Vitaly Lazarevich Ginzburg (4 October 1916 – 8 November 2009) was a Soviet and Russian theoretical physicist, astrophysicist, Nobel laureate, a member of the Soviet and Russian Academies of Sciences and one of the fathers of the Soviet hydrogen bomb. Awarded the Order of Lenin, other Soviet orders and medals, the Order “For Services for the Motherland” (1996), the State Prize (1953), Lenin Prize (1966), Mandelstam Prize (1947), Lomonosov Prize (1962), Vavilov Gold Medal (1995), Lomonosov Big Gold Medal of the Russian Academy of Sciences (1995), Triumph Prize (2002). Elected a foreign member of nine Academies of Sciences (or equivalent institutions), including Royal Society of London (1987), American National Academy of Sciences (1981) and American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1971). Awarded Smolukhovsky Medal of Polish Physical Society (1987), Gold Medal of London Royal Astronomic Society (1991), Bardeen Prize (1991), Wolf Prize (1994/95), Unesco’s Niels Bohr Medal (1998), American Physical Society’s 1999 Nicholson Medal. The 2003 Nobel Prize in Physics Laureate.

His primary works have been on the theory of wave propagation in the ionosphere, radio astronomy, problems in the origin of cosmic rays, the thermodynamic theory of ferroelectric phenomena, the theory of superconductivity, optics, the theory of radiation, and astrophysics. In 1940 Ginzburg worked out the quantum theory of the Cherenkov-Vavilov effect and the theory of Cherenkov radiation in crystals. With L. D. Landau, he formulated a phenomenological theory of superconductivity. In 1950 and 1951 he worked on problems in thermonuclear reactions. Since 1958 he has been researching problems in the theory of excitons and in crystallooptics. He worked out the theory of magnetic-braking cosmic radio-frequency radiation and a radio astronomy theory on the origin of cosmic rays.

In 1940 after the Cherenkov-Vavilov effect was discovered and explained, Ginzburg developed quantum theory based on this effect and the theory of superlight radiation in crystals. Six years later together with Il’ja Frank he developed the theory of transient radiation, emerging when a particle crosses the boundaries of two media. In 1942 he started working at the Theoretical Department at the Institute of Physics of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Since 1940s Ginzburg worked on the theory of superconductivity and the theory of superfluidity. In 1950 together with Lev Landau he developed the semiphenomenological theory of superconductivity (also known as the Ginzburg-Landau theory). He also developed the theory of cosmic radio-frequency radiation and radioastronomical theory of the origin of cosmic radiation.