The scientist-statesman who built nuclear weapons and called for their abolition
Elected president of the international Pugwash movement in 1968, he advocated nuclear disarmament as a Soviet scientist while simultaneously directing centrifuge uranium enrichment for weapons at the Kurchatov Institute.
A Soviet physicist and science administrator. Born in Grozny, he developed gas centrifuge technology for uranium enrichment at the Kurchatov Institute, contributing decisively to the Soviet nuclear weapons program, and served as scientific director of the world's first nuclear reactor-converter 'Romashka' (1964). Elected Vice-President of the USSR Academy of Sciences in 1962, he chaired the Soviet Pugwash Committee from 1964 and served as president of the international Pugwash movement in 1968–1969, representing the USSR in nuclear disarmament. While directing nuclear technology as deputy director of the Kurchatov Institute, he was elected Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR in 1967, bridging science and state.
Activities and affiliations
- 1938–1973 Science and technology · Soviet Union
Career Timeline
- 1949–1960Deputy scientific director, Combine No. 813 · gas centrifuge enrichment
- 1960–1973Deputy director for research, Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy
- 1962–1973Vice-President, USSR Academy of Sciences
- 1964Scientific director, first nuclear reactor-converter 'Romashka'
- 1964–1973Chairman, Soviet Pugwash Committee
- 1967–1973Chairman, Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR
- 1968–1969President, Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs
Related historical events
From a Grozny oil engineer to a turbulence theorist
Mikhail Millionshchikov was born in Grozny, in Terek Oblast, in January 1913. His father, Dmitry Ivanovich Millionshchikov, was a lathe operator at the locomotive depot of the Grozny station on the Vladikavkaz railway. In 1932 he graduated from the Grozny Oil Institute as a drilling engineer and stayed on as an assistant, teaching higher mathematics, drilling and theoretical mechanics. In 1934 he moved to the Moscow Aviation Institute, where he lectured on aircraft aerodynamics and served until 1943 as acting dean of the aircraft and helicopter construction faculty. From 1939 he worked as a senior researcher in the high-speed laboratories of the Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute (TsAGI), entering the fields of turbulence theory and applied gas dynamics that established his scientific reputation. A student of Kolmogorov and Yuryev, he developed the theory of isotropic turbulence and formulated the law of decay of turbulent pulsations, and he was the first to examine the role of inertial terms in isotropic turbulence. In petroleum engineering he formulated a theory of water coning in oil wells, proposed a new method of exploiting oil strata, studied gas ejectors, and suggested using the excess pressure of natural gas in gas lines to generate electricity. His 1940s TsAGI research on gas flow in channels became the theoretical basis for calculating long-distance gas pipelines and was applied to the design of supersonic nozzles for jet engines. From 1944 to 1949 he was deputy director for scientific affairs at the Institute of Mechanics of the USSR Academy of Sciences; he received the degree of Doctor of Technical Sciences in 1946 and the title of professor in 1949. His appointment in 1949 as deputy scientific director of Combine No. 813 of the First Main Directorate turned his research toward uranium enrichment and reactor construction.