Biography of Lev Landau. Lev Landau: biography, interesting facts, video Lev Landau short biography

theoretical physicist, participant in the atomic project since 1946. Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1946). Nobel Prize in Physics (1962). Hero of Socialist Labor (1954). Laureate of the Lenin (1962) and three State (1946, 1949, 1953) Prizes of the USSR.

Lev Davidovich Landau was born on January 22, 1908 in Baku, in the family of oil engineer D.L. Landau. His mother is L.V. Garkavi-Landau was a graduate of the Mogilev Women's Gymnasium, the Eleninsky Midwifery Institute and the Women's Medical Institute in St. Petersburg. After her marriage in 1905, she worked as an obstetrician in Balakhany, a school doctor at the Baku Women's Gymnasium, published scientific papers on experimental pharmacology and the Short Guide to Experimental Pharmacology. D.L. Landau also came from Mogilev; graduated from the Mogilev Gymnasium with a gold medal and worked as an engineer in an English oil company in Balakhani and later in Baku. In the 1920s, he was a process engineer at Azneft; published scientific papers.

Since 1916, L.D. Landau studied at the Baku Jewish Gymnasium, where his mother was a natural science teacher. Very gifted in mathematics, Landau learned to differentiate at the age of 12, and to integrate - at 13. At the age of 14 he entered Baku University, simultaneously in two faculties: physics and mathematics and chemistry. He soon left chemistry, choosing physics as his specialty. In 1924, for special successes, he was transferred to Leningrad University, settled with his paternal aunt.

After graduating in 1927 from the Physics Department of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of the Leningrad University, L.D. Landau became a graduate student, and later an employee of the Leningrad Institute of Physics and Technology (whose director he was), in 1926-1927. published the first papers on theoretical physics. Almost immediately in 1927, the 19-year-old Landau makes a fundamental contribution to quantum theory—introducing the concept of a density matrix as a method for a complete quantum mechanical description of systems that are part of a larger system. This concept has become fundamental in quantum statistics.

From 1929 to 1931 was on a scientific mission in the direction of the People's Commissariat for Education to continue his education in Germany, Denmark, England and Switzerland. At the University of Berlin, he met with A. Einstein, in Goetingen he attended the seminars of M. Born, then in Leipzig he met with W. Heisenberg. In Copenhagen he worked with Niels Bohr, whom he considered his only teacher ever since. In Cambridge he met with, who since 1921 worked at the Cavendish Laboratory.

The business trip was subsidized by the People's Commissariat of Education for only six months, the further stay was continued on a scholarship from the Rockefeller Foundation, received on Bohr's recommendation.

Working in Copenhagen with Niels Bohr, Landau constantly communicated with outstanding and young physicists like himself - Heisenberg, Pauli, Peierls, Bloch, Wigner, Dirac. During this time, he completed the classical work on the diamagnetism of an electron gas (Landau diamagnetism) and (in Zurich together with R. Peierls) on relativistic quantum mechanics.

Everyone who knew Lev Landau in his youth remembers him as a sharp, self-confident young man, devoid of a priori respect for elders, perhaps overly critical in his assessments. The same traits of his character are also emphasized by those who met with Landau in later years. Trying to understand his character, of course, one must take into account the following testimony of his closest friend, student and co-author, E. M. Lifshitz: “In his youth he was very shy, and therefore it was difficult for him to communicate with other people. Then it was one of the biggest problems for him. It came to the point that at times he was in a state of extreme despair and was close to suicide ...

Lev Davidovich was characterized by extreme self-discipline, a sense of responsibility to himself. In the end, this helped him turn into a person who was completely in control of himself in any circumstances, and just a fun person. He thought a lot about how to be active.”

In the spring of 1931, L.D. Landau returned to the Leningrad Institute of Physics and Technology, but did not stay there due to disagreements with.

In 1932-1937. Landau headed the theoretical department of the Ukrainian Institute of Physics and Technology (UFTI) in Kharkov - then the capital of the Ukrainian SSR - and at the same time headed the Department of Theoretical Physics at the Faculty of Physics and Mechanics of the Kharkov Mechanical Engineering Institute (renamed National Technical University "Kharkov Polytechnic Institute").

In 1934 L.D. Landau was awarded the degree of Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences without defending a dissertation.

September 1, 1935 L.D. Landau was enrolled as a lecturer at the Department of Theoretical Physics at Kharkov University, and in October of the same year he headed the Department of Experimental Physics at Kharkov University (KhSU).

After his dismissal in February 1937 from Kharkov University and the subsequent strike of physicists L.D. Landau accepted an invitation from Pyotr Kapitsa to take the position of head of the theoretical department of the newly created Institute for Physical Problems (IPP) and moved to Moscow. After Landau's departure, the authorities of the regional NKVD began to destroy the UPTI, foreign specialists A. Weisberg, F. Houtermans were arrested, physicists L.V. were arrested in August-September 1937 and shot in November. Rozenkevich (co-author Landau), L.V. Shubnikov, V.S. Gorsky (the so-called "UFTI case").

In April 1938, L.D. Landau in Moscow edits M.A. Korets a leaflet calling for the overthrow of the Stalinist regime, in which Stalin is called a fascist dictator. The text of the leaflet was handed over to the anti-Stalinist group of IFLI students for distribution by mail before the May Day holidays. This intention was revealed by the state security organs of the USSR. Landau, Korets, and Yu.B. Rumer was arrested on the morning of April 28 for anti-Soviet agitation. On May 3, 1938, Landau was excluded from the list of employees of the IFP.

Landau spent a year in prison and was released thanks to a letter in his defense from Niels Bohr and the intervention of P. Kapitsa, who took Landau "on bail". On April 26, 1939, P. Kapitsa wrote to L. Beria: “I ask you to release the arrested professor of physics Lev Davidovich Landau from custody under my personal guarantee. I vouch for the NKVD that Landau will not conduct any counter-revolutionary activities in my institute, and I will take all measures in my power to ensure that he does not conduct any counter-revolutionary work outside the institute. If I notice any statements from Landau aimed at harming the Soviet government, I will immediately inform the NKVD authorities about this. Two days later, on April 28, 1939, the Decree of the NKVD of the USSR was signed on the termination of the case against Landau with his transfer on bail.

L.D. Landau was reinstated on the list of IFP employees. After the release and until the death of L.D. Landau remained a member of the Institute for Physical Problems. Landau was rehabilitated only 22 years after his death. On July 23, 1990, the criminal case against him was terminated due to the absence of corpus delicti.

In the summer of 1941 the institute was evacuated to Kazan. There, like other employees, L.D. Landau gave his strength, first of all, to defense tasks. He built theories and made calculations of the processes that determine the combat effectiveness of weapons. In 1945, when the war ended, Landau published three articles on the detonation of explosives in the Reports of the Academy of Sciences.

In 1943-1947. Landau is a professor at the Department of Low Temperature Physics of the Faculty of Physics of Moscow State University.

In 1946 L.D. Landau was elected a full member (academician) of the USSR Academy of Sciences, bypassing the title of corresponding member.

In 1946-1953. L.D. Landau was involved in the Soviet Atomic Project. He participated in the calculations of the RDS-1 charge, as well as in the construction of the theory of the RDS-6s thermonuclear charge. For his work in the Atomic Project he was awarded three Stalin Prizes (1946, 1949, 1953), awarded the Order of Lenin (1949), he was awarded the title Hero of Socialist Labor (1954). The last award marked the end of L.D. Landau in "secret" research.

After the death of I.V. Stalin L.D. Landau clearly articulated his desire to stop work on secret topics and achieved this. According to Landau's direct testimony, he did not feel a shadow of enthusiasm, participating in the undeniably heroic epic of the creation of Soviet nuclear weapons. He was driven only by civic duty and incorruptible scientific honesty. In the early 1950s, he said: “... every effort must be made to avoid getting into the thick of atomic affairs... oppression."

In 1955-1968. L.D. Landau is a professor at the Department of Quantum Theory and Electrodynamics, Faculty of Physics, Moscow State University. He read courses of lectures: "Mechanics", "Field Theory", "Statistical Physics".

In 1955, he signed the "Letter of Three Hundred", containing an assessment of the state of biology in the USSR by the mid-1950s and criticism of Lysenko and "Lysenkoism".

Academician L.D. Landau is considered a legendary figure in the history of Russian and world science. Quantum mechanics, solid state physics, magnetism, low temperature physics, superconductivity and superfluidity, cosmic ray physics, astrophysics, hydrodynamics, quantum electrodynamics, quantum field theory, atomic nucleus and elementary particle physics, theory of chemical reactions, plasma physics - far from complete a list of areas to which L.D. Landau. It was said about him that in "the huge building of physics of the 20th century there were no locked doors for him."

Ability L.D. Landau to cover all branches of physics and penetrate deeply into them was clearly manifested in the work he created in collaboration with E.M. Lifshitz a unique course in theoretical physics, the last volumes of which were completed according to Landau's plan by his students.

EAT. Lifshitz wrote about Landau: “He told how he was shocked by the incredible beauty of the general theory of relativity (sometimes he even said that such admiration at the first acquaintance with this theory should, in his opinion, be a sign of any born theoretical physicist in general). He also talked about the state of ecstasy that led him to study the papers by Heisenberg and Schrödinger, which marked the birth of the new quantum mechanics. He said that they gave him not only the enjoyment of true scientific beauty, but also a keen sense of the power of human genius, the greatest triumph of which is that a person is able to understand things that he can no longer imagine. And, of course, this is precisely the curvature of space-time and the uncertainty principle.”

In 1962, Lev Landau was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Physics by Werner Heisenberg, who nominated Landau for the Nobel Prize back in 1959 and in 1960, for his work on the superfluidity of helium, the quantum theory of diamagnetism, and his work on quantum field theory. In 1962 L.D. Landau was awarded the Nobel Prize "for pioneering research in the theory of condensed matter, especially liquid helium."

For his research, L.D. Landau was also awarded three Orders of Lenin (1949, 1954 and 1962), the Order of the Red Banner of Labor (1945), the Order of the Badge of Honor (1943), and medals.

January 7, 1962, on the way from Moscow to Dubna on the Dmitrovsky highway, Landau got into a car accident. As a result of numerous fractures, hemorrhages and head injuries, he was in a coma for 59 days. Physicists from all over the world took part in saving Landau's life. A round-the-clock duty was organized in the hospital. The missing medicines were delivered by planes from Europe and the USA. As a result of these measures, Landau's life was saved, despite very serious injuries.

Semyon Solomonovich Gershtein,
Academician, Institute for High Energy Physics (Protvino)
"Nature" №1, 2008

One of the greatest physicists of the past XX century. Lev Davidovich Landau was at the same time the greatest generalist who made fundamental contributions to various fields: quantum mechanics, solid state physics, the theory of magnetism, the theory of phase transitions, nuclear physics and elementary particle physics, quantum electrodynamics, low temperature physics, hydrodynamics, theory atomic collisions, the theory of chemical reactions and a number of other disciplines.

Fundamental contributions to theoretical physics

The ability to cover all branches of physics and penetrate deeply into them is a characteristic feature of his genius. It was clearly manifested in the unique course of theoretical physics created by L.D. Landau in collaboration with E.M. Lifshitz, the last volumes of which were completed according to Landau’s plan by his students E.M. Lifshitz, L.P. Pitaevsky and V.B. Berestetsky. Nothing like this exists in all world literature. The completeness of presentation, combined with clarity and originality, a unified approach to problems, and the organic connection of various volumes made this course a reference book for many generations of physicists from different countries, from students to professors. Being translated into many languages, the course had a huge impact on the level of theoretical physics all over the world. Undoubtedly, it will retain its significance for scientists of the future. Minor additions related to the latest data may be introduced, as has already been done, in subsequent editions.

It is impossible to mention all the results obtained by Landau in a short article. I will dwell only on some of them.

While still studying at Leningrad University, Landau and his then close friends Georgy Gamov, Dmitri Ivanenko, and Matvei Bronstein were delighted with the appearance of articles by W. Heisenberg and E. Schrödinger, which contained the foundations of quantum mechanics. And almost immediately, the 18-year-old Landau makes a fundamental contribution to quantum theory—introducing the concept of a density matrix as a method for a complete quantum mechanical description of systems that are part of a larger system. This concept has become fundamental in quantum statistics.

