Lev Landau
Template:Pp-protect Template:Short description Template:Otherpeople Template:Use dmy dates Template:Use British English Template:Infobox scientist
Lev Davidovich Landau (Template:Langx; 22 January 1908 – 1 April 1968) was a Soviet physicist who made fundamental contributions to many areas of theoretical physics.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="ScientificAmerican1997" /> He was considered as one of the last scientists who were universally well-versed and made seminal contributions to all branches of physics.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> He is credited with laying the foundations of twentieth century condensed matter physics,<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> and is also considered arguably the greatest Soviet theoretical physicist.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
His accomplishments include the independent co-discovery of the density matrix method<ref>Template:Cite journal English translation reprinted in: Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="PT">Template:Cite journal</ref> in quantum mechanics (alongside John von Neumann), the quantum mechanical theory of diamagnetism, the theory of superfluidity, the theory of second-order phase transitions, invention of order parameter technique,<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> the Ginzburg–Landau theory of superconductivity, the theory of Fermi liquids, the explanation of Landau damping in plasma physics, the Landau pole in quantum electrodynamics, the two-component theory of neutrinos, and Landau's equations for S-matrix singularities.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> He received the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physics for his development of a mathematical theory of superfluidity that accounts for the properties of liquid helium II at a temperature below Template:Val (Template:Val).<ref name="frs">Template:Cite journal</ref>
Life
[edit]Early years
[edit]
Landau was born on 22 January 1908 to Jewish parents<ref name="frs"/><ref>Martin Gilbert, The Jews in the Twentieth Century: An Illustrated History, Schocken Books, 2001, Template:ISBN p. 284</ref><ref>Frontiers of physics: proceedings of the Landau Memorial Conference, Tel Aviv, Israel, 6–10 June 1988, (Pergamon Press, 1990) Template:ISBN, pp. 13–14</ref><ref>Edward Teller, Memoirs: A Twentieth Century Journey In Science And Politics, Basic Books 2002, Template:ISBN p. 124</ref> in Baku, the Russian Empire, in what is now Azerbaijan. Landau's father, David Lvovich Landau, was an engineer with the local oil industry, and his mother, Lyubov Veniaminovna Garkavi-Landau, was a doctor. Both came to Baku from Mogilev and both graduated the Mogilev gymnasium.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He learned differential calculus at age 12 and integral calculus at age 13. Landau graduated in 1920 at age 13 from gymnasium. His parents considered him too young to attend university, so for a year he attended the Baku Economical Technical School. In 1922, at age 14, he matriculated at the Baku State University, studying in two departments simultaneously: the Departments of Physics and Mathematics, and the Department of Chemistry. Subsequently, he ceased studying chemistry, but remained interested in the field throughout his life.
Leningrad and Europe
[edit]In 1924, he moved to the main centre of Soviet physics at the time: the Physics Department of Leningrad State University, where he dedicated himself to the study of theoretical physics, graduating in 1927. Landau subsequently enrolled for post-graduate studies at the Leningrad Physico-Technical Institute where he eventually received a doctorate in Physical and Mathematical Sciences in 1934.<ref>František Janouch, Lev Landau: A Portrait of a Theoretical Physicist, 1908–1988, Research Institute for Physics, 1988, p. 17.</ref> Landau got his first chance to travel abroad during the period 1929–1931, on a Soviet government—People's Commissariat for Education—travelling fellowship supplemented by a Rockefeller Foundation fellowship. By that time he was fluent in German and French and could communicate in English.<ref>Rumer, Yuriy. ЛАНДАУ. berkovich-zametki.com</ref> He later improved his English and learned Danish.<ref name=bes>Bessarab, Maya (1971) Страницы жизни Ландау. Московский рабочий. Moscow</ref>
