Vasily Stepanovich Fursov (born 14.01.1910) is a Soviet physicist and a Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences. He was born in Lipetsk. He graduated from Moscow University (1931), where he works (from 1954 as dean of the Faculty of Physics) (in 1944—55 also at the Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy).
His research is in the field of theoretical optics, quantum statistics and nuclear power. Together with A. A. Vlasov he developed (1936) a theory of the broadening of spectral lines on the basis of molecular interactions. He studied the density fluctuations of an ideal gas obeying quantum statistics and was the first to establish the laws of the mutual dependence of fluctuations in two spatially separated elements of the volume of a gas. The results obtained were used to determine the scattering of X-rays and light by a degenerate electron gas and by helium in the superfluid state.
In 1944 he was the first to apply the theory of parametric resonance to the study of the stability of a beam of moving particles, pointing out at the same time the possibility of realising in accelerators a new method of focusing a beam of fast particles, based on the parametric principle of increasing the stability of the beam. This principle, known as the “strong focusing method”, was put forward a few years later (in 1950-52) by N. Christofilos, E. Courant, M. Livingston and H. Snyder. He took an active part in work connected with the use of atomic energy, in particular on the creation of uranium-graphite reactors.
Three times a laureate of the USSR State Prize.