Viktor Ambartsumian, in full 

Viktor Amazaspovich Ambartsumian, (born

September 5 [September 18, New Style], 1908, Tbilisi, Georgia, Russian Empire—died
August 12, 1996, Byurakan Observatory, near Yerevan, Armenia), Soviet astronomer and
astrophysicist best known for his theories concerning the origin and evolution
of stars and stellar systems. He was the founder of the school
of theoretical astrophysics in the Soviet Union.

Ambartsumian was born of Armenian parents. His father, a prominent philologist,

encouraged the development of his aptitude for mathematics and physics. In 1925 he
entered the University of Leningrad (now St. Petersburg State University) with the
intention of devoting his life to research in astrophysics, and in the following year he
published a paper on solar activity, the first of 10 papers he published while an
undergraduate. After graduating in 1928, Ambartsumian became a graduate student in
astrophysics under the direction of A.A. Belopolskii at Pulkovo Observatory near
Leningrad (now St. Petersburg).

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From 1931 to 1943 he lectured at the University of Leningrad, where he headed the
Astrophysical Department. In 1932 he advanced his theory of the interaction
of ultraviolet radiation from hot stars with the surrounding gas, a theory that led to a
series of papers on the physics of gaseous clouds. His statistical analysis of stellar
systems in 1934–36, in which for the first time their physical properties were taken into
account, was found to be applicable to many related problems, such as the evolution of
double stars and star clusters. He was elected a corresponding member of the Academy
of Sciences of the U.S.S.R. in 1939 and was appointed a deputy rector of the University
of Leningrad in 1941–43. His theory of the behaviour of light in a scattering medium of
cosmic space, put forward in 1941–43, became an important tool in geophysics, space
research, and particularly astrophysics, such as in studies of interstellar matter.

In 1943 Ambartsumian joined the Armenian Academy of Sciences in Yerevan, the

capital of Armenia, and began teaching at Yerevan State University. In 1946