Landau was concerned with the application of quantum mechanics to real physical processes throughout his life. Thus, in 1932, he pointed out that the probability of transitions in atomic collisions is determined by the intersection of molecular terms, and derived the corresponding expressions for the probability of transitions and predissociation of molecules (the Landau-Zener-Stückelberg rule). In 1944, he (together with Ya. A. Smorodinsky) developed the theory of "effective radius", which makes it possible to describe the scattering of slow particles by short-range nuclear forces, regardless of the specific model of the latter.

Landau's work has made a fundamental contribution to the physics of magnetic phenomena. In 1930, he established that in a magnetic field, free electrons in metals have, according to quantum mechanics, a quasi-discrete energy spectrum, and due to this, a diamagnetic (associated with orbital motion) susceptibility of electrons in metals arises. In low magnetic fields, it is one third of their paramagnetic susceptibility, determined by the intrinsic magnetic moment of the electron (related to the spin). At the same time, he pointed out that in a real crystal lattice this ratio can change in favor of electron diamagnetism, and in strong fields at low temperatures an unusual effect should be observed: oscillations of the magnetic susceptibility. This effect was discovered experimentally a few years later; it is known as the de Haas-van Alphen effect. The energy levels of electrons in a magnetic field are called Landau levels.

Determining them for different orientations of the magnetic field makes it possible to find the Fermi surface (an isoenergetic surface in the space of quasi-momenta corresponding to the Fermi energy) for electrons in metals and semiconductors. A general theory for these purposes was developed by Landau's student I. M. Lifshitz and his school. Thus, Landau's work on electronic diamagnetism laid the foundation for all modern activity in establishing the electronic energy spectra of metals and semiconductors. We also note that the presence of Landau levels turned out to be decisive for the interpretation of the quantum Hall effect (for the discovery and explanation of which the Nobel Prizes were awarded in 1985 and 1998).

In 1933, Landau introduced the concept of antiferromagnetism as a special phase of matter. Shortly before him, the French physicist L. Neel suggested that there could be substances that at low temperatures consist of two crystal sublattices spontaneously magnetized in opposite directions. Landau pointed out that the transition to this state with decreasing temperature should not occur gradually, but at a very specific temperature as a special phase transition, in which not the density of the substance changes, but the symmetry. These ideas were brilliantly used by Landau's student I. E. Dzyaloshinskii to predict the existence of new types of magnetic structures—weak ferromagnets and piezomagnets—and to indicate the symmetry of crystals in which they should be observed. Together with E. M. Lifshitz in 1935, Landau developed the theory of the domain structure of ferromagnets, for the first time determined their shape and dimensions, described the behavior of susceptibility in an alternating magnetic field and, in particular, the phenomenon of ferromagnetic resonance.

Of paramount importance for the theory of various physical phenomena in substances is the general theory of phase transitions of the second kind, constructed by Landau in 1937. Landau generalized the approach used for antiferromagnets: any phase transformations are associated with a change in the symmetry of a substance, and therefore a phase transition should occur not gradually, but in a certain point where the symmetry of matter changes abruptly. If this does not change the density and specific entropy of the substance, the phase transition is not accompanied by the release of latent heat. At the same time, the heat capacity and compressibility of the substance change abruptly. Such transitions are called transitions of the second kind. These include transitions to the ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic phases, transitions to a ferroelectric, structural transitions in crystals, and the transition of a metal to a superconducting state in the absence of a magnetic field. Landau showed that all these transitions can be described using some structural parameter that is nonzero in the ordered phase below the transition point and equal to zero above it.

In the work of V. L. Ginzburg and L. D. Landau “On the theory of superconductivity”, performed in 1950, the function Ψ was chosen as such a parameter characterizing a superconductor, playing the role of some “effective” wave function of superconducting electrons. The constructed semiphenomenological theory made it possible to calculate the surface energy at the interface between the normal and superconducting phases and was in good agreement with experiment. Based on this theory, A. A. Abrikosov introduced the concept of two types of superconductors: type I - with positive surface energy - and type II - with negative. Most of the alloys turned out to be type II superconductors. Abrikosov showed that the magnetic field penetrates into type II superconductors gradually by special quantum vortices, and therefore the transition to the normal phase is delayed up to very high values ​​of the magnetic field strength. It is these superconductors with critical parameters that are widely used in science and technology. After the creation of the macroscopic theory of superconductivity, L.P. Gorkov showed that the Ginzburg-Landau equations follow from the microscopic theory, and clarified the physical meaning of the phenomenological parameters used in them. The general theory of the description of superconductivity entered the world science under the acronym GLAG - Ginzburg-Landau-Abrikosov-Gorkov. In 2004, Ginzburg and Abrikosov were awarded the Nobel Prize for it.

One of Landau's most remarkable works was his theory of superfluidity, which explained the phenomenon of superfluidity of liquid helium-4 discovered by P. L. Kapitsa. According to Landau, the atoms of liquid helium, closely bound together, form a special quantum liquid at low temperatures. The excitations of this liquid are sound waves, which correspond to quasi-particles - phonons. The phonon energy ε represents the energy of the entire liquid, not individual atoms, and should be proportional to their momentum p: ε(p) = cp(where with - sound speed). At temperatures near absolute zero, these excitations cannot occur if the fluid is flowing at a speed less than the speed of sound, and thus it will not have viscosity. At the same time, as Landau believed in 1941, along with the potential flow of liquid helium, a vortex flow is also possible. The spectrum of vortex excitations had to be separated from zero by some "gap" Δ and have the form

where μ is the effective mass of the quasiparticle corresponding to the excitation. At the suggestion of I. E. Tamm, Lev Davidovich called this particle a roton. Using the spectrum of quasiparticles, he found the temperature dependence of the heat capacity of liquid helium and derived the equations of hydrodynamics for it. He showed that in a number of problems the motion of helium is equivalent to the motion of two fluids: normal (viscous) and superfluid (ideal). In this case, the density of the latter vanishes above the transition point to the superfluid state and can serve as a parameter of a second-order phase transition. A remarkable consequence of this theory was Landau's prediction of the existence of special oscillations in liquid helium, when normal and superfluid liquids oscillate in antiphase.

He called it the second sound and predicted its speed. The discovery of the second sound in the excellent experiments of V. P. Peshkov was a brilliant confirmation of the theory. However, Landau was alarmed by the small difference between the observed and predicted speed of the second sound. After analyzing it, he concluded in 1947 that instead of two branches of the excitation spectrum—phonon and roton—there should be a single dependence of the excitation energy on the momentum of the quasiparticle, which increases linearly with the momentum (phonons) at small momenta, and at a certain value of the momentum ( p 0) has a minimum and can be represented near it in the form

At the same time, as Lev Davidovich emphasized, all conclusions regarding the superfluidity and macroscopic hydrodynamics of helium-2 are preserved. In a subsequent paper (1948), Landau referred as an additional argument to the fact that N. N. Bogolyubov in 1947 succeeded in using an ingenious trick to obtain the excitation spectrum of a weakly interacting Bose gas, which is represented by a single curve with a linear dependence at low momenta. (Perhaps it was this work by Bogolyubov, together with Peshkov's data, that prompted Landau to the idea of ​​a single excitation curve.) Landau's theory of superfluidity was brilliantly confirmed in the remarkable experiments of V. P. Peshkov, E. L. Andronikashvili, and others, and was further developed in joint the works of Landau with I. M. Khalatnikov. The Landau excitation spectrum was directly confirmed by experiments on the scattering of X-rays and neutrons (R. Feynman pointed out this possibility).

In 1956-1957. Landau developed the theory of a Fermi liquid (a quantum liquid in which elementary excitations have a half-integer spin and, accordingly, obey Fermi–Dirac statistics) applicable to a wide range of objects (electrons in metals, liquid helium-3, nucleons in nuclei). From the point of view of the developed approach, the microscopic theory of superconductivity, which predicts new phenomena in this field, is most naturally constructed. The prospects for using the methods of quantum field theory for calculations in the field of condensed matter theory have opened up. Further development of the theory of the Fermi liquid by L.P. Pitaevskii allowed him to predict that at a sufficiently low temperature, helium-3 would become superfluid. An exceptionally beautiful nontrivial phenomenon—the reflection of electrons at the boundary of a superconductor with a normal metal—was predicted by A.F. Andreev, the last student whom Landau accepted into his group. This phenomenon has received the name "Andreev's reflection" in the world literature and is beginning to find more and more widespread use.

From the very beginning of his career, Lev Davidovich was interested in the problems of quantum field theory and relativistic quantum mechanics. The derivation of formulas for the scattering of relativistic electrons by the Coulomb field of atomic nuclei, taking into account the delay in interaction (the so-called Möller scattering), as Meller himself noted, was suggested to him by Landau. In his work with E. M. Livshits (1934), Lev Davidovich considered the production of electrons and positrons in the collision of charged particles. The generalization of the results obtained in this work led, after the creation of electron-positron colliders, to an important area of ​​experimental research—two-photon physics. In his work with VB Berestetsky (1949), Lev Davidovich Landau drew attention to the importance of the so-called exchange interaction in a system of particles and antiparticles. An important role in elementary particle physics is played by Landau's theorem (also established independently by T. Lee and C. Yang) on ​​the impossibility of decay of a particle with spin 1 into two free photons (it is also valid for decay into two gluons). This theorem is widely used in elementary particle physics. It, in essence, made it possible to explain the small width of the particle ?/Ψ, causing confusion at first.

Results of fundamental importance for particle physics were obtained by Lev Davidovich together with his students A. A. Abrikosov, I. M. Khalatnikov, I. Ya. in theoretical calculations of some physical quantities (for example, mass) to infinity. The latest development of quantum electrodynamics has provided a recipe for eliminating infinite expressions. But this did not suit Landau. He set the task of developing a theory in which finite quantities would appear at each stage. To do this, it was necessary to consider the local interaction of particles as the limit of the "smeared" interaction, which has a finite, arbitrarily decreasing radius of action a. This radius value corresponded to the “cutoff” of infinite integrals in the momentum space: Λ ≈ 1/a and "seed" charge e 1 (a) , which is a function of the radius a. AT As a result of the calculations, it turned out that the “physical” electron charge observed at low field frequencies ( e) is associated with the seed e 1 (a) formula

where ν is the number of fermions, which, in addition to electrons, contribute to the vacuum polarization, t - the mass of an electron, and the charges e and e 1 - dimensionless quantities expressed in units of the speed of light ( with) and Planck's constant ћ:

The expression for the "seed" charge, according to (1), had the form

Interestingly, even before the calculations, Landau believed that the "seed" charge e 1 (a) will decrease and tend to zero with decreasing radius a, and thus a self-consistent theory will be obtained (since the calculations were made under the assumption e 1 2 1). He even developed a general philosophy corresponding to the modern principle of "asymptotic freedom" in quantum chromodynamics. Preliminary calculations seemed to support this view. But in these calculations, an unfortunate mistake was made in the sign in formulas (1) and, accordingly, (2). (If the sign in (2) is wrong, indeed e 1→ 0 as Λ → ∞.) When the error was noticed, Lev Davidovich managed to take the article from the editorial office and correct it. At the same time, the philosophy of “asymptotic freedom” disappeared from the article. It's a pity. Knowing it, the Novosibirsk theorist from the Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences Yu. B. Khriplovich, having found in a particular example that the color charge in quantum chromodynamics decreases with decreasing distance, could possibly construct a general theory (for which the Americans D. Gross, D. Politzer and F. Wilczek received the Nobel Prize already in the 21st century). However, in quantum electrodynamics, the effective electric charge increases with decreasing distance. Experiments on colliders have shown that the effective charge at distances of ~2 10 -16 cm has grown to a value of ~1/128 (compared to 1/137 at large distances). The growth of the effective charge e 1 (a) led Landau and Pomeranchuk to a conclusion of fundamental importance: if the second term in the denominator of formula (1) becomes substantially greater than unity, then the charge e regardless e 1 equals

and vanishes as Λ → ∞ or a~ 1/Λ → 0. Although there is no rigorous proof of such a conclusion (the theory was constructed for e 1 1), Pomeranchuk found strong arguments in favor of the fact that expression (3) is also valid for the value e 1 ≥ 1. This conclusion (if it is correct) means that the existing theory is internally inconsistent, since it leads to the zero value of the observed electron charge. However, there is another solution to the "null-charge" problem, which is that the quantity a(or charge dimensions) have a finite value, not zero. As Landau noted, the "crisis" of the theory sets in exactly at those values ​​of Λ at which the gravitational interaction becomes strong, i.e., at distances of the order of 10 -33 cm (or energies of the order of 10 19 GeV). In other words, hope remains for a unified theory that includes gravity and leads to an elementary length of the order of 10 -33 cm. This hypothesis anticipated the currently widely held view.

