Soviet scientist and explorer responsible for the Soviet program of exploration and exploitation of Arctic resources; through his many activities he exercised a wide and diverse influence on Soviet life and thought.

Professor of mathematics at the University of Moscow from 1926 until his death, Shmidt became director of the Arctic Institute (1930) and head of the chief administration of the Northern Sea Route (Glavesmoput), the government department responsible for Arctic development. During his six years in this position he spent the whole of each summer aboard an icebreaker off the north Siberian coast, completing the first crossing of the Northeast Passage from the Barents Sea to the Pacific Ocean (1932) in a single season. He established on drifting ice near the North Pole a scientific station notable for its oceanographic researches (1937).

At Shmidt's urging, the Academy of Sciences created the Institute of Theoretical Geophysics (1938), which he directed until 1948. In the late 1940s he advanced a theory of the formation of the Earth from a rotating cloud of dust and gas. Shmidt was also chief editor (1924–41) of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia and of the popular science journal Priroda.