Georgy Flerov

2026-01-21 09:30:43

Georgy Flerov (Rostov-on-Don, Russian Empire, March 2, 1913 – November 19, 1990, Moscow, USSR) is a Soviet nuclear physicist, one of the first Russian researchers of nuclear fission, one of the founding fathers of the Joint Institute of Nuclear Research in Dubna. Soviet physicist who recognized (1941) that uranium undergoes spontaneous fission (not requiring neutron bombardment). In early 1942, Flerov noticed that articles about nuclear fission no longer appear in Western journals. Aware that such research has become secret, he wrote to Prime Minister Joseph Stalin, insisting that "we must immediately create a uranium bomb" (eventually headed by I. V. Kurchatov). In the course of later research, Flerov announced the synthesis of isotopes of the 104th (1965) and 106th (1974) elements. Hero of Socialist Labor (1949). Laureate of the Lenin Prize (1967), twice laureate of the Stalin Prize (1946, 1949), laureate of the USSR State Prize (1975). Flerovium (Fl) is the 114th element of Mendeleev's table, named in honor of Georgу Flerov.