Editing Lev Landau (section)

==Life==

===Early years===
[[File:Landau1910.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Landau family in 1910]]
[[File:Rundyna5.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Young Landau in 1914]]
Landau was born on 22 January 1908 to [[Jews|Jewish]] parents<ref name="frs"/><ref>[[Martin Gilbert]], ''The Jews in the Twentieth Century: An Illustrated History'', Schocken Books, 2001, {{ISBN|0805241906}} p. 284</ref><ref>''Frontiers of physics: proceedings of the Landau Memorial Conference'', Tel Aviv, Israel, 6–10 June 1988, (Pergamon Press, 1990) {{ISBN|0080369391}}, pp. 13–14</ref><ref>Edward Teller, ''Memoirs: A Twentieth Century Journey In Science And Politics'', Basic Books 2002, {{ISBN|0738207780}} 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>{{Cite web|url=http://vestnikkavkaza.net/articles/Great-Baku-native-Lev-Landau.html|title=Great Baku native Lev Landau|website=Vestnik Kavkaza|access-date=22 January 2019|archive-date=10 June 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190610020427/http://vestnikkavkaza.net/articles/Great-Baku-native-Lev-Landau.html|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Выпускники Могилевской гимназии |url=http://www.petergen.com/history/moggim.shtml |access-date=2022-11-22 |website=www.petergen.com}}</ref> He learned [[differential calculus]] at age 12 and [[integral calculus]] at age 13. Landau graduated in 1920 at age 13 from [[Gymnasium (school)|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 [[matriculation|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===
In 1924, he moved to the main centre of Soviet physics at the time: the Physics Department of [[Saint Petersburg State University|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 [[Ioffe Physico-Technical Institute|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>[[Yuriy Rumer|Rumer, Yuriy]]. [http://www.berkovich-zametki.com/AStarina/Nomer7/Rumer1.htm ЛАНДАУ]. berkovich-zametki.com</ref> He later improved his English and learned Danish.<ref name=bes>[[:ru:Бессараб, Майя Яковлевна|Bessarab, Maya]] (1971) [http://www.ega-math.narod.ru/Landau/Dau1971.htm Страницы жизни Ландау]. ''[[:ru:Московский рабочий|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 Institute|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 [http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Landau_Lev.html Landau Lev biography – MacTutor History of Mathematics]).</ref> and [[Zürich]] (December 1930 to January 1931), where he worked with [[Wolfgang Pauli]].<ref name="Mehra">[[Jagdish Mehra|Mehra, Jagdish]] (2001) ''The Golden Age of Theoretical Physics'', Boxed Set of 2 Volumes, World Scientific, p. 952. {{ISBN|9810243421}}.</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. {{ISBN|9781483286884}}.</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. {{ISBN|0387335439}}.</ref>

===National Scientific Center Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology, Kharkiv===
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 school|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>{{cite book|author=Blundell, Stephen J.|title=Superconductivity: A Very Short Introduction|year=2009|publisher=Oxford U. Press|page=67|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GxUWMrm4dxsC&pg=PA67|isbn=9780191579097}}</ref><ref>{{cite arXiv | last=Ioffe | first=B. L. | title=Landau's Theoretical Minimum, Landau's Seminar, ITEP in the Beginning of the 1950's | date=2002 | eprint=hep-ph/0204295 }}</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>{{Cite journal|last1=Yakovlev|first1=Dmitrii|last2=Haensel|first2=Pawel|date=2013|title=Lev Landau and the concept of neutron stars |journal=Physics-Uspekhi |volume=56 |issue=3 |pages=289–295|doi=10.3367/UFNe.0183.201303f.0307 |arxiv=1210.0682 |bibcode=2013PhyU...56..289Y|s2cid=119282067}}</ref>