The notion of combined CP parity, introduced by Lev Davidovich in 1956, is of paramount importance for modern physics. interactions, Landau treated them very critically at first. “I can’t understand how, with the isotropy of space, right and left can differ,” he said. Due to the fact that symmetry must be observed in the local theory with respect to the simultaneous implementation of three transformations: spatial reflection (P), time reversal (T) and charge conjugation (transition from particles to antiparticles (C)) - the so-called CPT theorem, violation of the spatial symmetry (P) should inevitably lead to the violation of any other symmetries. Pomeranchuk's colleagues B. L. Ioffe and A. P. Rudik believed at first that the T-symmetry should have been broken, since the conservation of C-symmetry, according to the idea of ​​M. Gell-Mann and A. Pais, explained the presence of a long-lived and short-lived neutral kaons. However, L. B. Okun noticed that the latter can also be explained by the preservation of T-symmetry with respect to time reversal. As a result of the discussions that Landau had with Pomeranchuk's students, he came to the conclusion that with complete isotropy of space, the violation of mirror symmetry in processes with some particles should be associated with a difference in the interaction of particles and antiparticles: processes with antiparticles should look like a mirror image of similar processes with particles. He compared this situation with the fact that with complete isotropy of space there can be asymmetric "right" and "left" modifications of crystals, which are mirror images of each other. Based on this, he introduced the concept of combined CP symmetry and conserved CP parity. Subsequent experiments seemed to brilliantly confirm the conservation of CP parity until, in 1964, "milliweak" CP violation (at a level of 10 -3 from the weak interaction) was discovered in the decays of long-lived neutral kaons. The study of CP violation has become the subject of many theoretical and experimental studies. At present, CP violation is well described at the quark level and has also been found in processes with b-quarks. According to A. D. Sakharov's hypothesis, violations of CP symmetry and the law of conservation of the baryon number can lead during the evolution of the early Universe to its baryon asymmetry (ie, the observed absence of antimatter in it).

Simultaneously with the concept of CP parity, Landau put forward a hypothesis about a helical (two-component) neutrino, whose spin is directed along (or against) the momentum. (Independently, this was done by A. Salam, T. Lee, and C. Yang.) Such a neutrino corresponded to the maximum possible violation of space and charge parity separately and the preservation of CP parity. The left neutrino corresponded to the right antineutrino, and the left antineutrino should not exist at all. Based on this hypothesis, Lev Davidovich predicted that electrons in the process of β-decay should be almost completely polarized against their momentum (if the neutrino is left), and two neutral light particles emitted in the process of μ-decay (μ - → e - +νν"), must be different neutrinos. (Now we know that one of them is a muon neutrino, ν = ν μ , and the second is an electron antineutrino, ν" = ν̃ e.) The concept of the spiral neutrino seemed attractive to Landau also because the spiral neutrino had to be massless. This seemed to agree with the fact that the experiments, as the accuracy increased, gave an increasingly lower upper limit on the mass of the neutrino. The idea of ​​the spiral neutrino suggested to Feynman and Gell-Mann the hypothesis that, perhaps, all other particles (with non-zero mass) participate in the weak interaction, like neutrinos, with their left-handed spiral components. (By that time, it had already been established that neutrinos had left-handed helicity.) This hypothesis led Feynman and Gell-Mann, as well as R. Marshak and E. S. G. Sudarshan, to the discovery of the fundamental ( V-A) the law of weak interaction, which pointed to the analogy of weak and electromagnetic interactions and stimulated the discovery of the unified nature of weak and electromagnetic interactions.

Landau always reacted quickly to the discovery of new unknown phenomena and their theoretical interpretation. Back in 1937, together with Yu. B. Rumer, starting from the physical idea of ​​the cascade origin of electromagnetic showers observed in cosmic rays, which was expressed by H. Baba with W. Heitler and J. Carlson with R. Oppenheimer, created an elegant theory this complex phenomenon. Using the effective cross sections for bremsstrahlung of hard gamma quanta by electrons and positrons and the effective cross section for the production of electron-positron pairs by gamma quanta known from quantum electrodynamics, Landau and Rumer obtained equations that determine the development of showers. By solving these equations, they found the number of particles in the shower and their energy distribution as a function of the depth of penetration of the shower into the atmosphere. In subsequent works (1940-1941), Lev Davidovich determined the width of the shower and the angular distribution of particles in the shower. He also pointed out that the showers observed underground could be caused by heavier penetrating particles (the "hard" component of cosmic rays, which, as it became known, is muons). The methods and results of these works laid the foundation for all subsequent experimental and theoretical studies. At present, they are of great importance for research in high-energy physics in two directions. On the one hand, the theory of electromagnetic showers is very important for determining the energy and type of the primary particle in cosmic rays, especially at limiting energies of the order of 10 19 -10 20 eV. On the other hand, the operation of electromagnetic calorimeters, which have become one of the main devices at modern high-energy colliders, is based on this theory. Landau's determination of the number of charged particles at the shower maximum, as well as his remarkable work on the fluctuations of ionization losses by fast particles (1944), are very important for modern experimental studies at high energies. Lev Davidovich returned to electron-shower processes in 1953 in joint work with Pomeranchuk. In these papers, it was indicated that the length of the formation of γ-ray bremsstrahlung by a fast electron grows in proportion to the square of the electron energy: l~λγ 2 (where λ — the wavelength of the emitted γ-quantum, and γ = E/ts 2 — Lorentz factor of a fast electron). Therefore, in a substance, it can become larger than the effective length of multiple electron scattering, and this will lead to a decrease in the probability of emission of long-wavelength radiation (Landau-Pomeranchuk effect).

A number of Lev Davidovich's works were devoted to astrophysics. In 1932, independently of S. Chandrasekhar, he established an upper limit on the mass of white dwarfs—stars consisting of a degenerate relativistic Fermi gas of electrons. He noticed that at masses greater than this limit (~1.5), catastrophic compression of the star would have to occur (a phenomenon that subsequently served as the basis for the idea of ​​the existence of black holes). In order to avoid such "absurd" (in his words) tendencies, he was even ready to admit that the laws of quantum mechanics were violated in the relativistic region. In 1937, Landau pointed out that with a large compression of a star in the course of its evolution, the process of electron capture by protons and the formation of a neutron star becomes energetically favorable. He even believed that this process could be a source of stellar energy. This work was widely known as a prediction of the inevitability of the formation of neutron stars during the evolution of stars of a sufficiently large mass (the idea of ​​the possibility of the existence of which was put forward by astrophysicists W. Baade and F. Zwicky almost immediately after the discovery of the neutron).

An important section in Landau's work is his work on hydrodynamics and physical kinetics. The latter, in addition to works related to processes in liquid helium, include works on kinetic equations for particles with Coulomb interaction (1936) and the well-known classical work on electron plasma oscillations (1946). In this work, Lev Davidovich, using the equation derived by A. A. Vlasov, showed that free oscillations in a plasma decay even when particle collisions can be neglected. (Vlasov himself studied another problem—stationary plasma oscillations.) Landau established the plasma damping decrement as a function of the wave vector, and also studied the question of the penetration of an external periodic field into the plasma. The term "Landau damping" has firmly entered the world literature.

In classical hydrodynamics, Lev Davidovich found a rare case of an exact solution of the Navier-Stokes equations, namely, the problem of a submerged jet. Considering the process of the emergence of turbulence, Landau proposed a new approach to this problem. A whole cycle of his works was devoted to the study of shock waves. In particular, he discovered that during supersonic motion at a large distance from the source, two shock waves arise in the medium. A number of problems about shock waves that Lev Davidovich solved within the framework of the atomic project (including with S. Dyakov), apparently, still remain unclassified.

In his work with KP Stanyukovich (1945), Landau studied the question of the detonation of condensed explosives and calculated the velocity of their products. This issue acquired particular importance in 1949 in connection with the upcoming tests of the first Soviet atomic bomb. The velocity of the detonation products of conventional explosives was of decisive importance in order for their compression of the plutonium charge to exceed its critical mass. As it has now become known, the velocity of detonation products was measured at the beginning of 1949 at Arzamas-16 by two different laboratories. At the same time, in one of the laboratories, due to a methodological error, a speed was obtained that was significantly lower than that required to compress the plutonium charge. One can imagine what anxiety this caused among the participants in the atomic project. However, after the error was sorted out, it turned out that the measured velocity of the detonation products was sufficient and very close to that predicted by Landau and Stanyukovich.

Knowing Lev Davidovich as an outstanding universal theorist, equally well versed in nuclear physics, gas dynamics, and physical kinetics, I. V. Kurchatov insisted that he be involved in the atomic project from the very beginning. The significance of Landau's work in this project can be partly judged, if only by the words of one of its outstanding participants, Academician L.P. Feoktistov: “... the first formulas for the explosion power were derived in Landau's group. That's what they were called - Landau's formulas - and they were quite well done, especially for that time. Using them, we predicted all the results. At first, the errors were no more than twenty percent. No counting machines: it was then that the girls arrived, they counted in Mercedes, and we - on slide rules. No electronics, no partial differential equations. The formula was derived from general nuclear hydrodynamic considerations and included certain parameters that had to be adjusted. So the help of the Landau group was very tangible. It must be said that "nuclear combustion in conditions of rapidly changing geometry" - this is how, according to the participant of the project, academician V.N. Mikhailov, the report of the Landau group was called - it was an extremely difficult task, since, in addition to the nuclear reaction, it was necessary to take into account very many factors : the transfer of matter, neutrons, radiation, etc. I think that only Landau could solve such problems and obtain "working" formulas and, at the same time, was interesting to him.

Another thing is when in the early 50s he had to work for self-preservation on other people's assignments related to specific designs. But even in this case, being disgusted by this work for various reasons, he performed it at his usual high level, developing efficient methods of numerical calculations.

In a short note, it is difficult to dwell on many other important works of Lev Davidovich: on crystallography, combustion, physical chemistry, statistical theory of the nucleus, multiple production of particles at high energies, etc. However, what has already been said is enough to understand that in the person of Landau we have a brilliant physicist , one of the greatest universals in the history of science.

"Flaming Communist"

Landau was never a member of the party. "Fiery communist" called him the father of the American hydrogen bomb E. Teller, who met Lev Davidovich during their joint stay in Copenhagen with Niels Bohr. Explaining his intention to work on the hydrogen bomb, Teller cited “the psychological shock when Stalin imprisoned my good friend, the outstanding physicist Lev Landau,” as one of the reasons. He was an ardent communist, and I knew him from Leipzig and Copenhagen. I came to the conclusion that Stalinist communism was no better than Hitler's Nazi dictatorship."

Teller had every reason to consider Landau an "ardent communist." In private conversations, speeches in the student society, newspaper interviews, he spoke with admiration of the revolutionary transformations in Soviet Russia. He talked about the fact that in Soviet Russia the means of production belong to the state and the workers themselves, and therefore in the USSR there is no exploitation of the majority by a minority, and each person works for the welfare of the whole country: that great attention is paid to science and education: the university system is expanding and scientific institutions, significant amounts are allocated for scholarships to students (see articles by X. Casimir and J. R. Pellam). He sincerely believed that the revolution would destroy all bourgeois prejudices, which he treated with great contempt, as well as undeserved privileges. He naively believed that a bright future was open before people, and therefore every person is simply obliged to organize his life in such a way as to be happy. And happiness, he argued, lies in creative work and free love, when both partners are equal and live without any bourgeois remnants, philistinism, jealousy, and part if love has passed. The family, however, as he believed, must be preserved for the upbringing of children. Such views were actively disseminated in the 1920s by some revolutionary intellectuals such as the well-known A. Kollontai.

The enthusiasm of the builder of a new society remained with Landau even after returning to his homeland, although the surrounding reality could be in doubt. After all, he moved to Kharkov in 1932 and lived there during the terrible famine in Ukraine. But it was precisely at this time that he set the task of making Soviet theoretical physics the best in the world. It was for this purpose that he conceived and began to write his wonderful "Course", to gather talented youth and create his famous school. At the same time, he wanted to write a physics textbook for schoolchildren. This unfulfilled desire he kept until the end of his life.

