200px|thumb|right|'''''Yakov B. Zel'dovich'''''.
'''Yakov Borisovich Zel'dovich''' () (nuclear and thermonuclear weapons, and made important contributions to the fields of adsorption and catalysis, shock waves, nuclear physics, particle physics, astrophysics, physical cosmology, and general relativity.

He was born in Axis Invasion of the Soviet Union. They remained in Kazan until the summer of 1943, when Zel'dovich moved to Moscow. 

In May 1931, at age seventeen, Zel'dovich became a laboratory assistant at the Institute of Chemical Physics of the USSR Academy of Sciences. He was associated with the Institute until the end of his life. In 1936 he defended his dissertation, which was on the adsorption and catalysis on heterogeneous surfaces, for his ''Candidate of Science'' (equal to PhD). The most important point of it was the research on the ''Freundlich (or classical) adsorption isotherm''. Zel'dovich discovered the theoretical foundation of this empirical observation. In 1939 he received the degree of ''Doctor of Science'' (Physics and Mathematics), the doctor dissertation being on the oxidation of nitrogen. Zel'dovich discovered its mechanism, known in physical chemistry as ''Thermal NO Mechanism'' or ''Zel'dovich Mechanism''. 

Between 1937 and 1948 he worked on the theory of ignition, Soviet Atomic Project, working along with Igor Kurchatov. His work on nuclear weapons continued until October 1963.

In 1952 he began work in the field of p-meson. Together with S. Gershtein he noticed the analogy between the weak and Institute of the Applied Mathematics of the USSR Academy of Sciences from 1965 until January 1983. 

In 1965, at age 49, he started working in Relativistic Astrophysics at the microwave background radiation, the large-scale structure of the universe, and the theory of black holes. He predicted, with Rashid Sunyaev, that the cosmic microwave background should undergo inverse Compton scattering. This is called the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect, and measuring it is, at present (2005), one of the biggest observational efforts in cosmology.

{{Персона
| имя            = Яков Борисович Зельдович
| оригинал имени = 
| портрет        = Zeldovich.jpg
| описание       = Академик АН СССР
| дата рождения  = 8 марта 1914
| место рождения = Минск 
| дата смерти    = 2 декабря 1987
| место смерти   = Москва
}}

'''Я́ков Бори́сович Зельдо́вич''' (академик АН СССР (20 июня 1958).

== Биография ==
Учился экстерном на физико-математическом факультете Ленинградского государственного университета и физико-механическом факультете Ленинградского политехнического института, в аспирантуре Института химической физики АН СССР в Ленинграде (1934), кандидат физико-математических наук (1936), доктор физико-математических наук (1939).

Один из создателей атомной бомбы (29 августа 1949) и водородной бомбы (1953) СССР.

Наиболее известны труды Якова Борисовича по детонации, описанию процессов горения, ядерной физике, астрофизике, гравитации. В Ю. Б. Харитон впервые осуществили расчёт цепной реакции деления урана.

В сотрудничестве с Р. А. Сюняевым создал теорию рассеяния реликтового излучения на эффекта Сюняева-Зельдовича.<ref></ref><ref></ref><ref></ref><ref></ref>

=== Награды ===
* Герой Социалистического Труда (1949, 1953, 1957),
* Ленинская премия (1957),
* Сталинская премия (1943, 1949, 1951, 1953).

Награждён медалью им. К. Брюс Тихоокеанского астрономического общества (золотой медалью имени И. В. Курчатова (премию имени А. А. Фридмана 2002 года за серию работ «Эффект понижения яркости реликтового излучения в направлении на скопления галактик».