 817) plutonium production reactors
- 1954Co-directed physical startup of Obninsk NPP (world's first), with A.K. Krasin
- 1958–1977Head of Nuclear Safety Laboratory, IPPE, Obninsk
- 1977–1986Ministry of Medium Machine Building; retired after publicly criticizing Chernobyl design flaws
- 1990년대Expert, State Duma Ecology Committee; contributed to radioactive waste safety legislation