After brief stays in Göttingen and Leipzig, he went to Copenhagen on 8 April 1930 to work at the Niels Bohr's Institute for Theoretical Physics. He stayed there until 3 May of the same year. After the visit, Landau always considered himself a pupil of Niels Bohr and Landau's approach to physics was greatly influenced by Bohr. After his stay in Copenhagen, he visited Cambridge (mid-1930), where he worked with Paul Dirac,<ref name="Mehra"/> Copenhagen (September to November 1930),<ref>During this period Landau visitied Copenhagen three times: 8 April to 3 May 1930, from 20 September to 22 November 1930, and from 25 February to 19 March 1931 (see Landau Lev biography – MacTutor History of Mathematics).</ref> and Zürich (December 1930 to January 1931), where he worked with Wolfgang Pauli.<ref name="Mehra">Mehra, Jagdish (2001) The Golden Age of Theoretical Physics, Boxed Set of 2 Volumes, World Scientific, p. 952. Template:ISBN.</ref> From Zürich Landau went back to Copenhagen for the third time<ref>Sykes, J. B. (2013) Landau: The Physicist and the Man: Recollections of L. D. Landau, Elsevier, p. 81. Template:ISBN.</ref> and stayed there from 25 February until 19 March 1931 before returning to Leningrad the same year.<ref>Haensel, P.; Potekhin, A. Y. and Yakovlev, D. G. (2007) Neutron Stars 1: Equation of State and Structure, Springer Science & Business Media, p. 2. Template:ISBN.</ref>
National Scientific Center Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology, Kharkiv
[edit]Between 1932 and 1937, Landau headed the Department of Theoretical Physics at the National Scientific Center Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology, and he lectured at the University of Kharkiv and the Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute. Apart from his theoretical accomplishments, Landau was the principal founder of a great tradition of theoretical physics in Kharkiv, Ukraine, sometimes referred to as the "Landau school". In Kharkiv, he and his friend and former student, Evgeny Lifshitz, began writing the Course of Theoretical Physics, ten volumes that together span the whole of the subject and are still widely used as graduate-level physics texts. During the Great Purge, Landau was investigated within the UPTI Affair in Kharkiv, but he managed to leave for Moscow to take up a new post.<ref name=ScientificAmerican1997/>
Landau developed a famous comprehensive exam called the "Theoretical Minimum" which students were expected to pass before admission to the school. The exam covered all aspects of theoretical physics, and between 1934 and 1961 only 43 candidates passed, but those who did later became quite notable theoretical physicists.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite arXiv</ref>
In 1932, Landau computed the Chandrasekhar limit;<ref>On the Theory of Stars, in Collected Papers of L. D. Landau, ed. and with an introduction by D. ter Haar, New York: Gordon and Breach, 1965; originally published in Phys. Z. Sowjet. 1 (1932), 285.</ref> however, he did not apply it to white dwarf stars.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Institute for Physical Problems, Moscow
[edit]
From 1937 until 1962, Landau was the head of the Theoretical Division at the Institute for Physical Problems.<ref name=Dorozynsk/>
On 27 April 1938, Landau was arrested for the possession of a leaflet which compared Stalinism to German Nazism and Italian Fascism.<ref name=ScientificAmerican1997>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Музей-кабинет Петра Леонидовича Капицы (Peter Kapitza Memorial Museum-Study), Академик Капица: Биографический очерк (a biographical sketch of Academician Kapitza).</ref> He was held in the NKVD's Lubyanka prison until his release, on 29 April 1939, after Pyotr Kapitsa (an experimental low-temperature physicist and the founder and head of the institute) and Bohr wrote letters to Joseph Stalin.<ref>O'Connor, 2014</ref><ref>Yakovlev, 2012</ref> Kapitsa personally vouched for Landau's behaviour and threatened to quit the institute if Landau was not released.<ref>Richard Rhodes, Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb, pub Simon & Schuster, 1995, Template:ISBN p. 33.</ref> After his release, Landau discovered how to explain Kapitsa's superfluidity using sound waves, or phonons, and a new excitation called a roton.<ref name=ScientificAmerican1997/>
Landau led a team of mathematicians supporting Soviet atomic and hydrogen bomb development. He calculated the dynamics of the first Soviet thermonuclear bomb, including predicting the yield. For this work Landau received the Stalin Prize in 1949 and 1953, and was awarded the title "Hero of Socialist Labour" in 1954.<ref name=ScientificAmerican1997/>
Landau's students included Lev Pitaevskii, Alexei Abrikosov, Aleksandr Akhiezer, Igor Dzyaloshinskii, Evgeny Lifshitz, Lev Gor'kov, Isaak Khalatnikov, Roald Sagdeev and Isaak Pomeranchuk.
