Search engine Google celebrated Lev Landau's 111th birth anniversary with its special doodle on the Soviet physicist.
Born in Azerbaijan's Baku on 22 January 1908, Landau made fundamental contributions to many areas of theoretical physics and won the Nobel prize in physics in 1962 for his research into liquid helium’s behaviour at extremely low temperatures.
He was born to an engineer and a physician and completed his graduation from the Physics Department of Leningrad University well before his peers. Brilliant at math and science, he completed his studies at 13 and was described by his classmates as a “quiet, shy boy,”, struggling relating to his peers.
After enrolling into the university, his first publication on the Theory of the Spectra of Diatomic Molecules was already in print when he was just 18 years old.
His work covered all branches of theoretical physics, from fluid mechanics to quantum field theory. A large portion of his papers refers to the theory of the condensed state.
He completed his PhD at 21, earned a Rockefeller Foundation Fellow, which allowed him to work abroad, in Germany, Switzerland, England and, Copenhagen where he worked under Niels Bohr.
His name has been linked to many of his first-described concepts including: Landau Levels, which are the focus of Google's Doodle, Landau diamagnetism, Landau damping, and the Landau energy spectrum.
Landau was elected to the U.S.S.R.’s Academy of Sciences in 1946, and also received the Lenin Science Prize for his monumental Course of Theoretical Physics.
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