(1916–    ), Russian theoretical physicist, astrophysicist, and Nobel laureate. Born on Oct. 4, 1916, in Moscow, he completed his first degree at Moscow State University in 1938, receiving his Ph.D. four years later. He joined the P. N. Lebedev Physical Institute in Moscow in 1941, serving as department head from 1971 to 1988. He has also held teaching posts at Gorky State University and the Moscow Institute for Physics and Technology.

Ginzburg is known in part for his work in astrophysics, especially in the fields of cosmic rays, pulsar radio emissions (see Star: Pulsars and Neutron Stars), and black hole electrodynamics. His most prominent achievements, however, have been in the field of material physics, most notably in the field of superconductivity, the name given to a phenomenon in which a material sheds its electrical resistance when cooled to extremely low temperatures (see Cryogenics).

An important theory of his and the Russian physicist Lev D. Landau dealing with superconductivity was published in 1950. The basis of the Landau-Ginzburg (LG) theory, as it is known, described the connection between superconductivity and certain critical values of electric current and magnetic field strengths (the threshold for superconductivity's appearance) for superconductors as it was understood at the time. They introduced a variable (a measure) for the order among electrons, which they called the superconducting order parameter, and they formulated the mathematical equations by which the value of this parameter could be determined. (See also Critical Point; Matter, States of).

Ginzburg shared the 2003 Nobel Prize in physics with Russian-born American physicist Alexei A. Abrikosov “for pioneering contributions to the theory of superconductors” and with British-American physicist Anthony J. Leggett, who was cited “for pioneering contributions to the theory of superfluids.”

Ginzburg's other honors include many from the former Soviet Union, such as the State Prize (1953), the Lenin Prize (1966), and the Lomonosov Big Gold Medal of the Russian Academy of Science (1995). Outside his home country, he has been elected a foreign member of nine Academies of Sciences, including the American Academy of Sciences in 1981. He was awarded the UNESCO Niels Bohr Gold Medal in 1998.