Talk:Yakov Zeldovich

English spelling of Zeldovich name
Why a spelling Iakov (&#1071;&#769;&#1082;&#1086;&#1074;) is used here instead of Yakov? Can someone explain this? I believe that &#1103; is in English spelled »ya«, not »ia«. Once I've read that this man was Russian Bourbaki in physics and related fields and that's why he deserves a better article. Best regards. --XJamRastafire 22:50, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * I took the liberty of changing it since no one had piped up, one way or the other. His last name is normally transliterated with an apostrophe in English, Zel'dovich. Don't ask me why. He really is deserving of a thorough biography, as he is one of the most important theoretical astrophysicists ever. One day, perhaps. --Joke137 00:13, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * Well, if you really want to know, it's because in that "&#1083;&#1100;&#1076;" in the Cyrillic spelling of his last name, the "&#1083;" is the "l", the "&#1076;" is the "d", but the "&#1100;" has absolutely no equivalent in English, or the Roman alphabet, because it represents palatalization of the preceding consonant (makes it sound a bit more "y"-like). So, I guess they have to indicate it somehow, and they went with "'".
 * As for the first name, I would definitely agree that "Yakov" would be the more usuall translation than "Iakov". It's yet another palatalization thing. --John Owens (talk) 23:38, 2005 Mar 19 (UTC)
 * I think simple "l" would be rather correct transliteration in this case. The word itself is not of Russian origin, it has Jewish (and as such, Germanic) origin.--Nixer 20:20, 16 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Why is the single apotrophe added to the name Zeldovich, to make it Zel'dovich? Why is this different? My grandfather was part of this Zeldovich family clan in Russia, and likely was his second or third cousin. He often signed his name in Hebrew letters for the pronunciation of Zeldovich. I was told that the word in Russian means "from gold". Is this correct" Gohebrew (talk) 19:30, 5 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I know nothing of Russian but in English, the effect of the apostrophe is to change the pronunciation to "Zel-Dovich" rather than "Zeldo-Vich". Perhaps someone with some knowledge of Russian could say which is the closer.George Dishman (talk) 19:51, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Some info added, more needed
I've just added some info about Zeldovich, but I think, more, especially in astrophysics, needed. Also the photo and perhaps copyedit of my bad English. Cmapm 16:15, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * This is great. I've tried to copyedit it and add what little I know about Zel'dovich. I think he did some very important work in black holes and stellar structure, but it's not something I know much about. --Joke137 05:07, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * Thanks for additions, copyediting and for you kind words. Although, I think, actually, the scientist was great, I only did my best to make a short summary of his bio. The section on astrophysics looks much better after your additions and in my view, the article is almost complete. Cmapm 11:52, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I would agree with this, especially as there is not even a mention of the Harrison-Zel'dovich spectrum which is a key feature of cosmological inflation theory and of current interest as a result of the Planck mission. That's why I looked at this page. George Dishman (talk) 19:55, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating
This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 10:06, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

I am Yakov Borisovich Zel'dovich's relative. I corresponded with his son and grandson about Yakov Borisovich Zeldovich's personal life history, and that of his father and grandfather.

Professor and Dr. Yakov Zeldovich descended from a famous Chassidic Jewish family of Lithuanian descent. The Zeldovich family had strong ties to the Chabad-Lubavitch worldwide movement. Chabad was then centered in the village of Lubavitch. The Zeldovich family itself was centered in the nearby town of Berezine, known today as Berezino. There is a famous river there with the same name, where Napolean's soldiers met a ruthless destruction, after burning Moscow and fleeing by foot back to France during the bitter Russian winter. My grandfather repeated the story of this event many times, as it was proudly passed down through the generations.

The Zeldovich family business was deforesting trees on a very large scale, shipping them to paper mills, and selling the logs for other related wood by-products. This was made possible by bidding accurately upon giant forests, calculating how many trees could be deforested in that square-footage, and how much revenue could be produced from the ensueing logs.

The Zeldovich family were among the wealthiest Jewish families in Czarist Russia. Most parts of the family abandoned their wealth and properties with the demise of the Czarist regime and with the advent of Communism. One of the exceptions was Prof. Zeldovich's parents and his family, who were very assimilated. Prof. Zeldovich's grandfather, Naum, passed away at an early age. Although he was brought up in a devout, religous home, Prof. Zeldovich's father, Boris, or Boruch, had very seedy friends, who took advantage of the young man's huge inheritance. Large money was spent upon wild parties, excessive drinking, and scores of women.

At one point, Prof. Zeldovich's father settled down and had a family. His sister was a great physician in Petersburg/Leningrad. As you correctly reported, he later lived in Moscow. Like his father, Zeldovich had a reputation as a womeniser, fathering many illigitiment children. He is said to have liked in particular married women.

As Jewish law defines religious identity by maternal birth, and not by paternal birth, it is unclear if Prof. Zeldovich's own descendants are Jewish, for it is not known if he married a Jewess.

Gohebrew (talk) 10:25, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

The apostrophe
Can we decide whether or not to write the apostrophe in his name? The article uses both indiscriminately. Marnanel (talk) 18:26, 1 April 2020 (UTC)


 * Only the references/books as of now use ', KR 17387349L8764 (talk) 08:29, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Links/Refs to managed sites
The links https://master.sai.msu.ru/en/zelcen/ and https://managementtools5.wlu.edu/managementtools/alsosoffline.htm are only accessible with user/pass. KR 17387349L8764 (talk) 08:31, 29 January 2024 (UTC)