Leo Landau

Landau - Bright Personality and Well-known Scientist

How many books and articles are written about bright personality of this unusual man! People tell that he was kind, loving, had a good sense of humour, loved theater and new much about all spheres of our life. These features seem to belong to a person, living in the world of culture, not of science. Books and even films usually describe people, living in the world of science, as not very interesting, closed, timid, and not talkative. How different Lev Landau was from such descriptions.

He was always surrounded by people, willing to listen to him, to express their ideas. But at the same time, Lev Davidovich worked all alone only. It was the whole tradition, because he needed to lie down on a sofa being absorbed in work, covering the papers with writing, understandable for him only.

His brain worked strikingly, he could remember great amount of information. That was his special feature - he had never learn´t anything, he had never prepared either lectures for his students or reports for political leaders of the country.

Scientific legacy of Landau is so various that you can hardly believe that it was done by one man in only 40 years.

He developed the Theory of Diamagnetism of Free Electrons - Landau´s Diamagnetism, his school of physicists made fundamental investigations in the field of solid-state physics, nuclear physics, quantum electrodynamics, kinetic theory of gases, theory of air-blast, theory of vibrations of electron plasma, and many others.

It is difficult to name everything he worked out as he himself said that he was interested in everything, in every branch of physics, because "we have too little time on our Planet and to much to do!"

Landau was the founder of the classic course of theoretical physics. "Mechanics", "Field Theory", "Quantum Mechanics", "Statistic Physics" , and other sections - "The Course of Theoretical Physics" translated in many languages of the world is being used and loved even by present students.

His friends and colleagues said that he had never boasted of his achievements, but never depreciated himself. Only a whole-hearted person is able to appreciate life and surrounding people at their true value - Lev Davidovich Landau was such a kind of Personality!!!