Scientific achievements
[edit]Landau's accomplishments include the independent co-discovery of the density matrix method in quantum mechanics (alongside John von Neumann), the quantum mechanical theory of diamagnetism, the theory of superfluidity, the theory of second-order phase transitions, the Ginzburg–Landau theory of superconductivity, the theory of Fermi liquids, the explanation of Landau damping in plasma physics, the Landau pole in quantum electrodynamics, the two-component theory of neutrinos, the explanation of flame instability (the Darrieus-Landau instability), and Landau's equations for S matrix singularities.
Landau received the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physics for his development of a mathematical theory of superfluidity that accounts for the properties of liquid helium II at a temperature below 2.17 K (−270.98 °C)."<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Personal life and views
[edit]In 1937, Landau married Kora T. Drobanzeva from Kharkiv.<ref name=y>Petr Leonidovich Kapitsa, Experiment, Theory, Practice: Articles and Addresses, Springer, 1980, Template:ISBN, p. 329.</ref> Their son Igor (1946–2011) became a theoretical physicist. Lev Landau believed in "free love" rather than monogamy and encouraged his wife and his students to practise "free love". However, his wife was not enthusiastic.<ref name=ScientificAmerican1997/>
Landau is generally described as an atheist,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> although when Soviet filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky asked Landau whether he believed in the existence of God, Landau pondered the matter in silence for three minutes before responding, "I think so."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In 1957, a lengthy report to the CPSU Central Committee by the KGB recorded Landau's views on the 1956 Hungarian Uprising, Vladimir Lenin and what he termed "red fascism".<ref>19 December 1957* (no number). The Bukovsky Archives.</ref> Hendrik Casimir recalls him as a passionate communist, emboldened by his revolutionary ideology. Landau's drive in establishing Soviet science was in part due to his devotion to socialism. In 1935 he published a piece titled “Bourgeoisie and Contemporary Physics” in the Soviet newspaper Izvestia in which he criticized religious superstition and the dominance of capital, which he saw as bourgeois tendencies, citing “unprecedented opportunities for the development of physics in our country, provided by the Party and the government.” <ref name="ScientificAmerican1997" />
Last years
[edit]On 7 January 1962, Landau's car collided with an oncoming truck. He was severely injured and spent two months in a coma. Although Landau recovered in many ways, his scientific creativity was destroyed,<ref name=Dorozynsk>Template:Cite book</ref> and he never returned fully to scientific work. His injuries prevented him from accepting the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physics in person.<ref>Nobel Presentation speech by Professor I. Waller, member of the Swedish Academy of Sciences. Nobelprize.org. Retrieved on 28 January 2012.</ref>
Throughout his life Landau was known for his sharp humour, as illustrated by the following dialogue with a psychologist, Alexander Luria, who tried to test for possible brain damage while Landau was recovering from the car crash:<ref name=bes/><ref name="Drobantseva_Luria">Kora Drobantseva's memoirs, Chapter 38, "The way we lived"; the episode with Alexander Luria (in the original Russian text, referred to as Лурье) testing Lev Landau on intellectual abilities</ref>
- Luria: "Please draw me a circle"
- Landau draws a cross
- Luria: "Hm, now draw me a cross"
- Landau draws a circle
- Luria: "Landau, why don't you do what I ask?"
- Landau: "If I did, you might come to think I've become mentally retarded".
In 1965 former students and co-workers of Landau founded the Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics, located in the town of Chernogolovka near Moscow, and led for the following three decades by Isaak Khalatnikov.
