Veniamin Granovsky, born Moisey-Veniamin Lazarevich Granovsky, was a Soviet physicist, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, and professor. He was born on 14 August 1905 in Kharkiv. His research focused on the physics of electrical discharges in gases and phenomena in gas-discharge plasma.
From 1907 he lived in Moscow. After completing postgraduate studies at Moscow State University in 1929, he worked at the All-Union Electrotechnical Institute while also serving as a professor at Moscow State University. He defended his doctoral dissertation in 1940.
From 1929, Granovsky led research at the All-Union Electrotechnical Institute on methods of detecting aircraft and ships at night through their thermal radiation. His group developed the TU-1 thermal direction finder, an experimental device using a parabolic mirror to concentrate heat radiation emitted by an aircraft. The team subsequently adapted similar instruments for locating ships and tanks. In 1941, he received a second-degree state prize for inventing a new type of thermal direction finder.
Granovsky was also a mountaineer. Granovsky Pass in the Adyrsu Range of the Central Caucasus, linking the Adyrsu Glacier with the northern branch of the Bashil Glacier, was named after him following his group's first crossing in 1929. He wrote works including Electrical Fluctuations and Electric Current in Gas, and co-wrote a biography of Hermann von Helmholtz. He died in Moscow on 6 May 1964.