Victor Robertovich Bursian was born to a prominent physician, a specialist in massage and physical therapy.

In 1906, at the invitation of the German physicist Friedrich Paschen, he studied at the University of Tübingen (Germany) for two semesters.

He was the first scientific secretary and first head of the theoretical department of the Physicotechnical Institute founded by Abram Ioffe .

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.

Bursian in the organization of higher geophysical education and the training of young specialists in universities is great.

Bursian carried out studies on the physics of currents in gases and vacuum, on Dispersion (optics) and gyration, the electronic theory of matter and the kinetics of chain reactions.