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Renowned physicist who discovers happiness formula

22 February 2022 17:49 (UTC+04:00)
Renowned physicist who discovers happiness formula

By Laman Ismayilova

Lev Landau was an Azerbaijan-born mathematician who made fundamental discoveries in theoretical physics.

He is one of the most famous students of Baku University in the world of science, one of the most authoritative physicists of the entire 20th century.

The Nobel Prize winner was born in Baku on January 22, 1908, in a family of an engineer and a doctor.

Landau graduated in 1920 at age 13 from the gymnasium.

He then entered Baku State University, where he studied in two departments at the same time: Physics and Mathematics, as well as Chemistry.

In 1929, the People's Commissariat of Education sponsored Lev Landau's internship in Europe, where he attended workshops led by the greatest physicists of the time. During this time, he also met Albert Einstein, Peter Kapitsa, and worked with Niels Bohr in Copenhagen.

He was appointed as head of the theoretical department at the Institute for Physical Problems of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in Moscow in 1937. He was a theoretical physics professor who taught at Kharkiv University and Moscow State University at the same time.

Scientific achievements

Landau's research spans the entire spectrum of theoretical physics, including fluid mechanics and quantum field theory.

His achievements include the independent discovery of the density matrix method, the quantum mechanical theory of diamagnetism, the theory of superfluidity, the theory of second-order phase transitions, the Ginzburg–Landau theory of superconductivity, and the theory of Fermi liquids.

Among his scientific accomplishments are the explanations of Landau damping in plasma physics, the Landau pole in quantum electrodynamics, the two-component theory of neutrinos, the explanation of flame instability (the Darrieus-Landau instability), and Landau's equations for S matrix singularities.

Landau was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1962 for developing a mathematical theory of superfluidity that accounts for the properties of liquid helium II at temperatures less than 2.17 K (270.98 °C). Landau is a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (London), the Danish Royal Academy of Sciences, and the Royal Academy of Sciences of the Netherlands.

In the scientific community, Landau is remembered not only as an outstanding physicist, but also the author of some famous quotes.

He discovered a very simple formula of happiness: science, love, and interpersonal communication.

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