In June 1965, Lev Landau and Evsei Liberman published a letter in the New York Times, stating that as Soviet Jews they opposed U.S. intervention on behalf of the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry.<ref>Yaacov Ro'i, The Struggle for Soviet Jewish Emigration, 1948–1967, Cambridge University Press 2003, Template:ISBN p. 199</ref> However, there are doubts that Landau authored this letter.<ref>«Если нужен вор, его и с виселицы снимают»</ref>
Death
[edit]Landau died on 1 April 1968, aged 60, from complications of the injuries sustained in the car accident six years earlier. He was buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery.<ref>Obelisk at the Novodevichye Cemetery. novodevichye.com (26 October 2008). Retrieved on 28 January 2012.</ref>
Fields of contribution
[edit]- DLVO theory
- Fermi liquid theory
- Quasiparticle
- Ivanenko–Landau–Kähler equation
- Landau damping
- Landau distribution
- Landau gauge
- Landau kinetic equation
- Landau pole
- Landau susceptibility
- Landau potential
- Landau quantization
- Landau theory
- Landau–Squire jet
- Landau–Levich problem
- Landau–Hopf theory of turbulence
- Ginzburg–Landau theory
- Darrieus–Landau instability
- Landau–Lifshitz aeroacoustic equation
- Landau–Raychaudhuri equation
- Landau–Zener formula
- Landau–Lifshitz model
- Landau–Lifshitz pseudotensor
- Landau–Lifshitz–Gilbert equation
- Landau–Pomeranchuk–Migdal effect
- Landau–Yang theorem
- Landau principle
- Stuart–Landau equation
- Superfluidity
- Superconductivity
Pedagogy
[edit]Legacy
[edit]
Two celestial objects are named in his honour:
- the minor planet 2142 Landau.<ref>
Template:Cite book</ref>
- the lunar crater Landau.
The highest prize in theoretical physics awarded by the Russian Academy of Sciences is named in his honour:
On 22 January 2019, Google celebrated what would have been Landau's 111th birthday with a Google Doodle.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
The Landau-Spitzer Award (American Physical Society), which recognizes outstanding contributions to plasma physics and European-United States collaboration, is named in-part in his honor.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Landau's ranking of physicists
[edit]Landau kept a list of names of physicists which he ranked on a logarithmic scale of productivity and genius, such as creativity and innate talent, ranging from 0 to 5.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The highest ranking, 0, was assigned to Isaac Newton. Albert Einstein was ranked 0.5. A rank of 1 was awarded to the founding fathers of quantum mechanics, Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, Satyendra Nath Bose, Paul Dirac and Erwin Schrödinger, and others, while members of rank of 5 were deemed "pathologists".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Landau ranked himself as a 2.5 but later promoted to a 2. N. David Mermin, writing about Landau, referred to the scale, and ranked himself in the fourth division, in the article "My Life with Landau: Homage of a 4.5 to a 2".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Landau had a lesser known scale to measure the genius of a scientist using diagrams instead. He had four classes of diagrams, with the first being a simple triangle, which included those who were the most original and brilliant, such as Dirac and Einstein. The diagrams were formed by two parallel lines, bottom representing tenacity, while the top measured genius and originality.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
In popular culture
[edit]- The Russian television film My Husband — the Genius (translation of the Russian title Мой муж — гений) released in 2008 tells the biography of Landau (played by Daniil Spivakovsky), mostly focusing on his private life. It was generally panned by critics. People who had personally met Landau, including famous Russian scientist Vitaly Ginzburg, said that the film was not only terrible, but also false in historical facts.
