Efim Samoilovich Fradkin (

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

: ''Ефим Самойлович Фрадкин'') (November 30, 1924 – May 25, 1999) was a Russian

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...

Biography

Fradkin was born in Shchedrin near

Zhlobin Zhlobin (; ; ; ) is a town in Gomel Region, Belarus. It is located on the Dnieper River, and serves as the administrative center of Zhlobin District. It is situated from Gomel. As of 2025, it has a population of 76,304. The town is notable fo ...

(now

Belarus Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...

), then in the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

, in 1924. From 1942 to 1947, Fradkin served in the

Soviet Army The Soviet Ground Forces () was the land warfare service branch of the Soviet Armed Forces from 1946 to 1992. It was preceded by the Red Army. After the Soviet Union ceased to exist in December 1991, the Ground Forces remained under th ...

and in 1945 became a member of the

CPSU The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU),. Abbreviated in Russian as КПСС, ''KPSS''. at some points known as the Russian Communist Party (RCP), All-Union Communist Party and Bolshevik Party, and sometimes referred to as the Soviet ...

. In 1948 he graduated from the University of L’vov. That same year he began working at the Institute of Physics of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. His major works are devoted to

quantum field theory In theoretical physics, quantum field theory (QFT) is a theoretical framework that combines Field theory (physics), field theory and the principle of relativity with ideas behind quantum mechanics. QFT is used in particle physics to construct phy ...

, quantum statistics, and hydrodynamics. Fradkin has used the methods of functional analysis in the theory of relativists fields. He developed a modified perturbation theory for the theory of interacting particles. He obtained renormalized field theory equations and studied their solution. He also introduced functional methods into quantum statistics, in which he developed the diagram technique. He was awarded the USSR State Prize in 1953 ( Stalin Prize of First Degree), Igor Tamm Prize of the

USSR Academy of Sciences The Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union was the highest scientific institution of the Soviet Union from 1925 to 1991. It united the country's leading scientists and was subordinated directly to the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union (u ...

in 1980, and the

Dirac Prize Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac ( ; 8 August 1902 – 20 October 1984) was an English mathematician and Theoretical physics, theoretical physicist who is considered to be one of the founders of quantum mechanics. Dirac laid the foundations for bot ...

ICTP The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) is a research center for physical and mathematical sciences, located in Trieste, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy. The center operates under a tripartite agreement between the It ...

in 1989. In 1996–1997, Fradkin was a guest professor of the director-general of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) and a member of the organization's Theory Division.

References

1924 births 1999 deaths Russian physicists Belarusian Jews Full Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences Full Members of the Russian Academy of Sciences Recipients of the Stalin Prize Burials in Troyekurovskoye Cemetery People associated with CERN {{Russia-physicist-stub