Work of Lev Landau had a profound impact on the physics in 20th century. Landau had created the paradigms that had framed the conversations on the outstanding problems in physics for decades. He has laid the foundations for our understanding of quantum matter such as superfluidity, superconductivity and the theory of Fermi Liquid. Here we present sampled Nobel Archive data on the winning nomination that led to the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1962.
Deep Dive into Landaus Nobel Prize in Physics.
Work of Lev Landau had a profound impact on the physics in 20th century. Landau had created the paradigms that had framed the conversations on the outstanding problems in physics for decades. He has laid the foundations for our understanding of quantum matter such as superfluidity, superconductivity and the theory of Fermi Liquid. Here we present sampled Nobel Archive data on the winning nomination that led to the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1962.
Lev Landau [1] was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1962 "for his pioneering theories for condensed matter, especially liquid helium" [2]. On January 7 1962, during Russian Christmas season, Lev Landau had been injured in a car accident outside Moscow. Landau lived another six years; however, he could not again work at same level or activity as a physicist. The car accident was not mentioned in the nominations nor in Nobel Committee deliberations and it is not clear how it affected the nominations and the Nobel Committee considerations. Although it is known that he could not get to Stockholm in December 1962 as a result of illness. As a result, the prize ceremony was held in the Swedish Embassy in Moscow without a Nobel Lecture.
One can speculate that perhaps this lecture would have laid out the vision and perspective of a laureate and would be an important part of the scientific legacy. The undelivered lecture is one of many twists and turns in the life of Lev Landau With the passing of the fiftieth Noble Prize we have had access to the Nobel Archive and to the nomination records for Landau’s Nobel Prize. Here we present a summary of these records. The nomination letters are solicited from the community and used as a means to access the strength of various nominations. These letters have laid the basis for the winning nominations for 1962 award and were written by W. Heisenberg (Max-Planck-institute for Physics and Astrophysics) and by J.Pellam (Caltech). In addition, a letter was sent by N. Bohr, cosigned by A. Bohr, B. Mottelson, C. Møller and L. Rosenfeld. This particular letter did not reach the Nobel Committee in time for the dead line of January 31, 1962, and did not count as a nomination for the 1962 Nobel Prize. However, it is clear from the record of the deliberations of the Nobel Committee that the nomination by N. Bohr was very influential. Heisenberg nominated Landau for the prize earlier, in 1959 and in 1960 as well. Overall Landau was nominated for the Nobel prize in physics from 1954 to 1963 21 times, of which 9 times together with Pyotr Kapitsa (Nobel Prize in Physics 1978) [3]. Since Kapitsa was not nominated in 1962, he could not be considered for a shared prize with Landau in 1962. We present here copies of the 1962 nomination letters for the record. Heisenberg did mention contributions of Landau to development of quantum theory, theory of diamagnetism and superfluidity of He II. In his nomination he points to the significant contributions of Landau, but also describes the possible difficulty in singling out one discovery of Landau that could motivate a Nobel Prize in Physics (according to the will of Alfred Nobel, the physics prize should be awarded for a “discovery” or “invention”). Heisenberg notes that also at earlier occasions the rules have allowed Nobel Prize awards for overall impact and achievements and mentions Debye (Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1936, Bothe and Born (divided Nobel Prize in Physics in 1954). Heisenberg did not see any issues in justifying a Nobel Prize in Physics to Landau considering his many important contributions to physics.
J. Pellam’s nomination was focused on the work of Landau in theory of quantum fluids. The two major aspects of Landau work were mentioned: theory of quantum mechanics of “quantum hydrodynamics” of the Bose liquid and theory of fermi liquid. The letter points the pioneering work of Landau on the superfluidity of HeII starting with the first paper by Landau “The superfluidity of He II”, Journal of Physics USSR, v 1, p 71 (1941) [4] that was followed by the subsequent papers (single authored and with I. Khalatnikov) in 1949. The subsequent discovery of roton spectrum and role of roton and phonon scattering in the second sound attenuation have provided an explicit experimental validation of the superfluid theory. In the second part of the letter J. Pellam highlights the foundational work on Fermi liquid theory. Starting with the first paper on “The Theory of a Fermi Liquid” L. Landau, JETP USSR, v 30, p 1058 (1956) [5] and later covering the subsequent work, the author emphasizes the predictions of the zero sound as a new mode of fermi liquids that was earlier unobserved. Pellam summarized the sustained impact of Landau’s work on the field of quantum liquids over the span of two decades and pointing experimentalists the way in this field.
A letter was also sent by N. Bohr and A. Bohr, B. Mottelson, C. Møller and L. Rosenfeld. It also demonstrates the wide ranging influence of the work of Landau over the years. Bohr and coauthors made an emphasis not on the particular contribution of Landau to physics but on the rare analytical ability to create the framework that allowed one focus on the most important aspects of physics at the time. They compared Landau to Lord Rayleigh and Lorentz. Unfortunately the letter, while sent in January 30 1962 from Copenhagen did not arrive in time to the Nobel Committee in Stockholm to be taken as a val
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