Landau’s Attitude Toward Physics and Physicists

MAY 01, 1989

Lev Davidovich Landau was a unique physicist and teacher of physicists.

Vitaly L. Ginzburg

On 22 January 1988 in Moscow, we celebrated Lev Davidovich Landau’s 80th birthday in the same hall at the Institute of Physical Problems where Landau held his seminars and where I used to see him. Perhaps that is why the thought haunted me at that memorable meeting that Landau might have been among us that day, sitting there in the front row as he used to, and I expressed it in my opening remarks. But, alas, more than 27 years have already passed since Landau conducted his last seminar: On 7 January 1962, Landau met with a car accident and was disabled for the rest of his life. He died on 1 April 1968.

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References

1. E. M. Lifshitz, “Lev Davidovich Landau (1908–1968),” in L. D. Landau, Collected Papers, vol. 2, Nauka, Moscow (1969).
2. L. D. Landau, Collected Papers (two volumes), Nauka, Moscow (1969).
L. D. Landau, Collected Papers, Pergamon, London (1965).
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4. V. L. Ginzburg, Usp. Fiz. Nauk 94, 181 (1968) https://doi.org/UFNAAG
[V. L. Ginzburg, Sov. Phys. Usp. 11, 135 (1968)].https://doi.org/SOPUAP
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reprinted in L. D. Landau, Collected Papers [2], vol. 2, p. 126; [Eng. ed., p. 546].
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7. L. D. Landau, Phys. Zh. Soviet Union 4, 43 (1933).
8. V. L. Ginzburg, A. A. Gorbatsevich, Yu. V. Kopaev, B. A. Volkov, Solid State Commun. 50, 339 (1984).https://doi.org/SSCOA4
9. V. L. Ginzburg, Izv. Akad. Nauk SSSR, Ser. Fiz. 8, 76 (1944). https://doi.org/IANFAY
The content of this paper is presented also in V. L. Ginzburg, The Theory of Radio Wave Propagation in Ionosphere, Gostchkhizdat, Moscow (1949), section 6.
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L. D. Landau, J. Phys. USSR 5, 71 (1941).https://doi.org/JOPYA6
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R. P. Feynman, Statistical Mechanics, Benjamin, Reading, Mass. (1972).
12. V. L. Ginzburg, Prog. Low Temp. Phys. 12, in press.
13. L. D. Landau, Zh. Eksp. Teor. Fiz. 30, 1058 (1956).https://doi.org/ZETFA7
14. D. Pines, Elementary Excitations in Solids, Benjamin, New York (1963)
[Russian ed.: D. Pines, Elementarnye vozbyzhdeniya v tverdykh telakh, Mir, Moscow (1965)].
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For the complete text of that talk, see Proc. Lebedev Physics Institute, Nova Science, New York (1988).
[Trudy Fian 176, 3 (1986).]
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L. D. Landau, J. Phys. USSR 10, 25 (1946).https://doi.org/JOPYA6
19. L. D. Landau, in Theoretical Physics in the Twentieth Century, M. Fierz, V. F. Weisskopf, eds., Interscience, New York (1960), p. 245.
(See also L. D. Landau, Collected Papers, vol. 2, Nauka, Moscow (1956), p. 421;
L. D. Landau, Collected Papers, Pergamon, London (1965), p. 800.

More about the authors

Vitaly L. Ginzburg, P. N. Lebedev Physical Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Moscow.