- Another film about Landau, Dau, is directed by Ilya Khrzhanovsky with non-professional actor Teodor Currentzis (an orchestra conductor) as Landau. Dau was a common nickname of Lev Landau.<ref name=dau>Дао Ландау Template:Webarchive. strf.ru (25 January 2008)</ref> The film was part of the multidisciplinary art project DAU.<ref>Dau: a never-ending experiment in a Soviet laboratory</ref><ref>DAU: Strange, Repellent, Mesmerising, Addictive</ref>
Works
[edit]Landau wrote his first paper On the derivation of Klein–Fock equation, co-authored with Dmitri Ivanenko in 1926, when he was 18 years old. His last paper titled Fundamental problems appeared in 1960 in an edited version of tributes to Wolfgang Pauli. A complete list of Landau's works appeared in 1998 in the Russian journal Physics-Uspekhi.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Landau would allow himself to be listed as a co-author of a journal article on two conditions: 1) he brought up the idea of the work, partly or entirely, and 2) he performed at least some calculations presented in the article. Consequently, he removed his name from numerous publications of his students where his contribution was less significant.<ref name="dau"/>
Course of Theoretical Physics
[edit]- Template:Cite book
- Template:Cite book
- Template:Cite book — 2nd ed. (1965) at archive.org
- Template:Cite book
- Template:Cite book
- Template:Cite book
- Template:Cite book
- Template:Cite book
- Template:Cite book
- Template:Cite book
Landau and Lifshitz suggested in the third volume of the Course of Theoretical Physics that the then-standard periodic table had a mistake in it, and that lutetium should be regarded as a d-block rather than an f-block element. Their suggestion was fully vindicated by later findings,<ref name="Wittig">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=Matthias>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Jensen1982">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Scerri, Eric R (2020). The Periodic Table, Its Story and Its Significance, 2nd edition, Oxford University Press, New York, Template:ISBN</ref> and in 1988 was endorsed by a report of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC).<ref name="Fluck">Template:Cite journal</ref>
Other
[edit]- Template:Cite book
- Template:Cite book
- Template:Cite book
- Template:Cite book
- Template:Cite book in 4 volumes: volume 1 Physical bodies Template:Isbn; volume 2 Molecules Template:Isbn; volume 3 Electrons and volume 4 Photons and nuclei; vols. 3 & 4 by Kitaigorodsky alone
See also
[edit]References
[edit]Further reading
[edit]- Books
- Template:Cite book (After Landau's 1962 car accident, the physics community around him rallied to attempt to save his life. They managed to prolong his life until 1968.)
- Template:Cite book
- Template:Cite book
- Template:Cite book
- Template:Cite book
- Template:Cite book
- Template:Cite book
- Articles
- Karl Hufbauer, "Landau's youthful sallies into stellar theory: Their origins, claims, and receptions", Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences, 37 (2007), 337–354.
- "As a student, Landau dared to correct Einstein in a lecture". Global Talent News.
- Template:MacTutor Biography
- Lev Davidovich Landau. Nobel-Winners.
- Landau's Theoretical Minimum, Landau's Seminar, ITEP in the Beginning of the 1950s by Boris L. Ioffe, Concluding talk at the workshop QCD at the Threshold of the Fourth Decade/Ioeffest.
- EJTP Landau Issue 2008.
- Ammar Sakaji and Ignazio Licata (eds), Lev Davidovich Landau and his Impact on Contemporary Theoretical Physics, Nova Science Publishers, New York, 2009, Template:ISBN.
- Gennady Gorelik, "The Top Secret Life of Lev Landau", Scientific American, Aug. 1997, vol. 277(2), 53–57, JSTOR link.
- Maya Bessarab, "Landau's Life Pages(in Russian)".
External links
[edit]Template:Nobel Prize in Physics Laureates 1951-1975 Template:1962 Nobel Prize winners Template:Authority control
- Pages with broken file links
- Lev Landau
- 1908 births
- 1968 deaths
- Soviet Nobel laureates
- Azerbaijani Jews
- Scientists from Baku
- Burials at Novodevichy Cemetery
- Fluid dynamicists
- Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences
- Foreign members of the Royal Society
- Full Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences
- Nobel laureates in Physics
- Heroes of Socialist Labour
- Recipients of the Stalin Prize
- Recipients of the Lenin Prize
- Recipients of the Order of the Badge of Honour
- Recipients of the Order of Lenin
- Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour
- Winners of the Max Planck Medal
- Jewish atheists
- Members of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina
- Academic staff of Moscow State University
- Academic staff of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology
- People from Baku Governorate
- Saint Petersburg State University alumni
- Soviet atheists
- Soviet inventors
- Soviet Jewish physicists
- Theoretical physicists
- Academic staff of the National University of Kharkiv
- Superfluidity
- People involved with the periodic table
- Russian scientists
- Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology people