David Albertovich Frank-Kamenetsky (03.08.1910-2.06.1970) was a Soviet theoretical physicist and a Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences. He was born in Vilnius. He graduated from a polytechnic institute. In 1935 — 56 he worked at the Institute of Chemical Physics of the USSR Academy of Sciences, and from 1956 at the Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy. He was professor at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.
His work concerned the physics of combustion and explosion, chemical kinetics, chemical technology, astrophysics and plasma physics. He developed a theory of similarity of the processes of energy release and removal. Together with others he carried out studies towards a theory of the self-ignition of gas mixtures. He was the first to formulate clearly the problem of heating a plasma by the dissipation of waves excited in it by an external source of oscillations. He studied the instability of a plasma in electron cyclotron heating and plasma phenomena in solids. Frank-Kamenetsky's ideas played a significant part in the establishment of plasma physics. He predicted (1960) magnetosonic resonance.
He was three times a laureate of the USSR State Prize.