ABSTRACT
I knew Yakov Borisovich for nearly a half a century. He was unquestionably one of the most splendid people I have had the pleasure of knowing. It is a bitter feeling to be writing remembrances of him. In my memory, he lives on. His personality is inseparable from the science that he produced. He was unique in the variety of his creativity, from the physics of combustion, through nuclear weapons, to the very depths of astrophysics and cosmology. It wasn’t for nothing that one English scientist remarked of him, ‘Finally, I’ve seen Bourbaki in a single person.’21 Given the depth and degree of Zeldovich’s knowledge of each of his scientif ic passions, these words are one of the best and highest estimations of his scientific creativity. It is not possible for any one person to write a complete memoir about him. Therefore, I think that I will be doing the right thing if I concentrate on one chapter in the scientific accomplishments of Yakov Borisovich, which I observed in detail. This choice is also correct for me because I twice had the pleasure of working in this field with Zeldovich.
