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Lev Artsimovich

Soviet physicist

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 17, 2026
Entity authorityQ257879
Source-derived summary

Lev Andreyevich Artsimovich (Russian: Лев Андреевич Арцимович, February 25, 1909 – March 1, 1973), also transliterated Arzimowitsch, was a Soviet physicist known for his contributions to the Tokamak— a device that produces controlled thermonuclear fusion power.

Prior to conceiving the idea on nuclear fusion, Artsimovich participated in the former Soviet program of nuclear weapons, and was a recipient of many former Soviet honors and awards.

Biography

Artsimovich was born on 25 February 1909 in Moscow in the Russian Empire. His family had Polish nobility roots; nonetheless, he was described as Russian by his biographer in 1985. His grandfather, a professor, was exiled to Siberia after the Polish uprising against Tsarist Russia in 1863 and married a Russian woman, later settling in Smolensk. His father was educated at Lviv University; his mother was a pianist trained in Switzerland. During the civil war, the family was very poor. The parents were forced to send their son to an orphanage, from where he ran away and was homeless for a while. After the end of the civil war, the family's situation gradually improved. In 1923, Soviet authorities moved the Artsimovich family (due to suspicion of Anti-bolshevist activity) to Minsk, where he found employment in the railroad industry and started training towards becoming a railroad engineer.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Lev Artsimovich” as soviet physicist. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Artsimovich, Soviet and physicist.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1909, 1973, 1985, 1863—that can be checked directly. The authority record carries competing date values—1909-02-12, 1909-01-01—which should remain separate until their references and qualifiers are resolved. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Artsimovich, Soviet and physicist providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Lev Artsimovich”, the useful work is to connect “soviet physicist” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q257879. VIAF identifies the subject as 34576756. The Library of Congress control number is n81138999. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1909, 1973, 1985 and 1863.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Lev Artsimovich” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.