Grigory Isaakovich Barenblatt is a Russian

Russians

The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....

 mathematician

Mathematician

A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....

. He graduated in 1950 from Moscow State University

Moscow State University

Lomonosov Moscow State University , previously known as Lomonosov University or MSU , is the largest university in Russia. Founded in 1755, it also claims to be one of the oldest university in Russia and to have the tallest educational building in the world. Its current rector is Viktor Sadovnichiy...

, Department of Mechanics and Mathematics. He received his Ph.D. in 1953 from Moscow State University under the supervision of A. N. Kolmogorov. He also received a D.Sc. from Moscow State University in 1957. He is a Professor in Residence at the Department of Mathematics of the University of California, Berkeley

University of California, Berkeley

The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...

 and Mathematician at Department of Mathematics, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory , is a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory conducting unclassified scientific research. It is located on the grounds of the University of California, Berkeley, in the Berkeley Hills above the central campus...

. He was G. I. Taylor Professor of Fluid Mechanics at the University of Cambridge

University of Cambridge

The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...

 from 1992 to 1994 and he has been Emeritus G. I. Taylor Professor of Fluid Mechanics since then.

His areas of research are:

1. Fracture mechanics
   Fracture mechanics
   Fracture mechanics is the field of mechanics concerned with the study of the propagation of cracks in materials. It uses methods of analytical solid mechanics to calculate the driving force on a crack and those of experimental solid mechanics to characterize the material's resistance to fracture.In...
   
   
2. The theory of fluid
   Fluid
   In physics, a fluid is a substance that continually deforms under an applied shear stress. Fluids are a subset of the phases of matter and include liquids, gases, plasmas and, to some extent, plastic solids....
   
    and gas
   Gas
   Gas is one of the three classical states of matter . Near absolute zero, a substance exists as a solid. As heat is added to this substance it melts into a liquid at its melting point , boils into a gas at its boiling point, and if heated high enough would enter a plasma state in which the electrons...
   
    flow
   Fluid dynamics
   In physics, fluid dynamics is a sub-discipline of fluid mechanics that deals with fluid flow—the natural science of fluids in motion. It has several subdisciplines itself, including aerodynamics and hydrodynamics...
   
   s in porous media
   Porosity
   Porosity or void fraction is a measure of the void spaces in a material, and is a fraction of the volume of voids over the total volume, between 0–1, or as a percentage between 0–100%...
   
   
3. The mechanics
   Mechanics
   Mechanics is the branch of physics concerned with the behavior of physical bodies when subjected to forces or displacements, and the subsequent effects of the bodies on their environment....
   
    of a non-classical deformable solid
   Solid
   Solid is one of the three classical states of matter . It is characterized by structural rigidity and resistance to changes of shape or volume. Unlike a liquid, a solid object does not flow to take on the shape of its container, nor does it expand to fill the entire volume available to it like a...
   
   s
4. Turbulence
   Turbulence
   In fluid dynamics, turbulence or turbulent flow is a flow regime characterized by chaotic and stochastic property changes. This includes low momentum diffusion, high momentum convection, and rapid variation of pressure and velocity in space and time...
   
   
5. Self-similarities
   Self-similarity
   In mathematics, a self-similar object is exactly or approximately similar to a part of itself . Many objects in the real world, such as coastlines, are statistically self-similar: parts of them show the same statistical properties at many scales...
   
   , nonlinear waves and intermediate asymptotics.

Awards and honors

• 1975 – Foreign Honorary Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences
  American Academy of Arts and Sciences
  The American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. The Academy’s elected members are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs.James Bowdoin, John Adams, and...
  
  
• 1984 – Foreign Member, Danish Center of Applied Mathematics & Mechanics
• 1988 – Foreign Member, Polish Society of Theoretical & Applied Mechanics
• 1989 – Doctor of Technology Honoris Causa at the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
• 1992 – Foreign Associate, U.S. National Academy of Engineering
  National Academy of Engineering
  The National Academy of Engineering is a government-created non-profit institution in the United States, that was founded in 1964 under the same congressional act that led to the founding of the National Academy of Sciences...
  
  
• 1993 – Fellow, Cambridge Philosophical Society
  Cambridge Philosophical Society
  The Cambridge Philosophical Society is a scientific society at University of Cambridge. It was founded in 1819. The name derives from the medieval use of the word philosophy to denote any research undertaken outside the fields of theology and medicine...
  
  
• 1993 – Member, Academia Europaea
• 1994 – Fellow, Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge; (since 1999, Honorary Fellow)
• 1995 – Lagrange Medal, Accademia Nazzionale dei Lincei
• 1995 – Modesto Panetti Prize and Medal
• 1997 – Foreign Associate, U.S. National Academy of Sciences
  United States National Academy of Sciences
  The National Academy of Sciences is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine." As a national academy, new members of the organization are elected annually by current members, based on their distinguished and...
  
  
• 1999 – G. I. Taylor Medal, U.S. Society of Engineering Science
• 1999 – J. C. Maxwell Medal and Prize, International Congress for Industrial and Applied Mathematics
• 2000 – Foreign Member, Royal Society of London
• 2005 – Timoshenko Medal
  Timoshenko Medal
  The Timoshenko Medal is an award given annually by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers to an individual"in recognition of distinguished contributions to the field of applied mechanics."...
  
  , American Society of Mechanical Engineers
  American Society of Mechanical Engineers
  The American Society of Mechanical Engineers is a professional body, specifically an engineering society, focused on mechanical engineering....
  
  , "for seminal contributions to nearly every area of solid and fluid mechanics, including fracture mechanics, turbulence, stratified flows, flames, flow in porous media, and the theory and application of intermediate asymptotics."

External links

• Applied mechanics: an age old science perpetually in rebirth (pdf). The Timoshenko Medal acceptance speech by Grigory Barenblatt (to be published by ASME in summer 2006).