David Frank-Kamenetsky

Born into a Jewish family in Vilna, Frank-Kamenetskii became a leading Soviet theoretical physicist and physical chemist. In the 1930s he developed, with Nikolai Semenov, the theory of thermal explosion — the Frank-Kamenetskii equation remains central to combustion science — and he later made important contributions to plasma physics and astrophysics. His textbooks trained generations of Soviet physicists.