Viennamin Chebotayev, 53; Leading Atomic Physicist
Viennamin Chebotayev, one of the world’s leading atomic physicists, died while on a visit from Russia, University of Arizona officials said Wednesday.
Chebotayev, 53, a winner of the Lenin Prize for science in 1978 and a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the former Soviet Academy of Sciences, was discovered dead in bed about 8 a.m., said Peter Franken, his host and friend.
Franken said he found Chebotayev clutching his chest and it appeared to be “a classic coronary.”
Chebotayev had been scheduled to speak Thursday at a university seminar and was discussing joining the university’s Optical Sciences Center, said the center’s director, Richard Powell.
Franken, a member of the optical sciences faculty, called Chebotayev “one of the 10 most prominent atomic scientists in the world today.”
Chebotayev, who directed a major institute for atomic physics studies in the western Siberian city of Novosibirsk, is credited with at least half a dozen important discoveries in the field, Franken said.
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