Add to favorite
 

   

 Lev Landau


Born:   January 22, 1908
Deceased:   April 1, 1968

Russian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate

      

"for his pioneering theories for condensed matter, especially liquid helium"

 

Lev Davidovic Landau was born in Baku on January 22, 1908, as the son of an engineer and a physician.
 

After graduating from the Physical Department of Leningrad University at the age of 19, he began his scientific career at the Leningrad Physico-Technical Institute. The years 1929 - 1931 he spent abroad, partly as a Rockefeller Foundation Fellow, working in Germany, Switzerland, England and, especially, in Copenhagen under Niels Bohr.
 

During 1932 - 1937 he was head of the Theoretical Department of the Ukrainian Physico-Technical Institute at Kharkov, and since 1937 he has been the head of the Theoretical Department of the Institute for Physical Problems of the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R. in Moscow. Simultaneously he taught constantly as a professor of theoretical physics in the Kharkov and Moscow State Universities.
 

Landau's work covers all branches of theoretical physics, ranging from fluid mechanics to quantum field theory. A large portion of his papers refers to the theory of the condensed state. They started in 1936 with a formulation of a general thermodynamical theory of the phase transitions of the second order. After P.L. Kapitsa's discovery, in 1938, of the superfluidity of liquid helium, Landau began extensive research which led him to the construction of the complete theory of the "quantum liquids" at very low temperatures. His papers of 1941 - 1947 are devoted to the theory of the quantum liquids of the "Bose type", to which the superfluid liquid helium (the usual isotope 4He) refers. During 1956-1958 he formulated the theory of the quantum liquids of the "Fermi type", to which liquid helium of isotope 3He refers.
 

In 1946 he was elected to the membership of the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R. The U.S.S.R. State Prize was awarded to him several times, and in 1962 he received, jointly with E.M. Lifshitz, the Lenin Science Prize for their Course of Theoretical Physics.
 

Landau is a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (London), of the Danish Royal Academy of Sciences, of the Netherlands Royal Academy of Sciences, Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences of the U.S.A., Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, of the Physical Society (London), and of the Physical Society of France. In 1961, he received the Max Planck Medal and the Fritz London Prize.
 

From Nobel Lectures, Physics 1942-1962, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1964

 

This autobiography/biography was written at the time of the award and later published in the book series Les Prix Nobel/Nobel Lectures. The information is sometimes updated with an addendum submitted by the Laureate. To cite this document, always state the source as shown above.

Lev Landau died on April 1, 1968.

Link to Lev Landau's Banquet Speech:
http://nobelprize.org/physics/laureates/1962/landau-speech.html

 


Tags: Lev Landau Nobel prize laureates Russian science Russian scientists physics 








Comment on our site


RSS   twitter      submit


Ïàðòåð


TAGS:
3D Printing  Animated Film Festivals  Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Russia  Russian economy  Visa Centres  Sergey Kovalev  Moscow hotels  Concerts in Moscow  Unity Day  Moscow Museums  Speed Skating  Alisher Usmanov  Kazan  Russian business  Astrakhan  Sheremetyevo Airport  Russian tourism  Swimming pool  Alexander Bondar  Russian Cinema  Festivals  Moscow  St. Petersburg  airport transfer in Russia  Tourism Tax  Valery Gergiev  Russian border security  Russian scientists  Russian science  Bolkhov  Novosibirsk Museums  Valentina Khodasevich  Yevgeni Grishkovetz  Photography  Sokolniki  Chelyabinsk  education in Russia  Exhibitions in Moscow  Denisova Cave  Russian Porridge  Vandalism  Moscow cinema  Suzdal  Russian sportsmen  Rospotrebnadzor  Russian designers  Transaero  Ivolginsky Datsan  Russian businessmen  the State Tretyakov Gallery 


Travel Blogs
Top Traveling Sites