Georgy Nikolaevich Flerov was born on March 2, 1913 in Rostov-on-Don, Russia and attended what is now known as the Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University. He later majored in thermal physics and nuclear physics, and in 1940, when World War II was raging, he discovered that uranium undergoes spontaneous fission.
In early 1942, Georgy noticed that articles on nuclear fission were no longer appearing in western journals because they had been classified as “top secret.” Consequently he wrote to Premier Joseph Stalin, suggesting that the Soviet Union should build the uranium bomb without delay,”
