Vladimir Konstantinovich Chernyshev, an understudy to Andrei Sakharov and a leader in magnetic flux compression technology, died of cancer in Moscow on 30 April 2005. Vlad’s health had noticeably declined since the passing of his beloved wife, Nina, in September 2003. At the time of his death, Vlad was a deputy scientific leader of the All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Experimental Physics (VNIIEF) in Sarov—"the Russian Los Alamos"—where the Soviet Union’s first nuclear weapons were developed. Vlad was born on 5 June 1927 in the town of Serpukhov in the Moscow region of the Soviet Union. When he graduated from the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute in 1949, the Soviet government was recruiting the brightest young people into its nuclear weapons program. At VNIIEF, Vlad became involved in the physics of high explosives. He quickly distinguished himself and was awarded the Stalin Prize in 1953. His work with explosives led to the creation of safe detonators, which was the most important improvement for nuclear weapons safety. In 1962 he was awarded the Lenin Prize, and in 1970 he received candidate’s and doctor’s degrees in physics and mathematics. In the early 1950s, Vlad became enthralled with Sakharov’s ideas on magnetic cumulation—the concentration of magnetic energy through explosive-driven magnetic flux compression—and its application to controlled thermonuclear fusion. The achievement of fusion breakeven was a major goal for the remainder of Vlad’s career, and he set out to develop the requisite technology. Vlad’s crowning achievements were magnetic flux compression generators that have reached performance levels unmatched by any other pulsed-power system in the world. In 1961 he invented the disk electromagnetic generator, a device that has generated up to 300 MA and 200 MJ in a 12-microsecond pulse. In 1998, he was awarded the Russian Government Prize for the development and scientific applications of the DEMG. Vlad’s team developed the Potok series of helical generators and various types of opening switches that shorten a generator’s output; with them the team achieved 90-MA pulses in 1 microsecond. At the time of his death, Vlad strongly believed that modern DEMG technology and MAGO (magnitnoye obzhatiye, or magnetic compression) plasma-formation systems, which he developed in partnership with one of us (Mokhov), had now made it possible to achieve the scientific breakeven point for fusion without the large initial capital investment that is required by the two more conventional approaches, magnetic confinement fusion and inertial confinement fusion. Many of Vlad’s technical accomplishments are documented in the proceedings of the 10 international conferences on megagauss magnetic field generation and related topics. Although Vlad’s name was on several abstracts submitted to the Megagauss I conference in Frascati, Italy, in 1965, and Sakharov, who coauthored several of the abstracts, encouraged Vlad to go, the Soviet Union’s security regulations prevented him from attending. Two of us (Reinovsky and Lindemuth) first met Vlad at the Megagauss V conference in Novosibirsk, Russia, in 1989. Fascinated by the accomplishments reported by his team, we queried Vlad at length. As a parting comment, Vlad offered, prophetically, “Maybe one day we can do an experiment in which you design the load and we provide the generator,” something we knew made scientific sense but that, at the time, seemed only an impossible dream. Just two and a half years later, the Soviet Union dissolved, causing worldwide concern about the fate of Russia, particularly the Russian nuclear weapons complex and the possibility of “brain drain.” In January 1992, two of us (Reinovsky and Lindemuth) discussed the situation with Vlad as we walked down the streets of Moscow. Vlad replied, “If necessary, we [the nuclear weapons scientists] will all go back to our villages and farm,” indicating the patriotism he shared with his colleagues. Proud of his homeland, he pointed to people standing in line at a museum and commented, “See, even in these troubled times, the spirit of our people is strong.” Vlad’s legacy includes a now well-known scientific collaboration between VNIIEF and Los Alamos National Laboratory that started in 1992 and has led to more than 300 publications and presentations at major international conferences. Vlad believed strongly that the US and Russia must work together to make the world a safer place. During one of his last visits to the US, Vlad participated in a snowball fight with the teenage son of one of us (Reinovsky). Afterward, Vlad described the “strategic exchange of snowballs” (as opposed to nuclear weapons) as “the best possible outcome of a career of work.” In 2003, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers presented Vlad with the Erwin Marx Award to commemorate a truly illustrious career. Unfortunately, although Vlad had visited the US many times previously, the US government did not issue a visa in time for him to travel to the US to receive his award, a terrible disappointment to a scientist who had overcome many obstacles to make US–Russia collaboration a reality. The award was presented to Vlad eight months later in Sarov. Vlad was a devoted husband, father, and grandfather, and he was understandably proud that one of the young scientists following in his footsteps is his grandson, Tony. Russia and the world have lost a brilliant man whose work will be studied for generations to come. Written by: - Irvin R. Lindemuth (Tucson, Arizona, US) - Vladislav N. Mokhov (All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Experimental Physics, Sarov, Russia) - Robert E. Reinovsky (Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico, US)