Victor Robertovich Bursian was born to prominent physician, a specialist in massage and physical therapy. His father died during Siege of Leningrad in 1942.
Burisan contribution to geophysics is unexplored, however the role of him in developing electromagnetic method such as sundberg method must not be disregarded. He treated a buried cable and a cable on the ground surface. He also outlined a complete solution to the problem of a long cable on a multilayered earth. Bursian had remarkable work on covering dipole sources. in Leningrad State University, Department of electrical exploration, he develop the theoretical foundations of mineral exploration, and managed to discover large copper-pyrite deposits in the Ural using using the method of equipotential lines. He took part in expeditions to the Urals, in the region of Astrakhan - Guriev, Sverdlovsk Oblast and Nizhny Tagil, Baku, Kuznetsk Basin and even personally led some of them. The role of V.R. Bursian in the organization of higher geophysical education and the training of young specialists in universities is great. With his active participation, profiles were determined and the first plans of geophysical specialties were developed.
Arrest and death
On October 8, 1936 Bursian was arrested in the Pulkovo case. In May 1937, the Military Collegium of the USSR Supreme Court was sentenced to 10 years in prison. He was sent to work at the Special Technical Bureau of the NKVD, where he was engaged in the thermal calculation of tools. With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War together in the OKB evacuation to the city of Molotov. In May 1945 he returned to Leningrad. He died on December 15 of the same year in a prison hospital from a kidney disease. he was posthumously rehabilitated in 1956.
Research interests
Bursian was one of the pioneers of Soviet physics who played a large role in the development of theoretical physics in the USSR. Bursian carried out studies on the physics of currents in gases and vacuum, on Dispersion and gyration, the electronic theory of matter and the kinetics of chain reactions. He was the first to develop electrophysical methods in geological exploration. Bursian is the author of a number of scientific works on theoretical physics. The most famous are his work on thermionic emission and the passage of current through a vacuum.
Selected works
V.R. Bursian, Theory of electromagnetic fields used in electrical exploration, Leningrad: Nedra, 1933.