The father of dynamic theory of seismic waves propagation

Abstract

Georgy Ivanovich Petrashen (1914–2004) was an outstanding scientist in the field of mathematical physics, the founder of dynamic theory of propagation of seismic waves, science facilitator, and recipient of the USSR State Prize. Georgy Ivanovich Petrashen was born in 1914 in Cherepovets, his father was a railway engineer. The family moved to Leningrad in 1924. After graduating from school in 1931, Georgy Ivanovich found a job at Soil Investigation Laboratory headed by professor N. P. Puzyrevsky and became a part-time student of the Faculty of Physics of Leningrad State University (LSU). On his third year at the university, Georgy Ivanovich became a full-time student. Studying was easy for him. After graduating from the LSU, he became a postgraduate at the Department of Theoretical Physics. Academician V. A. Fok was his scientific supervisor. After finishing the postgraduate program and maintaining a thesis under the title “Meson in a Field with Central Symmetry”, G. I. Petrashen got an assignment to the Department of Physics at Pskov Pedagogical Institute and he had worked there till the beginning of the Great Patriotic War [Петрашень, 2003].