He associated the repressions of the 37th exclusively with the dictatorship of Stalin and his clique. “The great cause of the October Revolution is basely betrayed. The country is flooded with torrents of blood and dirt, ”this is how the leaflet begins, drawn up, as they say in Landau’s investigative file, with his participation. And further: “Stalin compared himself with Hitler and Mussolini. Destroying the country for the sake of maintaining his power, Stalin turns it into an easy prey for brutal German fascism. The last words sound prophetic. For the destruction by the Stalinist system of the highest commanding cadres of the Red Army, industry leaders and talented designers, the country paid with the tragedy of the initial period of the Great Patriotic War and millions of human lives. The leaflet called on the working class and all working people to resolutely fight for socialism against Stalinist and Hitlerite fascism.

The leaflet certainly reflects Landau's convictions. However, some people who knew him doubt that he really participated in its compilation. Their arguments boil down to the fact that Lev Davidovich, who achieved great success in science and considered it his vocation, could not help but realize the mortal danger of participation in the struggle against the Stalinist regime. In my opinion, this is incorrect.

I think that the investigative file basically correctly reflects the story of the appearance of the leaflet. Landau's old comrade and former assistant M.A. Korets came to Landau with a text that Landau corrected but refused to deal with his future fate. Although the text of the leaflet presented to Landau during the interrogation was written by Korets, the clarity and brevity of the wording in it are characteristic of Lev Davidovich's style and convincingly testify in favor of his co-authorship. Whether Korets had the moral right to drag Landau into this hopeless and deadly adventure is another matter. Did he realize that he was endangering the life of a genius? Wasn't all this a provocation that Korets himself fell into? (The arrest of Landau and Korets took place five days after the leaflet was written.)

A stay in prison, which lasted exactly a year, made Lev Davidovich become more cautious, but in no way changed his socialist views and devotion to the country. He actively participated in military developments during the Great Patriotic War (for which he received his first order in 1943). From the first half of 1943 (i.e., almost from the very beginning of the atomic project), he began to carry out individual work related to this project, and in 1944 I. V. Kurchatov, in a letter to L. P. Beria, indicates the need full involvement of Landau in the project. In the memorandum of A.P. Aleksandrov, it is indicated that Landau completed the theory of “boilers” in March 1947 and, together with Laboratory-2 and the Institute of Chemical Physics, is working on the development of reactions in a critical mass. It is also noted that he leads a theoretical seminar at Laboratory-2. Some post-perestroika historians of science believe that Landau was forced to participate in the atomic project solely for the purpose of self-preservation. This, perhaps, is true for the last years before Stalin's death, when tensions were escalating inside and outside the country, and Lev Davidovich had to work on someone else's assignments. But this is not true for the first post-war years. This is evidenced by the speeches of Landau himself, who could not be forced by any means to say anything other than what he thinks. In a speech prepared for central radio broadcasting in June 1946, Lev Davidovich, who is usually not inclined to rhetoric, writes: “Russian scientists have contributed to solving the problem of the atom. The role of Soviet science in these studies is constantly growing. In terms of the new five-year plan and the restoration and development of the economy, experimental and theoretical work is outlined, which should lead to the practical use of atomic energy for the benefit of our Motherland and in the interests of all mankind.

After Stalin's death, Landau hoped that the socialist principles in which he believed would be restored in the country. “We will still see the sky in diamonds,” he quoted Chekhov. "Wow, where are the diamonds?" - teased him several years later, his sister Sofya Davidovna, a beautiful, most intelligent woman, a truly Leningrad intellectual who graduated from the Technological Institute and contributed to the production of titanium in our country. Landau supported Khrushchev's criticism of Stalin. He said: "Don't scold Khrushchev for not doing it earlier, during Stalin's lifetime, you should praise him for having decided to do it now." At one of the receptions in the Kremlin, A.P. Alexandrov brought Lev Davidovich to Khrushchev, and, as Dau said, they uttered compliments to each other.

A well-known physicist close to Landau's circle said several years ago that Landau was a "coward". I could not believe the newspaper interview, considering this statement to be a journalist's mistake. However, I soon heard the same assessment made by the same person on a TV show. This literally shocked me. Indeed, Landau bitterly called himself a coward. But those who knew him understood what a high bar he had in mind.

Didn't Dau stand up for the condemned Korets during the Kharkov period (and achieve his release)? Didn't he dare to drive away from himself the man who spoke in the trial of Korets with a statement that Landau and L. V. Shubnikov constituted a counter-revolutionary group at the Kharkov Institute of Physics and Technology? (This statement later led to the arrest of L. V. Shubnikov and L. V. Rozenkevich, and, according to the testimony extorted from them, to the arrest of Landau himself.) How many examples of simply reckless courage can be found to participate in writing an anti-Stalinist leaflet in years of mass terror? Of course, after being released, Landau became more cautious. Above all, he knew that he had left on the guarantee of P.L. Kapitsa was not supposed to let him down.

Nevertheless, Lev Davidovich did what his more prudent colleagues tried to avoid. He himself went to the post office and sent money to the exiled Rumer, took care of Shubnikov's widow O. N. Trapeznikova, regularly went to the dacha to the disgraced Kapitsa. In the midst of all sorts of ideological campaigns, he signed letters against the ignorant criticism of the theory of relativity and in defense of a colleague accused of cosmopolitanism (the same one who later called him cowardly). There were other actions that Dow did not talk about.

“In the character of Dau, along with certain elements of physical timidity (he, like me, by the way, was afraid of dogs) there was a rare moral firmness,” recalls Academician M. A. Styrikovich, an old friend of Landau and his sister. “Before, and especially later (in difficult times), if he considered himself right, he could not be persuaded to compromise, even if it was necessary to avoid serious real danger.”

This quality of Dow manifested itself during his time in prison. According to the investigator's note, prepared, apparently, for the high authorities, Landau stood for 7 hours during interrogations, sat in the office for 6 days without talking (and, apparently, without sleep. - ST.), Investigator Litkens “persuaded” him for 12 hours, the investigators “swung, but did not beat”, threatened to be transferred to Lefortovo (where, as they knew in the cell, they were tortured), showed the confessions of his Kharkov friends who had been shot by that time. And he went on a hunger strike and, contrary to the investigator’s assertion that he “named Kapitsa and Semenov as members of the organization that led my a / s work,” did not sign the protocol of interrogation before he made a “clarification” according to which he “only counted on Kapitsa and Semenov as an anti-Soviet asset, but did not dare to be completely frank, not being close enough with them, and besides, my relationship of dependence on Kapitsa did not allow me to take risks. At the first opportunity, during an interrogation conducted by Beria's deputy Kobulov, "he refused all his testimony as fictitious, stating, however, that during the investigation no physical measures were applied to him." One involuntarily recalls the words of the poet Gumilyov, beloved by Lev Davidovich, from the poem “Gondla”: “Yes, nature and steel mixed into his bone structure,” referring to a physically weak but strong-minded person.

Landau tried not to participate in philosophical discussions and never went so far as to accuse the creators of quantum mechanics that, for example, they recognize the “free will of the electron.”

In the autumn of 1953, when the Stalinist order was still alive, Landau greatly frightened some of his colleagues close to him. After a successful test of the hydrogen bomb, he was presented with the title of Hero of Socialist Labor, and by decision of the government he was assigned security. Dow rebelled against this. He said that he wrote a letter to the government, which said: “My work is nervous and cannot stand the presence of strangers. Otherwise, they will guard the corpse, scientifically.” Those around were frightened of the punishment that could follow due to the refusal of protection. E. M. Lifshitz even made a special trip to Leningrad and persuaded Landau's sister to influence Dau so that he would come to terms. But she resolutely refused. In connection with the letter of Lev Davidovich, he was received by the Minister of Medium Machine Building and Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers V. A. Malyshev. In a narrow circle, Dau told how the conversation went. Malyshev said that it was an honor to have guards, members of the Central Committee had them. "Well, that's their own business," Dow replied. “But there is now an outbreak of banditry in the country, you are of great value, you need to be protected.” “I prefer to be stabbed to death in a dark alley,” Dow said. “But maybe you are afraid that the guards will prevent you from wooing women? Do not be afraid, on the contrary ... ". “Well, this is my personal life, and it should not concern you,” Dow replied. Listening to this story, a young mathematician from the Thermal Engineering Laboratory (TTL, now ITEP) A. Kronrod exclaimed: “Well, for this conversation, Dau, you should have been given not the Hero of Socialist Labor, but the Hero of the Soviet Union.”

Landau also protested against the fact that he was not allowed to attend international scientific conferences. On this occasion, he also wrote somewhere “upstairs”. He was received by N. A. Mukhitdinov (then such a secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU) and promised to settle the issue. Apparently, this was the reason for the request of the Science Department of the Central Committee to the KGB and the receipt of the now known certificate. From the testimonies of agents - secret employees surrounded by Landau - and the wiretapping data given in the KGB certificate, it is clear that, retaining some illusions, he eventually comes to the following conclusion: “I reject that our system is socialist, because the means of production do not belong to the people, but to the bureaucrats.”

He predicts the inevitable collapse of the Soviet system. And he discusses the ways in which this can happen: “If our system cannot collapse in a peaceful way, then a third world war is inevitable ... So the question of the peaceful liquidation of our system is a question of the fate of mankind, in essence.” Such predictions were made by the "fiery communist" in 1957, more than thirty years before the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Landau as I knew him

During my studies at Moscow State University, academic science was expelled from the Faculty of Physics. My thesis supervisor was Professor Anatoly Alexandrovich Vlasov, a brilliant lecturer and a remarkable physicist with a tragic (in my opinion) scientific fate. Vlasov and introduced me to Landau. It was in 1951 at the graduation party of our course. For some reason, I defiantly did not go to the solemn presentation of diplomas, which took place in the so-called Big Communist Auditorium of the old building of Moscow State University on Mokhovaya. Walking along the balustrade near this audience, I met Vlasov, who also did not go to the solemn act. We stood with him and my classmate Kolya Chetverikov, when Vlasov exclaimed: “Lev Davidovich himself is climbing the stairs! Come, I'll introduce you." It turned out that a group of students who were doing their diploma work at the Institute of Physical Problems invited Landau to our graduation party, and he came. Vlasov brought Kolya and me to him and introduced: "Our theorists."

According to the distribution, I was sent as a teacher of the hydrolysis technical school in the city of Kansk, Krasnoyarsk Territory. But they refused me. Vlasov made many attempts to get me somewhere for scientific work, but everything was in vain because of my profile (5th point plus repressed parents). In the end, I received a referral to a rural school in the Kaluga region, 105 km from Moscow. Proximity to Moscow left me hope for the continuation of scientific work with Vlasov. But he resolutely stated: "I think it's better for you to try to get started with Landau." Subsequently, I was very grateful to Vlasov for this advice, which, as I now understand, was given by him because of the good attitude towards me.

In the autumn of 1951, when I started working at a rural school, my close friend from the university, Sergei Repin, visited me. He was the fiancé of Natalya Talnikova, who lived in the apartment next to Landau. “You should take Landau's exams,” he said, “here is his phone number. Call him". With great hesitation, having prepared for the first exam (which, as I thought, would be "Mechanics"), I called Landau, introduced myself and said that I would like to take the theoretical minimum. He agreed and made an appointment, asking if it was right for me.

At the appointed hour, after taking time off from school, I rang Landau's doorbell. It was opened to me by a very beautiful woman, as I understand it, Landau's wife. She greeted me warmly, saying that Lev Davidovich would come soon, and took me to the 2nd floor to a small room, which I will always remember. After waiting fifteen minutes, I noticed, to my horror, that a puddle of my boots had flowed onto the shiny parquet floor. While I was trying to wipe it with my papers, voices were heard below. “Daulenka, why are you late? The boy has been waiting for you for a long time, ”I heard a female voice and some explanations that a male voice gave. Going upstairs, Lev Davidovich apologized for being late and said that the first exam should be mathematics. I did not specially prepare for it, but since it was delivered very well at the physics department (unlike physics), I said that I could take mathematics right away.

