Sadovskii, Mikhail Aleksandrovich

Born Oct. 24 (Nov. 6), 1904, in St. Petersburg. Soviet physicist. Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1966; corresponding member, 1953); Hero of Socialist Labor (1949). Member of the CPSU since 1941.

Sadovskii graduated from the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute in 1930. From 1932 to 1941 he worked at the Institute of Seismology of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, and from 1941 to 1944, in the special projects section of the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. He served as deputy director of the Institute of Chemical Physics of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR between 1946 and 1963. In 1963 he became director of the Institute of Earth Physics of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.

Sadovskii’s principal works deal with problems in the theory of explosions, the study of the destructive action of explosions, and the seismic effects of large-scale explosions. Sadovskii substantiated the law of similarity for explosions. He participated in large-scale directional blasting in the USSR and is one of the founders of the science of the physics of explosions.

Sadovskii has been awarded the State Prize of the USSR (1948, 1949, 1951, and 1953) and the Lenin Prize (1962). He has also been awarded four Orders of Lenin, the Order of the October Revolution, two Orders of the Red Banner of Labor, and various medals.