Vilen Mitrofanovich Strutinsky (russian: Вилен Митрофанович Струтинский; 16 October 1929 – 28 June 1993) was a Soviet nuclear physicist.
Strutinsky graduated from secondary school in 1946 in Odessa (after his family during World War II had been evacuated to
Yekaterinburg
Yekaterinburg ( ; rus, Екатеринбург, p=jɪkətʲɪrʲɪnˈburk), alternatively romanized as Ekaterinburg and formerly known as Sverdlovsk ( rus, Свердло́вск, , svʲɪrˈdlofsk, 1924–1991), is a city and the administrat ...
). He graduated in theoretical physics in 1952 from
Kharkov University. From 1953 to 1970 he worked at the department of nuclear theory in the
Kurchatov Institute
The Kurchatov Institute (russian: Национальный исследовательский центр «Курчатовский Институт», 'National Research Centre "Kurchatov Institute) is Russia's leading research and developmen ...
in Moscow. In 1959 he defended his PhD at the
National Research Nuclear University MEPhI, and in 1965 he received the
habilitation
Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in many European countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excellence in research, teaching and further education, usually including ...
from the
Joint Institute for Nuclear Research
The Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR, russian: Объединённый институт ядерных исследований, ОИЯИ), in Dubna, Moscow Oblast (110 km north of Moscow), Russia, is an international research cen ...
. He was a visiting scientist in 1956 in the Netherlands, in 1957–1958 at the
Niels Bohr Institute
The Niels Bohr Institute (Danish: ''Niels Bohr Institutet'') is a research institute of the University of Copenhagen. The research of the institute spans astronomy
Astronomy () is a natural science that studies astronomical object, cele ...
in Copenhagen, in 1960 in Canada, and in 1963–1964 in the United States.
In 1966, Strutinsky made a breakthrough concerning the problem of incorporating
shell effects into nuclear deformation energies higher than those of the
liquid drop model
In nuclear physics, the semi-empirical mass formula (SEMF) (sometimes also called the Weizsäcker formula, Bethe–Weizsäcker formula, or Bethe–Weizsäcker mass formula to distinguish it f