To some extent, it was even good that I did not prepare for mathematics, since I easily took the integral proposed by Landau without using Euler substitutions (for using them in simple examples, as I found out, Lev Davidovich drove me out of the exam). After I solved all the problems, he said: "Okay, now prepare the mechanics." “And I just came to hand it over,” I said. Landau began to offer me problems in mechanics. It must be said that it was easy to take Landau's exams. I was encouraged by his friendly attitude and, I would say, sympathy for the examiner. Having given the next task, he usually left the room and, occasionally going in and looking at the papers covered by the examinees, he said: “So, so, you are doing everything right. Finish soon." Or: “You are doing something wrong, you have to do everything according to science.” I was the last person he took all nine exams from. L. P. Pitaevsky, who passed the theoretical minimum after me, had only two: the first one in mathematics, and the second one in quantum mechanics. The rest Pitaevsky handed over to E. M. Lifshitz. Lev Petrovich said that Lifshitz was usually interested only in the final answer, checking its correctness.

Having successfully passed the “mechanics”, I told Lev Davidovich (not without timidity) that I noticed quite a few typos in his book. He was not at all offended, on the contrary, thanked me and noted in his notebook those of the typos I found that had not been noticed before. Only after all this did he begin to ask me who I had previously studied at Moscow State University with. I was waiting for this question and was ready to defend Vlasov in case Landau spoke badly about him. To my surprise and joy, he said: “Well, Vlasov is perhaps the only one in the physics department with whom you can deal. True,” he added, “Vlasov’s latest idea of ​​a single-particle crystal is, in my opinion, of purely clinical interest.” This was hard to answer. At the beginning of 1953, I passed all the theoretical minimum exams, and Lev Davidovich recommended me to Yakov Borisovich Zeldovich, saying to me then the phrase, which many later quoted: “I don’t know anyone except Zeldovich who would have so many new ideas, except perhaps at Fermi.

In August 1954, having finally completed my term, I was able to leave school and came to Moscow to get a job at some scientific institution or university. But the Stalinist order was still preserved in many respects. They didn't take me anywhere, despite the brilliant testimonial signed by Landau and Zel'dovich. After several months without work, I began to despair. I was saved from this by the care on the part of Lev Davidovich and Yakov Borisovich and the support of fellow students: the family of V.V. Sudakov and the family of A.A. Logunov.

I began to think about leaving Moscow. But at the beginning of 1955, Landau told me: “Be patient. There is talk about the return of P. L. Kapitsa. I can then take you to graduate school. Indeed, in the spring of 1955, Pyotr Leonidovich again became the director of the Institute of Physical Problems, and after a demonstrative examination arranged for me by Kapitsa, I was admitted to graduate school. Landau appointed A. A. Abrikosov as my leader, with whom we became friends. True, I was not very attracted by the proposed problem: determining the shape and size of superconducting regions in the intermediate state in a current-carrying conductor. I was attracted to particle physics. The discovery of parity nonconservation and muon catalysis enabled me to address these issues. Since Landau himself took up problems of the weak interaction, he became my direct supervisor and instructed me to clarify certain issues. For example, he immediately asked to check the degree of polarization of electrons in β-decay.

Then it was believed that the β-interaction is a combination of scalar, pseudoscalar and tensor variants, symmetrical with respect to the permutation of particles, and the helicity of the neutrino was unknown. For definiteness, Landau considered her to be right. I received confirmation that electrons in β-decay will be polarized in the direction of their momentum (in the case of the right neutrino) with the value +v/c(the ratio of the speed of an electron to the speed of light). It seemed to me an intriguing circumstance that the electron and proton participated in the β-interaction only with their left components, and the neutrino and neutron with their right ones. Landau also found this interesting. But we didn't go further. Lev Davidovich instructed me to advise on the theory of experimenters from the present Kurchatov Center, who were preparing to measure the polarization of electrons, and I had the pleasure of discussing questions with one of our best experimenters, P. E. Spivak.

I remember the next episode from that time. Having put forward the longitudinal neutrino hypothesis, Landau immediately wanted to point out its consequences. He asked me if I had ever counted muon decay. “How did you integrate over phase space? In elliptical coordinates? “Yes, in ellipticals,” I replied. Lev Davidovich said nothing. He apparently did not know about the invariant calculation technique, but he felt that the old technique was cumbersome and not very beautiful. Therefore, in his article, he gave only the result, without giving the calculations themselves. It seems to me that in many other cases, the general approach to solving various problems, for which Landau was so famous, arose in him as a result of long and painstaking work, which he kept silent about.

Landau's seminars are mentioned in many memoirs. I will only talk about two that I remember. My mathematician friend once mentioned that I. M. Gelfand decided to study quantum field theory, because, in his opinion, all the difficulties in it arise from the fact that physicists do not know mathematics well. After a while my friend said: "Gelfand did everything." "What did he do?" I asked. "Everything," replied the mathematician. This rumor spread widely, and Israel Moiseevich was invited to make a presentation at Landau's seminar.

Gelfand made an unprecedented trick - he was 20 minutes late. Another speaker was already speaking at the blackboard. But Lev Davidovich asked him to give way to Gelfand. Contrary to custom, Landau did not allow Abrikosov and Khalatnikov to make objections during the report, but arranged a literal rout after it was over. It was said that after the seminar, Israel Moiseevich said that theoretical physicists are far from being as simple as he thought, and that theoretical physics is very close to mathematics, so he will do something else, say, biology.

Subsequently, when Lev Davidovich was lying at the Institute of Neurosurgery after the accident, it turned out that Gelfand was working there. "What is he doing here?" one of the physicists asked the head doctor Yegorov. “You better ask him yourself,” he replied.

Another, truly historic, was the seminar at which N. N. Bogolyubov talked about his explanation of superconductivity. The first hour passed quite tensely. Landau could not understand the physical meaning of the mathematical transformations made by Nikolai Nikolaevich. However, during the break, when Bogolyubov and Landau, walking along the corridor, continued their conversation, Nikolai Nikolayevich told Lev Davidovich about the Cooper effect (pairing of two electrons near the Fermi surface), and Landau immediately understood everything. The second hour of the seminar passed, as they say, with a bang. Landau was full of praise for the work done, which was completely unusual for him. In turn, Nikolai Nikolaevich praised the ratio, which Lev Davidovich wrote on the blackboard, and advised him to be sure to publish it. We agreed on a joint seminar.

I was glad of the cooperation that arose, because I did not understand (and still do not understand) why Landau was wary of Bogolyubov. Perhaps this was due to the fact that Nikolai Nikolaevich maintained relations with people whom Lev Davidovich did not respect and did not like: “Why did he leave D. D. Ivanenko and A. A. Sokolov in his department?” But perhaps this was due to the fact that the Department of Science of the Central Committee patronized the Bogolyubov school, and accused Landau and his school of many sins. Tensions in relations were also introduced by some members of both schools, who tried to be more royalists than the king himself. Since there were friends of mine among Bogolyubov's students who talked about him, I tried to convince Dau that Bogolyubov, by his nature, could not, in principle, plot anything bad either against him personally or against anyone else. But a large article by Academician I. M. Vinogradov appeared in Pravda. It said that the mathematician N. N. Bogolyubov solved problems that theoretical physicists could not solve by explaining superfluidity and superconductivity (moreover, Landau's name was not even mentioned in connection with superfluidity). The joint work of the two schools did not work out.

Landau had a completely uncompromising attitude towards works and judgments that seemed to him wrong. And he openly and rather sharply expressed it, regardless of the faces. Thus, the Nobel laureate V. Raman was enraged by Landau's remarks, which he made at his report, which took place at the Kapitsa seminar, and literally pushed Landau out of the seminar.

I knew only one case when Lev Davidovich refrained from criticizing incorrect work. This happened when NA Kozyrev was to speak at Kapitsa's seminar with his wild hypothesis about energy and time. Landau knew that Kozyrev, who began his career as a talented astrophysicist, then spent many years in the camp, and felt sorry for him, but he could not hear nonsense. Therefore, contrary to his custom, he simply did not go to the seminar. I heard that at one time he did not go to the lecture of his close friend Yu. B. Rumer, arranged by physicists in order to apply for permission for him to live and work in Moscow. Rumer was deprived of this right after many years of imprisonment, spent in a "sharashka" together with A.N. Tupolev and S.P. Korolev, and then in exile. Landau's support could have been significant. But Landau did not believe in the idea developed by Rumer, and he organically could not tell a lie.

Lev Davidovich also had erroneous assessments. At Bogolyubov's report, he criticized his work on a weakly nonideal Bose gas, i.e., a work that he later considered an outstanding achievement. In my memory, he criticized the report of the remarkable physicist F. L. Shapiro (who supplemented, based on his experimental data, the theory of the effective radius), but then, having convinced himself of the correctness of the result, he apologized to him and inserted this result into his course "Quantum Mechanics".

A critical mindset sometimes prevented Landau from accepting new ideas until he fully understood their physical basis. So it was, for example, with nuclear shells and the latest development of quantum electrodynamics. I remember such an episode. In the summer of 1961 I came to Yakov Borisovich Zel'dovich to discuss the problem of the second (muon) neutrino. New evidence has been accumulating in favor of this hypothesis. "Let's go to Dow," Zel'dovich said after our discussion. We found him in the garden of Physical Problems. He said he was enjoying a warm day. Apparently, at that moment he did not really want to talk about science. “It is impossible to accurately calculate the processes that speak in favor of two different neutrinos. And why multiply the number of elementary particles, there are already plenty of them, ”Dau said, brushing aside all our objections. “It is a pity that you did not express these considerations in 1947. This would greatly help the Alikhanov brothers,” Yakov Borisovich joked. (The Alikhanov brothers "discovered", thanks to errors in the experimental technique, a large number of unstable particles - "varitrons", for which they received the Stalin Prize in 1947.) Dau did not answer this joke. “And why did Dau believe the Alikhanovs?” I asked Yakov Borisovich when we were alone. “Dau was distrustful of the meson theory of nuclear forces,” he explained, “almost nothing in it can be accurately calculated, and here Ivanenko advertises it in every possible way. And since it turned out that there are many mesons - varitrons, then, - Dau decided, - they have nothing to do with nuclear forces.

Of all the modern great physicists, Lev Davidovich most of all reminded me of Richard Feynman. Subsequently, I was able to verify this. In 1972, at a conference on weak interactions held in Hungary, V. Telegdy introduced me to Feynman, who gave the famous report "Quarks as Partons" there. After one of the lectures, in which I made a remark about the possibility of the existence of a third lepton (in addition to the electron and muon) and its properties, Feynman came up to me and said that he believed in the existence of a third lepton. He also asked me what I am doing now. I told him about the problem of supercritical nuclei, which Zel'dovich and I had dealt with several years ago and which Yakov Borisovich and VS Popov from ITEP finally solved. Feynman became interested in this, and we talked with him in the lobby of the restaurant after lunch until dinner. He even wrote down the problem Z > 137 on a special card he took out of his purse. During the discussion, he reminded me very much of Dow. I told him about it. "Oh, that's a big compliment for me," he replied.

Feynman greatly appreciated Landau. I remember in my graduate school talking about a letter Feynman wrote to him. In this letter, he admitted that, when he began to study superfluidity, he did not believe in some of Landau's results, but the more he delved into this problem, the more he became convinced of the correctness of his intuition. In this regard, Feynman asked Landau what he thought about the situation in quantum field theory. Dau wrote about the null charge in his answer. Feynman also reminded me of Landau in terms of his style of behavior. It seems to me that with him, like with Lev Davidovich, outrageousness was a means of overcoming natural shyness.

I was glad to learn that V. L. Ginzburg also found their similarities. However, I completely disagree with Vitaly Lazarevich's opinion that Landau did not have warm friendly feelings for anyone. “For some reason, I think, although I’m not sure about it, that Landau usually didn’t have such feelings at all,” recalls Ginzburg. It is possible that Vitaly Lazarevich did not observe anything of the kind. But his colleague and friend E. L. Feinberg was touched by the manifestation of these feelings on the part of Landau towards Rumer and quotes the words of Kapitsa: “Those who knew Landau closely knew that behind this sharpness in judgments, in essence, a very kind and sympathetic person. And how could a callous person who does not have warm feelings for anyone find such poignant words to begin his article: “It is with deep sadness that I send this article, written in honor of the sixtieth birthday of Wolfgang Pauli, to a collection dedicated to his memory. Memories of him will be sacredly kept by those who had the good fortune to know him personally. Many could not fail to notice with what warmth Landau treated, for example, I. Ya. Pomeranchuk, N. Bohr, whom he revered as his teacher, and a friend of his youth, R. Peierls.

