Evgeny Pavlovich Velikhov (born 2.02.1935) is a Soviet theoretical physicist, an academician (1974; corresponding member 1968) and vice-president (since 1977). He was born in Moscow. He graduated from Moscow University (1958). Since 1958 he has worked at the I. V. Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy (most recently as deputy director), and since 1968 he has also been professor and head of the department of atomic physics at Moscow University.
His research concerns plasma physics and the problem of controlled thermonuclear fusion, the magnetohydrodynamic method of converting energy, and quantum electronics. He is the head of the Soviet programme of controlled thermonuclear fusion.
His work on the theory of turbulent plasma and on the stability of plasma has become widely known. Under Velikhov's direction powerful pulsed sources of energy based on self-excited magnetohydrodynamic generators have been built, and the foundations have been worked out for the creation of industrial lasers, which have found wide application in metalworking. Independently of R. Z. Sagdeev and D. Pines he proposed (1962) a quasi-linear mechanism of interaction in a plasma.
USSR State Prize. A member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.