Lev Vladimirovich Altshuler (Лев Владимирович Альтшулер; 1913-2003) was a Soviet physicist.
Altshuler was born in Moscow and studied at Moscow State University. In 1940, he served as an aviation mechanic in the Soviet Army before being recalled to work at the Soviet Academy of Sciences. It was there that he met fellow physicists Yuli Khariton and Yakov Zeldovich. In 1946, Altshuler went to work on the Soviet atomic bomb project at Arzamas-16, where he would stay for more than 20 years.
In his later years, Altshuler worked for the Institute of Optical-Physical Measurements in Moscow and the Institute for High Energy Densities of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He was a three-time winner of the State Prize, the Lenin Prize, and the Prize of the Government of Russia. He also won the Shock Compression Science Award from the American Physical Society “in recognition of seminal and major contributions in the development of the field of shock wave compression of condensed matter.”
Lev Altshuler died on December 23, 2003, in Moscow.