Mikhail Dmitriyevich Millionshchikov (16.01.1913-27.05.1973) was a Soviet physicist and public figure, an academician (1962; corresponding member 1953), and from 1962 a vice-president of the USSR Academy of Sciences. He was born in Grozny. He graduated from the Grozny Petroleum Institute (1932). On completing postgraduate study at the Moscow Aviation Institute in 1938 he worked there. In 1944—49 he was at the Institute of Mechanics of the USSR Academy of Sciences, from 1949 head of a department and from 1960 deputy director of the Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy. He was a professor at the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute (from 1949).
His work was in the fields of mechanics, nuclear power engineering and applied physics. He carried out important studies in the theory of turbulence and the theory of the filtration of oil and gas in a porous medium. He extended the theory of isotropic turbulence, formulated the law of decay of turbulent pulsations, was the first to study the role of the inertial terms in isotropic turbulence, and worked out the theoretical basis of a method of working oil strata with bottom water and a theory of the watering-out of oil wells by this water.
Millionshchikov's work on the theory of gas ejectors and other questions of applied gas dynamics is of great importance. In particular, he created an original phenomenological theory of turbulent flow in smooth and rough pipes of arbitrary cross-section.
From the end of the 1940s Millionshchikov's research concerned problems of nuclear energy, isotope separation, the building of high-temperature nuclear reactors, plasma physics and the direct conversion of thermal energy into electrical energy (MHD generators). The groups he led achieved considerable successes in high-temperature reactor construction, in developing the magnetohydrodynamic and thermoelectric methods of energy conversion, and in studying the properties of low-temperature plasma. He was the scientific director of the creation of the world's first nuclear reactor-converter, the Romashka, put into operation in 1964.
Hero of Socialist Labour (1967). He was editor-in-chief of the journals “Herald of the USSR Academy of Sciences” and “Atomic Energy”, and chairman of the Soviet Pugwash Committee (from 1964). Lenin Prize (1961), USSR State Prizes (1951, 1954).