Vitaly Ginzburg, a physics genius, whose career spanned 7 decades and included development of the hydrogen bomb warheads as well as the work on superconductivity, for which he shared a Nobel prize in 2003, died this week.

Ginzburg was a remarkably public person for a 93 year old man. He was a regular staple on TV shows and round tables, taking a role of the ultimate wise-man, who has nothing to fear and who always speaks his mind. He was a fierce critic of censorship in Russia and the Russian Orthodox Church's influence on politics and education. His statements were always witty, insightful and irrefutable. After all, how one can argue with a man who was born in Tsarist Russia, developed the H-bomb, won a Nobel and is considered one of the most intelligent people on the planet.

Here is Ginzburg's Nobel lecture.

Nobel-Winning Russian Physicist Dies at 93 [Associated Press via NYTimes.com]