Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov entered the world on the 21st of May 1921 in Moscow. His father worked as a physics professor at the Second Moscow State University while his mother descended from Aleksey Semenovich Sofiano who held the rank of general in the Tsarist Russian Army with Greek heritage.
Sakharov developed a layered fission-fusion-fission bomb design known as the sloika or layered cake which utilized a shell of natural unenriched uranium around deuterium to increase yield. This approach led to the first Soviet atomic device tested on the 29th of August 1949 and later enabled the creation of the 50 Mt Tsar Bomba detonated in October 1961.
After 1965 Andrei Sakharov returned to fundamental science focusing on particle physics and physical cosmology because he attempted explaining baryon asymmetry of the universe giving theoretical motivation for proton decay. He visualized neutral spinless maximons produced from contracting matter having excess antiquarks passing through each other at t equals zero when density infinite.
Andrei Sakharov was arrested the 22nd of January 1980 following protests against Soviet intervention Afghanistan 1979 and sent city Gorky now Nizhny Novgorod off limits foreigners. Between 1980 and 1986 he remained under Soviet police surveillance apartment repeatedly subjected searches and heists while his wife Yelena Bonner faced detention and exile.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded Peace Prize 1975 calling him spokesman conscience mankind with a citation emphasizing Man's inviolable rights provide only safe foundation genuine enduring international cooperation. Wife Yelena Bonner read speech ceremony Oslo Norway since Sakharov was not allowed leave Soviet Union to collect prize himself.