Nuclear Museum Logo
Nuclear Museum Logo

National Museum of Nuclear Science & History

Viktor Adamsky

PhysicistRussia

ScientistSoviet Atomic Bomb Program

Viktor Adamsky was a Soviet physicist.

After graduating from Moscow University in 1950, Adamsky was assigned to Sarov (also known as Arzamus – 16), a secret closed city, where he worked in the theoretical department.  Adamsky lived alongside other scientists such as Igor Tamm, Yuri Romanov, and Andrei Sakharov. As Adamsky described it, “There was enthusiasm. We worked well. We felt we were doing our duty. It was very interesting physics.”

Adamsky worked on the Soviet hydrogen bomb project. He helped design and was present for the Tsar Bomba test, the largest nuclear weapon ever detonated. His detailed account of the Tsar Bomba test can be read here.

Related Profiles

William H. Beamer

Los Alamos, NM

William H. Beamer was born on July 5, 1918 in Apollo, Pennsylvania. He graduated from South High in Youngstown, Ohio in 1935, and then attended the College of Wooster.

Hugh T. Richards

Los Alamos, NM

Hugh T. Richards was an American physicist.  He worked on neutron measurements for the atomic bombs at Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project.

Harry Daghlian

Los Alamos, NM

Harry Daghlian (1921-1945) was an American physicist. He died in 1945 from radiation poisoning after a criticality accident at Los Alamos.

Leon Leventhal

Los Alamos, NM

Leon Leventhal was a nuclear chemist and radiation expert who worked at Oak Ridge, the University of Chicago’s Met Lab, and Los Alamos Laboratory during the Manhattan Project.