Yuli Khariton

Yuli Borisovich Khariton was a Russian physicist, born February 27, 1904 in Saint Petersburg and died December 18, 1996 in Sarov at the age of 92, who served as chief designer of the Soviet Union's first nuclear weapon. He earned his physics doctorate from the University of Cambridge in 1928 under Ernest Rutherford, then joined the Institute of Chemical Physics in 1931, heading its explosion laboratory until 1946 and working with the physicist Yakov Zeldovich on the theory of nuclear chain reactions. From the start of the Soviet atomic bomb project in 1943 he led its weapon design work, becoming scientific director of the secret design bureau KB-11 at Arzamas-16 in Sarov, a post he held for 46 years, and he reported progress on the first Soviet nuclear weapon, RDS-1, which was tested on August 29, 1949. He was elected a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences in 1946 and a full member in 1953, was named Hero of Socialist Labour three times, in 1949, 1951 and 1954, and received the Lenin Prize in 1956.