I felt Dau's sympathy and support in the most difficult moments of my life: both when I worked in a rural school, unable to do science, and when I could not get a job, returning to Moscow, and later, in the fall of 1961, when wife, leaving me, at my request, our three-year-old son. Dow, who was always interested in the family life of his friends and students, was distressed by this. He asked how I cope with the child. I explained that my son has a nanny, and according to his own theory, we solve the situation that has arisen as intelligent people. But this, apparently, did not calm him down, and he began to pay special attention to me.

I usually tried to come to Kapitza's seminar on Wednesday so that I could attend the theoretical seminar the next morning. Dau began to invite me to dinner after Kapitza's seminar. Before that, I rarely visited his house. We talked about science and about life. I remember that Kora was worried because Kapitsa wanted to write a letter to Khrushchev in connection with the fact that Landau was not being allowed to attend international conferences. “He can write such things,” she said. “He wrote a letter to Stalin complaining about Beria!” Dau argued with her and praised Pyotr Leonidovich in every possible way. On Wednesday, January 3, 1962, Yu. D. Prokoshkin and I were invited to make a report at Kapitza's seminar on the direction of research, which was later called "meson chemistry." We were second. The famous Linus Pauling, twice Nobel Prize winner in chemistry and for peace, spoke at the first hour.

After the seminar, Kapitsa, as usual, invited the speakers and closest collaborators to his office for tea. He entertained the guest with conversations about politics: about de Gaulle, about Churchill's scientific advisers, about the Swedish king, etc. At some point, Dow got up from the table, went to the door and beckoned me with his finger. We went to the reception. "Well, how are you doing?" Dow asked. “It's all right,” I answered, “come to Dubna. Now they are preparing some interesting experiments. A lot of people will be very interested in talking to you.” "Well, I'm heavy on my feet and lazy," Dow said. And we returned to the office of Peter Leonidovich.

However, a day later, my classmate, the wife of my friend, one of the most talented young students of Landau, Vladimir Vasilyevich Sudakov, called me in Dubna: “Dau was in TTL and came to us,” she said. “He said that you called him to Dubna, and he decided to go with us.” At first they planned to go by train, but then Dau was embarrassed that I live quite far from the station, and they decided to go by car (not knowing that I was going to meet them at the station in an institute car). I was expecting them on Sunday, January 7, and even, using the advice of my cottage neighbor S.M. Shapiro, cooked dinner.

Around one o'clock I began to worry. It was windy outside, there was snow and ice. I went to the neighboring cottage to A. A. Logunov, who had a direct telephone line to Moscow, and called Dau's home. It was busy there. Then I called Abrikosov. He didn't know anything. My excitement intensified, and I began to continuously dial Dow's number. At some point, he was released, and Cora said: “Dau is in the hospital, near death. I can not talk. Waiting for a call" and hung up. I immediately reported this to Abrikosov, realizing that he would do everything possible to help Dow. Contacting Abrikosov again and learning that there had been a car accident and Dau was in the 50th hospital, I rushed to Moscow.

There were already several invited highly qualified doctors in the hospital, who were found on Sunday by the attending physician Dau (I think Karmazin). Fortunately, Sudakov knew his phone number and informed him about the disaster. They provided Dow with urgent assistance. In the hospital waiting room, I learned about the terrible injuries received by Dau. The next morning, the hospital was filled with an unusually quiet crowd of physicists who had learned about the catastrophe. The Kremlin doctors arrived, and the first thing they did was to write a protocol on the incompatibility of the injuries received with life. Much has been written about Landau's illness and the efforts made to save him. I won't touch on this. I remember the unity of physicists, which involved many people who did not know Dau. It was a moment of truth that revealed the inner essence of various people.

I want to write only about what I saw after Landau was discharged from the academic hospital. In the summer he was taken to a dacha in Mozzhinka. Not knowing about his condition, I went there. Dow was cared for by Cora's sister. She said that Dow, realizing his position, is desperate that he will not be able to work as before. He does not sleep and says that he has become such a nonentity that he cannot even commit suicide. I involuntarily recalled the lines of one of N. Gumilyov's favorite Dau poems: "Neither the gleam of a gun, nor the splash of a wave is now free to break this chain."

In the future, Dow's life passed mainly between home and the academic hospital. People who came to him tried to tell the news of physics, not realizing that he could not concentrate as before, and this gave him torment. But he remembered the old things very well. It is said that he lost his working memory. But this is not entirely true. He did not lose his working memory, nor did he lose his sense of humor, despite the pain.

Once, after returning from a trip to the mountains, I came to visit Dow at the academic hospital, without having shaved off the beard that I let go in the mountains. And Dau did not like people with a beard: "Why wear your stupidity on your face." Seeing me, he asked: “Really, Sema, have you signed up for castrati?” "What do you mean, Dow?" “And the fact that you became a follower of Fidel Castro,” he said. When the next day, having shaved, I went to see him, at the gate to the hospital garden I ran into E. M. Lifshitz and V. Weiskopf, whom Yevgeny Mikhailovich had brought to visit Dau. It turns out that Dau told them: “Yesterday Semyon came to me with a disgusting beard. I told him to shave it off immediately." Together we were glad that Dau also had RAM.

Time passed, and many of those who selflessly saved Lev Davidovich began to forget about him. Once, when I visited him in the hospital, I found him walking around the hospital yard with Irakli Andronikov, who was also recovering in the hospital and with whom Landau was friends. Nurse Tanya followed behind them. She told me that now almost no one goes to Dow, and this makes him very sad. One Alyosha (Aprikosov) appears regularly. I tried to entertain Dow with different funny stories. Then I made the mistake of saying that the theorists of Physical Problems wanted to organize a special theoretical institute in Chernogolovka. "What for? Dow said. “Theorists should work side by side with experimenters.” (Subsequently, I read that Landau himself and Georgy Gamow tried to organize the Institute of Theoretical Physics. Apparently, Dau did not want to separate theorists from the Institute of Physical Problems, being grateful to Kapitsa.)

From the hospital, I immediately went to the Institute of Physical Problems and reproached my friends for not visiting the patient. Typical response: "It's unbearable for me to see a teacher in this state." I couldn’t understand it: “And if, say, your father was in such a state, you couldn’t see him either?” Khalatnikov reproached me for telling Dow about Chernogolovka: "We tried not to tell him about it." By the way, the Institute for Theoretical Physics, organized by Landau's students, has become one of the world's best centers and deservedly bears the name of Landau. On this occasion, I had the opportunity to somehow joke. The fact is that when Khalatnikov and Abrikosov “punched” one of their articles through Dau, he wrapped it up several times and, going into our graduate student room, repeated: “After my death, Abrikos and Khalat will create a world center of pathology.” Therefore, when Isaac Markovich told me that the organizers managed to name the Institute after Landau, I replied: “Dau predicted many times that you and Alyosha would organize such a center, but what he didn’t think of (even though he could) is that This center will be named after him!

Landau's sixtieth birthday was approaching. Concerned about this, I called AB Migdal, who had a wonderful 50th birthday celebration. “There is no need to arrange anything,” he said, “Dau is now in a bad state.”

On January 22, 1968, Karen Avetovich Ter-Martirosyan, Vladimir Naumovich Gribov, and I met at the Institute of Physical Problems and, after some hesitation, decided to go to Landau's house to congratulate him on his 60th birthday. He was alone with Cora. It seemed to me that he was delighted with our arrival. We sat at the table with him and Cora for a long time, drinking tea with homemade cakes and talking about some common topics. Dow looked calm and sad, occasionally smiling. One of his last family photographs, shown here, conveys his appearance well. A. K. Kikoin, his friend from the time of his work in Kharkov, and brother of I. K. Kikoin, came to congratulate Dau. The famous physician and wonderful person A. A. Vishnevsky, majestic in his general's overcoat, came in, who was of great help in the treatment of Landau. And we all sat and could not leave. They said goodbye only at six o'clock, when Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa came with his wife Anna Alekseevna. This is how Lev Davidovich met his sixtieth birthday.

When Khalatnikov, the director of the Landau Institute, returned from India, he arranged a celebration of Landau's anniversary at the IFP in March. There were a lot of people, Nobel laureates were present, Alexander Galich sang in the conference room (and then in Kapitsa's office). Dow sat with a detached look, smiling faintly at those congratulating him.

In less than a month he was gone.

Literature
1.Feoktistov L.P. A weapon that has exhausted itself. M., 1999.
2. History of the Soviet atomic project (ISAP). M., 1997.
3. Memories of L. D. Landau. M., 1988.
4. News of the Central Committee of the CPSU. 1991. No. 3.
5. Atomic project of the USSR. T. II. S. 529. M.; Sarov, 2000.
6. Ranyuk Yu. N. L. D. Landau and L. M. Pyatigorsky // VIET. 1999. No. 4.
7. Gorelik G. L."My anti-Soviet activity" // Priroda. 1991. No. 11.
8. Sonin A.S. Physical Idealism: The Story of an Ideological Campaign. M., 1994.
9. Historical archive. 1993. No. 3. pp. 151-161.

A good brief overview is the book by A. A. Abrikosov "Academician Landau" (M., 1965), as well as the articles by E. M. Lifshitz in the "Collected Works of L. D. Landau" (M., 1969) and the book "Memoirs of L. D. Landau” (M, 1988).
A classical gas of free charge carriers should not have diamagnetism.
So called electric adding machines.

Place of Birth: Baku

Activities and Interests: quantum mechanics, solid state physics, magnetism, low temperature physics, cosmic ray physics, hydrodynamics, quantum field theory, atomic nucleus and elementary particle physics, plasma physics

Biography
An outstanding Soviet theoretical physicist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics (1962), a student of Niels Bohr, one of the key figures in the Moscow Institute of Physical Problems P.L. Kapitsa. The creator of a major school of theoretical physics: among Landau's numerous students are Soviet physicists who played an important role in the development of science.
Landau's scientific interests, like those of many theoretical physicists, were very extensive. Among the fields that have occupied it at one time or another are solid state physics, magnetism, cosmic ray physics, low temperature physics, hydrodynamics, quantum mechanics, quantum field theory, atomic nucleus physics, elementary particle physics, and plasma physics. Landau's first works were devoted to quantum mechanics. He became one of the founders of the statistical theory of the nucleus. One of Landau's important areas of research was the thermodynamics of second-order phase transitions. Together with V.L. Ginzburg developed a semi-phenomenological theory of superconductivity. Landau - the author of the theory of superfluidity of liquid helium-II, which laid the foundation for the physics of quantum liquids; for this work in 1962 he received the Nobel Prize ("for pioneering work in the theory of condensed matter, especially liquid helium").
Awarded three Orders of Lenin, laureate of the Lenin Prize (1962), three times laureate of the Stalin (State) Prize, member of many foreign academies of sciences and scientific societies.

