Academician Zeldovich and the foundations of disk accretion

The author draws on his memories to review the decisive contributions of Ya B Zeldovich to the formation and development of the theory of disc accretion onto black holes and neutron stars in binaries. A theory developed by N I Shakura and R A Sunyaev in the early 1970s under the guidance of Ya B Zeldovich predicted these objects to be the brightest X-ray sources in the sky and defined the prospects for research in X-ray astronomy and high-energy astrophysics for decades ahead.