===Institute for Physical Problems, Moscow===
[[File:ХФТИ.jpg|thumb|right|At the Kharkiv Institute, 1934|alt=]]
[[File:1938-LandauL.jpg|thumb|left|Photo in prison, 1938-1939|alt=]]
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 [[Korets–Landau leaflet|leaflet]] which compared [[Stalinism]] to [[Nazism|German Nazism]] and [[Italian fascism|Italian Fascism]].<ref name=ScientificAmerican1997>{{cite journal |title= The Top-Secret Life of Lev Landau |issue= 2 |pages= 72–77 |url= https://www.scientificamerican.com/magazine/sa/1997/08-01/ |url-access= subscription |last= Gorelik |first= Gennady |author-link= Gennady Gorelik |date= August 1997 |journal= [[Scientific American]] |volume= 277 |access-date= 2018-06-18 |jstor= 24995874 |doi= 10.1038/scientificamerican0897-72 |bibcode= 1997SciAm.277b..72G |archive-date= 18 June 2018 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20180618075613/https://www.scientificamerican.com/magazine/sa/1997/08-01/ |url-status= dead }}</ref><ref>[http://www.kapitza.ras.ru/museum/history.htm 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 Building|Lubyanka prison]] until his release, on 29 April 1939, after [[Pyotr Kapitsa]] (an [[experimental physics|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]], [http://www.powells.com/biblio?show=TRADE%20PAPER:USED:9780684824147:9.50&page=excerpt ''Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb''], pub Simon & Schuster, 1995, {{ISBN|0684824140}} p. 33.</ref> After his release, Landau discovered how to explain Kapitsa's superfluidity using sound waves, or [[phonon]]s, 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 [[Nuclear weapon yield|yield]]. For this work Landau received the [[USSR State Prize|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 (physicist)|Alexei Abrikosov]], [[Aleksandr Akhiezer]], [[Igor Dzyaloshinskii]], [[Evgeny Lifshitz]], [[Lev Gor'kov]], [[Isaak Khalatnikov]], [[Roald Sagdeev]] and [[Isaak Pomeranchuk]].

===Scientific achievements===
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 [[Phase transition|second-order phase transitions]], the [[Ginzburg–Landau theory]] of superconductivity, the theory of [[Fermi liquid theory|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&nbsp;°C)."<ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.1063/1.2408530|title=Lev Davidovich Landau, Soviet physicist and Nobel laureate|journal=Physics Today|volume=57|issue=2|pages=62|year=2004|bibcode=2004PhT....57Q..62.}}</ref>

===Personal life and views===
In 1937, Landau married Kora T. Drobanzeva from Kharkiv.<ref name=y>[[Petr Leonidovich Kapitsa]], ''Experiment, Theory, Practice: Articles and Addresses'', Springer, 1980, {{ISBN|9027710619}}, 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>{{cite book |author=Schaefer, Henry F. |author-link=Henry F. Schaefer III |title=Science and Christianity: Conflict Or Coherence? |publisher=The Apollos Trust |year=2003 |isbn=9780974297507 |page=9 |quote=I present here two examples of notable atheists. The first is Lev Landau, the most brilliant Soviet physicist of the twentieth century.}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |year=2012 |title=Lev Landau |url=http://www.nndb.com/people/793/000099496/ |access-date=7 May 2013 |publisher=Soylent Communications}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |author1=James D. Patterson |title=Solid-State Physics: Introduction to the Theory |author2=Bernard C. Bailey |date=20 February 2019 |publisher=Springer |isbn=9783319753225 |location=Lev Landau - The Soviet Grand Master |page=190 |quote=Landau’s theoretical minimum exam was famous and only about forty students passed it in his time. This was Landau’s entry-level exam for theoretical physics. It contained what Landau felt was necessary to work in that field. Like many Soviet era physicists he was an atheist.}}</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>{{Cite book |last=Tarkovsky |first=Andrei |author-link=Andrei Tarkovsky |title=Sculpting in Time: The Great Russian Filmmaker Discusses His Art |title-link=Sculpting in Time |publisher=University of Texas Press |year=1987 |isbn=0-292-77624-1 |pages=229 |language=en |translator-last=Hunter-Blair |translator-first=Kitty}}</ref> In 1957, a lengthy report to the [[Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|CPSU Central Committee]] by the KGB recorded Landau's views on the [[Hungarian Revolution of 1956|1956 Hungarian Uprising]], [[Vladimir Lenin]] and what he termed "red fascism".<ref>[http://bukovsky-archives.net/pdfs/sovter74/land-17.pdf 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===
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>{{cite book |author=Dorozynsk, Alexander|year=1965|title=The Man They Wouldn't Let Die}}</ref> and he never returned fully to scientific work. His injuries prevented him from accepting the 1962 [[Nobel Prize in Physics]] in person.<ref>[http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1962/press.html 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">[https://biography.wikireading.ru/60550 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 [[History of the Jews in the Soviet Union|Soviet Jews]] they opposed U.S. intervention on behalf of the [[Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry]].<ref>Yaacov Ro'i, [https://books.google.com/books?id=vvfIq0aJ_1oC&pg=PA199 ''The Struggle for Soviet Jewish Emigration, 1948–1967''], Cambridge University Press 2003, {{ISBN|0521522447}} p. 199</ref> However, there are doubts that Landau authored this letter.<ref>[http://booknik.ru/yesterday/history-of-protest/esli-nujen-vor-ego-i-s-viselitsy-snimayut/ «Если нужен вор, его и с виселицы снимают»]</ref>

===Death===
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>[http://novodevichye.com/landau/ Obelisk at the Novodevichye Cemetery]. novodevichye.com (26 October 2008). Retrieved on 28 January 2012.</ref>