Education, degrees and titles
1946, Academy of Sciences of the USSR: Academician
1916−1920, Jewish gymnasium, Azerbaijan, Baku: graduate
1920−1922, Baku Economic College, Azerbaijan, Baku
1922−1924, Baku University, Azerbaijan, Baku; Faculties: Physics and Mathematics, Chemistry: Transferred to Leningrad State University
1924−1927, Leningrad State University, St. Petersburg; Faculty: Physics and Mathematics
1926−1929, Leningrad Institute of Physics and Technology: post-graduate student
1929−1931, European scientific mission (Berlin, Göttingen, Leipzig, Copenhagen, Cambridge, Zurich), including the Institute for Theoretical Physics of the University of Copenhagen
1931−1932, Leningrad Institute of Physics and Technology
1932−1937, Ukrainian Institute of Physics and Technology, Kharkiv: Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences (without defending a dissertation)

Work
1927−1929, Leningrad Institute of Physics and Technology
1932−1937, Ukrainian Institute of Physics and Technology, Kharkiv: Head of Theoretical Department
1933−1937, Kharkov Mechanical Engineering Institute (now Kharkov Polytechnic Institute): Head of the Department of Theoretical Physics
1935−1937, Kharkiv State University: Head of the Department of General Physics
1937−1962, Institute of Physical Problems of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Moscow: head of the theoretical department
1943−1947, Moscow State University: Lecturer in the Department of Low Temperature Physics
1947−1950, Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology: Lecturer in the Department of General Physics

House
1916−1924, Azerbaijan, Baku
1924−1929, Leningrad
1929−1930, Denmark, Copenhagen
1932−1937, Kharkov
1937−1941, Moscow
1941−1943, Kazan
1943−1968, Moscow

Facts from life
Born in the family of a petroleum engineer and a gymnasium teacher of natural sciences.
He said about himself: “I learned to integrate at the age of thirteen, but I always knew how to differentiate.”
Many years later, the gymnasium teacher confessed to Landau that, while teaching him mathematics, he was mortally afraid of him.
He made mathematical calculations in his mind, without using either a slide rule, or tables of logarithms, or reference books.
Entered Baku University at the age of 14.
Friends and relatives called him "Dau".
He considered Niels Bohr his only teacher, with whom he trained in 1929-1930.
After the publication of Landau's work on diamagnetism, the English theoretical physicist Rudolf Peierls, one of the pioneers of modern ideas about magnetism, said: "We must face the truth: we all eat crumbs from Landau's table."
In the Kharkiv Ukrainian Institute of Physics and Technology, Landau's office was nailed with a sign “L.D. Landau. Watch out, it bites!"
As a child, he vowed not to smoke, drink or marry, but since 1934 he lived in a civil marriage with Concordia (Kora) Drobantseva, whom he later married. He concluded a “non-aggression marriage pact” with his wife, implying the freedom of the spouses’ personal life on the side.
In 1934, he created the "Landau theoretical minimum" - a system of exams in theoretical physics that had to be passed in order to be considered a student of Landau: two exams in mathematics, mechanics, field theory, quantum mechanics, statistical physics, continuum mechanics, continuum electrodynamics and quantum electrodynamics.
In 1938 he edited an anti-Stalinist leaflet, was arrested by the NKVD and spent a year in prison. He was released thanks to the petition of Niels Bohr and the support of Kapitsa, who took Landau "on bail." After his release and until the end of his life, he worked for Kapitsa at the IFP.
In 1955 he signed the Letter of Three Hundred.
He developed the theory of happiness, which said that a person must be happy. The formula of happiness according to Landau contained three parameters: work, love and communication with people.
According to the memoirs of Kora Drobantseva, Landau's favorite saying is: "I'm not like that, I'm different, I'm all sparkles and minutes."
Boredom was considered the greatest sin in the world.
For his fiftieth birthday, colleagues and students presented Landau with a medal with his profile and one of his favorite phrases: "Ot duraca slychu."
He got into a car accident on January 7, 1962, and physicists from all over the world took part in saving his life.
On December 10, 1962, Landau was awarded the Nobel laureate medal. It was the first ever Nobel Prize to be awarded in a hospital.
After the car accident, Landau actually left scientific activity, gradually returned to normal for six years, but in 1968 he died suddenly from thrombosis after surgery.
According to its warehouse, more than all the figures of Soviet science corresponded to the classical image of the "mad scientist".
After Landau's death, his relatives, colleagues, and students published numerous memoirs in which they unanimously recognized Dau's genius, but heatedly argued with each other about their significance in his life. This predictably clouded the biography of the scientist and partly vulgarized the memory of him. Meanwhile, Landau himself said: “Beware of oddities. Everything good is simple and clear, and where there are oddities, there is always some kind of dregs hidden there.
Landau's last words: "I have always succeeded in everything."
The asteroid 2142, a crater on the Moon, the mineral landauite, as well as the Institute of Theoretical Physics in Chernogolovka, founded in 1964 by Landau's student I.M., are named after Landau. Khalatnikov.

Discoveries
In 1927 he introduced the concept of "density matrix", used in quantum mechanics and statistical physics.
In 1930 he created the quantum theory of electron diamagnetism (Landau diamagnetism).
In 1937, he built a theory of phase transitions of the 2nd kind (transitions in which the state of the body changes continuously, and the symmetry changes abruptly; during phase transitions of the 2nd kind, the density of the body does not change and there is no release or absorption of heat).
In 1935, together with E.M. Lifshitz calculated the domain structure of a ferromagnet and proved that the boundaries between the domains of a ferromagnet are narrow layers in which the direction of magnetization changes continuously and gradually.
In the late 1930s, he built a theory of the intermediate state of superconductors: he derived a formula for calculating the thickness of alternating superconducting and normal layers in the intermediate state of a superconductor placed in an electromagnetic field.
In 1937, he obtained the relationship between the density of levels in the nucleus and the excitation energy and became one of the founders of the statistical theory of the nucleus.
In 1940−1941, based on the laws of quantum mechanics, he created the theory of superfluidity of liquid helium-II, discovered in 1938 by P.L. Kapitsa. From Landau's theory a new section of science grew - the physics of quantum liquids, and Landau received the Nobel Prize in 1962 "for pioneering work in the theory of condensed matter, especially liquid helium."
In 1948 - 1959, together with L.M. Pyatigorsky (vol. 1) and E.M. Lifshitz (vols. 2 - 8) created the classic cycle of textbooks "Course of Theoretical Physics".
In 1946 he created the theory of electron plasma oscillations ("Landau damping" - collisionless damping of waves in plasma).
In 1950, together with V.L. Ginzburg created a semi-phenomenological theory of superconductivity (the Ginzburg-Landau theory).
In 1956, he worked on the now widely used theory of the Fermi liquid - a quantum mechanical liquid consisting of fermions under certain physical conditions.
In 1957, he proposed the principle of combined parity: all physical systems will be equivalent if, when replacing the "right" coordinate system with the "left" one, all particles are replaced by antiparticles.

Lev Davidovich Landau, often referred to as Dow (January 9 (22) ( 19080122 ) , Baku - April 1, Moscow) - Soviet physicist, academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences (elected to). Laureate of the Nobel, Lenin and three Stalin Prizes, Hero of Socialist Labor. Member of the Academies of Sciences of Denmark, the Netherlands, the American Academy of Sciences and Arts (USA), the French Physical Society, the Physical Society of London and the Royal Society of London.

Biography

Academician Landau (close friends and colleagues called him Dau) is considered a legendary figure in the history of Russian and world science. Quantum mechanics, solid state physics, magnetism, low temperature physics, cosmic ray physics, hydrodynamics, quantum field theory, physics of the atomic nucleus and elementary particles, plasma physics - this is not a complete list of areas that attracted Landau's attention at different times. It was said about him that in "the huge building of physics of the 20th century there were no locked doors for him."

Unusually gifted in mathematics, Landau jokingly said about himself: “I learned to integrate at the age of 13, but I always knew how to differentiate.” After graduating from the physical department of the Leningrad University in the city, Landau became a graduate student, and later an employee of the Leningrad Institute of Physics and Technology, in - years he published the first works on theoretical physics. In Landau, he spent a year and a half abroad in scientific centers in Germany, Denmark, England and Switzerland, where he worked with leading theoretical physicists, including Niels Bohr, whom he considered his only teacher since then.

Postage stamp of Azerbaijan issued for the 100th anniversary of Landau

• two math exams
• macroelectrodynamics

Landau demanded from his students knowledge of the foundations of all branches of theoretical physics.

After the war, it was best to use Landau and Lifshitz's theoretical physics course to prepare for exams, however, the first students took exams on Landau's lectures or on handwritten notes. Among these students:

• Alexander Solomonovich Kompaneets (first passed the theoretical minimum in 1933)
• Leonid Moiseevich Pyatigorsky (passed the theoretical minimum fifth, but not listed in the list provided by Landau)
• Laszlo Tissa

That's what Landau said

In addition to science, Landau is known as a joker. His contribution to scientific humor is quite large. Possessing a subtle, sharp mind and excellent eloquence, Landau encouraged humor in every possible way in his colleagues. He coined the term so said Landau, and also became the hero of various humorous stories. Characteristically, jokes are not necessarily related to physics and mathematics.

Landau had her own classification of women. According to Landau, young ladies are divided into beautiful, pretty and interesting.

Landau in culture

Bibliography

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24. On the properties of metals at very low temperatures // ZhETF. 1937. T. 7. S. 379; Phys. Ztshr. sow. 1936. Bd. 10. S. 649. (Jointly with I. Ya. Pomeranchuk.)
25. Scattering of light by light // Nature. 1936. V. 138. R. 206. (Jointly with A. I. Akhiezer and I. Ya. Pomeranchuk.)
26. On the sources of stellar energy // DAN SSSR. 1937. T. 17. S. 301; Nature. 1938. V. 141. R. 333.
27. On the absorption of sound in solids // Phys. Ztshr. sow. 1937. Bd. 11. S. 18. (Jointly with Yu. B. Rumer.)
28. On the theory of phase transitions. I // JETP. 1937. T. 7. S. 19; Phys. Ztshr. sow. 1937. Bd. 7. S. 19.
29. On the theory of phase transitions. II // ZhETF. 1937. T. 7. S. 627; Phys. Ztshr. sow. 1937. Bd. 11. S. 545.
30. On the theory of superconductivity // ZhETF. 1937. T. 7. S. 371; Phys. Ztshr. sow. 1937. Bd. 7. S. 371.
31. On the statistical theory of nuclei // ZhETF. 1937. T. 7. S. 819; Phys. Ztshr. sow. 1937. Bd. 11. S. 556.
32. Scattering of X-rays by crystals near the Curie point // ZhETF. 1937. Vol. 7. S. 1232; Phys. Ztshr. sow. 1937. Bd. 12. S. 123.
33. Scattering of x-rays by crystals with variable structure // ZhETF. 1937. Vol. 7. S. 1227; Phys. Ztshr. sow. 1937. Bd. 12. S. 579.
34. Formation of showers by heavy particles // Nature. 1937. V. 140. P. 682. (Jointly with Yu. B. Rumer.)
35. Stability of neon and carbon with respect to a-decay // Phys. Rev. 1937. V. 52. P. 1251.
36. Cascade theory of electron showers, Proc. Roy. soc. 1938. V. A166. P. 213. (Together with Yu. B. Rumer.)
37. On the de Haas-van Alphen effect, Proc. Roy. soc. 1939. V. A170. P. 363. Appendix to the article by D. Shen-Schenberg.
38. On the polarization of electrons during scattering // DAN SSSR. 1940. T. 26. S. 436; Phys. Rev. 1940. V. 57. P. 548.
39. On the "radius" of elementary particles // ZhETF. 1940. T. 10. S. 718; J Phys. USSR. 1940. V. 2. P. 485.
40. On the scattering of mesotrons by "nuclear forces" // ZhETF. 1940. T. 10. S. 721; J Phys. USSR. 1940. V. 2. P. 483.
41. Angular distribution of particles in showers // ZhETF. 1940. T. 10. S. 1007; J Phys. USSR. 1940. V. 3. P. 237.
42. Theory of superfluidity of helium-II // ZhETF. 1941. T. 11. S. 592
43. On the theory of secondary showers// ZhETF. 1941. T. 11. S. 32; J Phys. USSR. 1941. V. 4. P. 375.
44. On the hydrodynamics of helium-II // ZhETF. 1944. T. 14. S. 112
45. Theory of viscosity of helium-II // JETF. 1949. T. 19. S. 637
46. What is the theory of relativity. // Publishing house "Soviet Russia", Moscow 1975 3rd edition supplemented (Together with Yu. B. Rumer)
47. Physics for everyone // M. Mir. 1979. (Together with A.I. Kitaygorodsky.)

