Vitaly Iosifovich Goldanskii (born 18.06.1923) is a Soviet physical chemist and an academician (1981; corresponding member 1962). He was born in Vitebsk. He graduated from Moscow University (1944). In 1942 —52 he worked at the Institute of Chemical Physics of the USSR Academy of Sciences, in 1952-61 he was head of a sector at the Physical Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences, and from 1961 he has been head of a department at the Institute of Chemical Physics of the USSR Academy of Sciences; since 1951 he has also taught at the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute (professor from 1956).
His research is in chemical physics, high-energy chemistry, nuclear chemistry (gamma-resonance spectroscopy, the chemistry of new atoms), nuclear physics and the physics of elementary particles. He discovered the quantum low-temperature limit of the rate of chemical reactions, discovered and explained the asymmetry of Mössbauer spectra (the Goldanskii — Karyagin effect), and laid the foundations of the physical chemistry of the positron and of positronium. He discovered the polymerisation of solid monomers under the action of shock waves.
He predicted two-proton radioactivity, the emission of beta-delayed pairs of neutrons and protons, and the existence and properties of many dozens of unknown nuclei far from the region of stability (among them the properties of superheavy helium-8), and was the first to determine experimentally the electric polarisability of the proton in experiments on the Compton effect on the proton.
The Lenin Prize (1980). The D. I. Mendeleev Gold Medal (1975). The D. I. Mendeleev (1966) and V. G. Khlopin (1977) Prizes. Editor-in-chief of the journal High Energy Chemistry (since 1967).