Lev Landau

Landau, one of my idols, died 42years ago. He is among the most important physicists in the last century. Here finds a brief tribute to him from Ginzburg.

Landau's occasional abruptness has brought about misconceptions that have become a part (and a rather distorted part) of a legend. I, for instance, have heard people saying, "Landau thinks he is more clever than anyone else." This is completely erroneous, however, and there are many chances for one to see how soberly and modestly Landau assesses his place in science. Many years ago, his love for systematization and clarity led him to classify physicists, by way of a joke, according to the scale of a slide rule. This means that a physicist of second-class standing has achieved ten times less than a physicist of the first class. According to this scale, Albert Einstein, even better than first class, belongs to the 0.5 class, while Niels Bohr, Erwin Schrödinger, Werner Heisenberg, Paul Dirac, Enrico Fermi, and some others belong to the first class. As for himself, Landau used to say that he was in the 2.5 class, and only ten years ago, satisfied with his work, he said he had reached the second class.

Landau's very critical attitude and his opinion that many ideas (or, to be more precise, hints at ideas) are "pathological" spring in a substantial measure from his sober nature and clarity of thinking. His criticism and his denial of certain proposals are always based on scientific grounds and thoroughly deliberated arguments. It is quite a different thing that Landau does not always like to explain his remarks: Often he answers, "Think for yourself." The fact that he is not always ready to answer and explain, however, has nothing in common with conceit or snobbery. A profoundly democratic individual, he is alien to pomposity and respect for rank. Any student could discuss scientific problems with him without difficulty, with the single stipulation that held good for all: The student had to achieve the necessary level of understanding and analyze the problem instead of expecting Landau to think for him and do the things that the student could do himself.