Mikhail Alexeyevich Lavrentyev (1900—1980) was the academician, the vice-president of the USSR Academy of Sciences, a mathematician, a mechanic, the founder of in the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences and of Akademgorodok in Novosibirsk. He is one of the greatest specialists in the theory of functions of a complex variable, variance analysis and mathematical physics. He made a great contribution to the development of Russian aircraft construction, took part in the development of the Russian nuclear weapon, studied the peaceful use of nuclear explosions, and was behind the making of the first Soviet computers.