Victor Kovarsky Moldovan theoretical physicist, biophysicist, doctor of physical and mathematical sciences Date of Birth: 31.12.1929

1. Early Life and Family Background
2. Education and Academic Appointments
3. Scientific Contributions
4. Honors and Legacy

Early Life and Family Background

Victor Anatolyevich Kovarscky was born in 1929 in Kharkiv, Ukraine, to Anatoly Yefimovich Kovarsky, a prominent plant breeder, and Dora Abramovna Kleyman. In 1935, the family moved to Kherson, and during the Great Patriotic War, they were evacuated to Uzbekistan. In 1944, they settled in Chișinău, where Victor's father headed the Department of Selection and Seed Science at the Chișinău Agricultural Institute. There, Victor attended Secondary School No. 3, graduating in the same class as physiologist Y. A. Altman.

Education and Academic Appointments

In 1952, Kovarsky graduated from the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics at the University of Chișinău, completing his thesis under Professor Y. E. Perlin. During his studies, he married his classmate Brigitta Orenstein, and his classmates included physical chemist I. B. Bersuker and mathematician I. Ts. Gohberg. Kovarsky began publishing in 1954 and taught at the Faculty of Higher Mathematics and Theoretical Mechanics at the Chișinău Agricultural Institute from 1952 to 1960.

In 1959, Kovarsky defended his PhD thesis on "Investigation of Scattering and Recombination Theory in Semiconductors" at the Institute of Physics in Kyiv. In 1961, he joined the Academy of Sciences of the Moldavian SSR, serving as a senior research associate at the Institute of Mathematics from 1961 to 1963 and at the Institute of Applied Physics from 1963 to 1969. From 1969 onwards, he headed the Laboratory of Physical Kinetics, becoming a professor in 1971 and professor emeritus in 1995.

Scientific Contributions

In 1970, Kovarsky defended his doctoral dissertation on "Theory of Multiquantum Processes in Crystals" at the Institute of Theoretical Physics in Kyiv. His research focused on the kinetics of multiquantum processes in condensed matter physics, quantum biophysics, synergetics, the theory of interaction of ultrashort laser pulses, and molecular biology. He established the resonant dependence of the rate of a chemical reaction on the nuclear variables of the reactants (1962). He proposed the non-Condon approximation in the theory of non-radiative transitions and investigated the role of static properties of electromagnetic radiation in multiphoton processes.

Honors and Legacy

Kovarsky was elected a corresponding member of the Moldavian Academy of Sciences in 1972 and an academician in 1992. He chaired scientific councils at the Moldavian Academy of Sciences on biophysics, theoretical and mathematical physics, optical electronics, and the physics and technology of semiconductors. He received the "Gloria Muncii" (Glory to Labor) Order and the "Dmitry Cantemir" Medal from the Academy of Sciences of Moldova. Kovarsky's autobiographical prose and poetry book, "Arrow of Time in My Life," was published in Chișinău in 1999. His son, Evgeny Viktorovich Kovarsky, is a Russian-Chilean physicist.