Vladimir E. Zakharov

Vladimir Evgen'evich Zakharov (Влади́мир Евге́ньевич Заха́ров; 1 August 1939 – 20 August 2023) was a Soviet and Russian mathematician and physicist.

He was Regents' Professor of mathematics at The University of Arizona, director of the Mathematical Physics Sector at the Lebedev Physical Institute, and was on the committee of the Stefanos Pnevmatikos International Award.

Zakharov's research interests covered physical aspects of nonlinear wave theory in plasmas, hydrodynamics, oceanology, geophysics, solid state physics, optics, and general relativity.

He studied at the Moscow Power Engineering Institute and at the Novosibirsk State University, where he received his specialist degree in physics in 1963 and his Candidate of Sciences degree in 1966, studying under Roald Sagdeev.

Zakharov was married and had three sons.

He died in August 2023, at the age of 84.

After completing his Candidate of Science degree, Zakharov worked as a researcher at the Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics in Novosibirsk, where in 1971 he completed his Doctor of Sciences degree.

In 1974, Zakharov moved to the Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics in Chernogolovka, where he eventually became director.

He was elected as a corresponding member of the

Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union in 1984 and as a full member in 1991.

He published several books of poetry in Russia and his works regularly appeared in periodicals, such as Novy Mir, in the 1990s and 2000s.

In 1992, Zakharov became a professor of mathematics at the University of Arizona, and in 2004 he became the director of the Mathematical Physics Sector at the Lebedev Physical Institute.

Zakharov was awarded the Dirac Medal in 2003 for his contributions to the theory of turbulence, with regard to the exact results and the prediction of inverse cascades, and for "putting the theory of wave turbulence on a firm mathematical ground by finding turbulence spectra as exact solutions and solving the stability problem, and in introducing the notion of inverse and dual cascades in wave turbulence."

Vladimir Zakharov was also a poet.

A collection of his poetry in an English translation The Paradise for Clouds was published in the UK in 2009.

Vladimir Zakharov was born in Kazan, to Evgeniy and Elena Zakharov, an engineer and a schoolteacher.