Leonid I. Sedov

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Leonid Ivanovitch Sedov (born 14 November 1907, died 5 September 1999) was a leading physicist of the Soviet Union.

During WW2 he devised the so-called Sedov Similarity Solution for a blast wave [2]. He was also the first chairman of the USSR Space Exploration program and broke first news of its existence in 1955. He was president of the International Astronautical Federation (IAF) from 1959 to 1961. [1] Until recently, it had been thought that Sedov was the principle Soviet engineer behind the Sputnik project [2].

[edit] References

• Reference to 1955 announcement
• Obituary notice in Minutes of General Assembly Meetings, 2000 section
• Sedov, L. I. 1959 Similarity and Dimensional Methods in Mechanics, 4th edn. Academic.

2. Sedov, L. I., "Propagation of strong shock waves," Journal of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics, Vol. 10, pages 241 - 250 (1946).

3. Reference to confusion with Ukrainian physicist Sergei Korolyov [[3]].