Biographical publications

• Abrikosov, A. A. Academician L. D. Landau: a brief biography and review of scientific works. - M.: Nauka, 1965. - 46 p.: portr.
• Abrikosov, A. A., Khalatnikov, I. M. Academician L. D. Landau // Physics at school. - 1962. - N 1. - P. 21-27.
• Academician Lev Davidovich Landau: Collection. - M: Knowledge, 1978. - (New in life, science, technology. Ser. Physics; N 3).
• Academician Lev Davidovich Landau [on his fiftieth birthday] // Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Physics. - 1958. - T.34. - P.3-6.
• Academician Lev Landau - Nobel Laureate [brief chronological review] // Science and Life. - 1963.- N 2. - S.18-19.
• Akhiezer, A. I. Lev Davidovich Landau // Ukrainian Journal of Physics. - 1969. - T.14, N 7. - S.1057-1059.
• Bessarab, M. Ya. Landau: Pages of life. - 2nd ed. - M.: Mosk.worker, 1978. - 232 p.: ill.
• Bessarab, M. Ya. Landau's Formula of Happiness (Portraits). - M.: Terra-book. club, 1999. - 303 s - Bibliography: S.298-302.
• Bessarab, M. Ya. So spoke Landau. - M.: Fizmatlit. 2004. - 128 p.
• Boyarintsev, V.I. Jewish and Russian scientists. Myths and reality. - M.: Fairy-V, 2001. - 172 p.
• Vasiltsova, Z. Pedagogy of creativity [about L. D. Landau] // Young communist. - 1971. - N 5. - S.88-91.
• Memories of L. D. Landau / Ed. ed. I. M. Khalatnikov. - M.: Nauka, 1988. - 352 p.: ill.
• Around Landau (electronic collections) / IIET RAN, 2008
• Ginzburg, V. L. Lev Landau - Teacher and scientist // Moskovsky Komsomolets. - 1968. - January 18.
• Ginzburg, V. L. Lev Davidovich Landau // Uspekhi fizicheskikh nauk. - 1968. - T.94, N 1. - S.181-184.
• Golovanov, Ya. Life among formulas. Academician L. D. Landau is 60 // Komsomolskaya Pravda. - 1968. - January 23.
• Gorelik G.E. S(o)vetskaya life of Lev Landau. Moscow: Vagrius, 2008, 463 p., 61 illustrations.
• Gorobets, B. S. Krug Landau // Network almanac "Jewish antiquity", 2006-2007.
• Grashchenkov, N.I. How the life of Academician L.D. Landau was saved // Priroda. - 1963. - N 3. - S.106-108.
• Grashchenkov, N.I. The miraculous victory of Soviet doctors [about the struggle for the life of the physicist L.D. Landau] // Ogonyok. - 1962. - N 30. - P. 30.
• A long time ago... [L. D. Landau - one of the founders of the Institute of Theoretical Physics in Moscow) // Ogonyok. - 1996. - N 50. - S.22-26.
• Danin, D. It was just that ... // Cinema Art. - 1973.- N 8. - S.85-87.
• Danin, D. Partnership [about the struggle to save the life of L. D. Landau] / / Literary newspaper. - 1962. - July 21.
• Zel'dovich, Ya. B. Encyclopedia of Theoretical Physics [to be awarded the Lenin Prize in 1962 to L. D. Landau and E. M. Lifshits] // Priroda. - 1962. - N 7. - S.58-60.
• Kaganov, M.I. Landau - as I knew him // Priroda. - 1971. - N 7. - S.83-87.
• Kaganov, M.I. Landau school: what do I think about it. - Troitsk: Trovant, 1998. - 359 p.
• Kassirsky, I. A. The triumph of heroic therapy // Health. - 1963. - N 1. - S.3-4.
• Kravchenko, V. L. L. D. Landau - Nobel Prize Laureate // Science and Technology. - 1963. - N 2. - S.16-18.
• Landau-Drobantseva, K. Academician Landau: How we lived. - M.: Zakharov, 2000. - 493 from http://www.lib.ru/MEMUARY/LANDAU/landau.txt
• Lev Davidovich Landau [on his fiftieth birthday] // Uspekhi fizicheskikh nauk. - 1958. - T.64, issue 3. - S.615-623.
• Lenin Prize in 1962 in the field of physical sciences [for awarding the prize to L. D. Landau and E. M. Lifshits] // Physics at school. - 1962. - N 3. - S.7-8.
• Livanova, Anna. Landau. - M.: Knowledge, 1983.
• Lifshits, E. M. Landau's Live Speech // Science and Life. - 1971. - N 9. - S.14-22.
• Lifshits, E. M. History and explanations of superfluidity of liquid helium [on the 60th anniversary of Academician L. D. Landau] // Priroda. - 1968. - N 1. - S.73-81.
• Lifshits, E. M. Lev Davidovich Landau //Uspekhi fizicheskikh nauk. - 1969. - T.97, N 4. - S.169-186.
• Masters of eloquence: [on the art of oratory by L. D. Landau]. - M.: Knowledge, 1991.
• Scientific work of L. D. Landau: Collection. - M.: Knowledge, 1963.
• Rolov, Bruno. Academician Landau // Science and technology. - 1968. - N 6. - S.16-20.
• Rumer, Yu. Pages of memoirs about L. D. Landau // Science and Life. - 1974. - N 6. - S.99-101.
• Tamm, I. E., Abrikosov, A. A., Khalatnikov, I. M. L. D. Landau - Nobel Prize Laureate in 1962 // Bulletin of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. - 1962. - N 12. - S.63-67.
• Tsypenyuk, Y. Discovery of "Dry Water" [on the study of the properties of helium by P. L. Kapitsa and L. D. Landau] // Science and Life. - 1967. - N 3. - S.40-45.
• Yu. I. Krivonosov, Landau and Sakharov in the developments of the KGB, Komsomolskaya Pravda. August 8, 1992.
• Shalnikov A.I. Our Dau [for the award of the Nobel Prize to the Soviet physicist L.D. Landau] // Culture and life. - . - No. 1. - S. 20-23.
• Shubnikov, L. V. Selected Works. Memories. - Kyiv: Naukova Dumka, 1990.

Notes

see also

Publications on the Internet

Landau, Lev Davidovich on the site "Heroes of the country"

• Landau, Lev Davidovich on Chronos
• The lion who was always right - an article in the MIPT newspaper "For Science" on the 100th anniversary of the birth of L. Landau.
• How the "Course of Theoretical Physics" was born, Gennady Gorelik
• Article "Landau Lev", Electronic Jewish Encyclopedia
• Magazine "Samizdat" page

Name: Lev Landau

Age: 60 years

Place of Birth: Baku, Azerbaijan

Place of death: Moscow

Activity: physicist

Family status: was married

Lev Landau - biography

On his 50th birthday, his colleagues presented Professor Lev Landau with “tablets” made of marble, on which 10 of his most important formulas (“commandments”) were engraved. But the physicist had such not only in science, but also in life.

Childhood, the Landau family

The extraordinary mind of a genius often coexists with a complex, eccentric character. Lev Landau was no exception. He began to show his temper at an early age. One day his mother put him a cold thermometer. The boy began to whimper, and under pressure from the guests, she took the thermometer from him. He continued to sob. “But the thermometer is no longer worth it!” - “And I want him not to stand before!”

Education

At the gymnasium, Lev shone in mathematics, physics and chemistry, already at the age of 12 he was calculating integrals and differentials. But in literature and literature he was known as mediocrity. His essay on "Eugene Onegin" was distinguished by brevity: "Tatyana Larina was a very boring person ..."

Studying at Leningrad University in the 1920s was reminiscent of freemen: free access to lectures, choice of seminars, exams in agreement with the teacher. According to Landau, he went there two days a week to see friends and find out the news. It was there that I first heard about quantum physics. At that time, this was a new direction in physics, and Lev had to master the most complex conclusions of foreign colleagues from scientific journals. Since then, he has preferred fresh press: "Thick folios do not carry anything new, they are a cemetery in which the thoughts of the past are buried."

At Leningrad State University, for the first time, the nickname Dau stuck to him, which was awarded to him by fellow student Dmitry Ivanenko (Demus). Leo liked it. He himself jokingly explained that L "ane is French for "donkey", which means that the surname Landau is "donkey Dau." Even after becoming a teacher, he told students: "My name is Dau, I hate it when they call me Lev Davidovich."

The shy young man experienced great discomfort from his timidity. And I decided to overcome my shortcoming. Walking along Nevsky Prospekt or the embankment, he approached people and asked strange questions: “Why do you wear a beard?” or “Why do you have a hat in the summer ?!” The pause was painful, but the student steadfastly endured the puzzled looks, and sometimes the anger of passers-by. Then he came up with another "task" - to walk along the Nevsky with a balloon tied to a hat.

Lev Landau - biography of personal life

In Kharkov, where the young physicist came to work after a foreign internship, he met Concordia Drobantseva. He himself called her Kora or affectionately - Korusha. Later, she recalled his words: “You see, Korusha, you were afraid that I would rape you, but it turned out that I myself was not capable of anything. Now I have to confess to you: you are the first girl I kissed for real on the lips. How I was afraid that you would see a green youth in me and drive me away. A shame! Kissing a girl for the first time at 26...

She was a beauty, and he ... Once they were seen together by some hard worker - a stately puffy Cora and a stooped shaggy Dau. "What a woman is wasted!" - the proletarian could not restrain himself ... However, the genius himself was critical of himself: "I do not have a physique, but body subtraction." The ladies liked him though.

“The foundation of our marriage will be personal freedom,” he said to the chosen one. For marriage is a "shop of petty trade." At the insistence of Leo, instead of an official marriage, they entered into a “non-aggression pact in married life,” which allowed both novels on the side. Among its provisions were the following: “Marriage is a cooperative that has nothing to do with love” and “Lovers are forbidden to be jealous and lie to each other.” If Kora still showed jealousy and discontent, Leo fined her. The fine was withdrawn from those 60% of the earnings that he gave her. And the remaining 40% he sent to his personal "Foundation for helping henpecked men who want to fornicate." That is, spent on mistresses.

Cora protested, but to no avail. “Crust,” Lev told her. - You understand, I love you alone, but I will definitely have mistresses! Please don't bother me..." Cora tried to tolerate his eccentricities. But up to a certain limit. One day, Leo told her that a girl would come to him in the evening and, in order not to embarrass her, Kora should hide in the closet. Cora did not scandalize, but when a stranger appeared in the apartment, she left the closet and upset the date.

Over time, Concordia began to talk like a husband. “Can you imagine what a disgrace! she complained to her sister. - The girl made an appointment with Daunka, but she herself did not come. He stood for two hours in the cold, almost caught pneumonia! And yet, on the eve of the birth of their son, in 1946, Landau officially married Kora.

The science

As much as Landau disliked women, he loved science even more. He could pore over the task for days on end, forgetting about sleep and food. Sometimes even the ringing of the phone did not reach his consciousness. I made most of the calculations in my head, writing down the intermediate results on pieces of paper. One day, his physicist friend Lifshitz boasted of a new leather briefcase and offered to get the same one.

No, Zhenya, I don’t go to the bathhouse, - Dau answered.

Why to the bath? This is a briefcase for papers... Lectures. Magazines.

I have no papers... Everyone is here! Leo tapped his forehead.

Already being a world luminary, Landau almost stopped reading scientific journals. Everything interesting was brought to him by his students, and if the information turned out to be worthy, he would certainly check it with his own calculations. In moments of rest, he could sit at card solitaire: “This is not for you to do physics. This is where you need to think."

Meanwhile, Landau was helpless in everyday life. Once Cora instructed him to buy meat coupons. The professor stood in line and then heard that they had brought mutton. Whether the mutton was meat, he did not know and asked the neighbors. They waved it off: “What kind of meat is this?! Yes, the name is the same. Frustrated, Leo went home. The cards had to be thrown away.

The sense of humor of the genius was also peculiar. He classified women and colleagues from the first, upper class to the fifth, lower, and seriously spoke about this to those around him. In the scientific community, it was not immediately, but they got used to his statements and began to add a saying: “So said Dau.”

Landau's theory of happiness

In addition to scientific theories, Landau was the author of another one - the theory of happiness. The physicist was sure that every person must be happy. He once admitted to his niece that he wanted to commit suicide as a teenager, but Stendhal's novel Red and Black saved him. From him, Leo took out the main thing: “A person can build his own destiny. A person must strive for happiness and be happy!” “People stubbornly refuse to understand that happiness is within us.

Everyone likes to complicate everything, but I, on the contrary, always strive for simplicity, - the academician explained. - Do not confuse the concepts of "difficult" and "difficult". We must learn to think, moreover, to rule over our thoughts. Then there will be no empty fears and anxieties. And he considered boredom to be the worst sin: “The Last Judgment will come. The Lord God will call and ask: "Why didn't you enjoy all the blessings of life? Why did you get bored?"

Landau's death

The triumph of the scientist was cut short by a tragic accident. On the morning of January 7, 1962, Dau was driving with a driver from Moscow to Dubna. The Dmitrov highway was icy, and the academician's Volga was swept into the oncoming lane. Landau suffered a severe head injury, which doctors classified as "incompatible with life." He was saved for six long years by the entire scientific world. Colleagues who traveled abroad tried to bring imported medicines for Dau. He went on the mend, but he could no longer engage in science, although sometimes he even attended scientific councils and seminars. In March 1968, Lev Davidovich underwent an operation on the intestines, and a few days later he died due to a detached blood clot.