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L
Landau, Lev Davidovich
(1908-1968)
physicist
Landau was a prominent Soviet theoretical
physicist who received the 1962 Nobel Prize in
physics, primarily for his work in the field of
cryogenics, or low-temperature physics. Born
and raised in a Jewish family in Baku, Azerbai-
jan, Landau attended universities in Baku and
Leningrad, graduating from Leningrad State Uni-
versity in 1927. After pursuing postgraduate
studies in Denmark, Switzerland, and the United
Kingdom, he moved to Kharkov, in Soviet
Ukraine, in 1932 to work for the Physico-techni-
cal Institute. In 1937 he was appointed to teach
theoretical physics at the S.I. Vavilov Institute of
Physical Problems in Moscow. The following year
he was arrested and held until 1939. Following
his release he worked with the noted physicist
Petr
KAPITSA
and was admitted to the USSR
ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
. Landau worked in several
fields and published over 100 papers and numer-
ous books, including a nine-volume
Course of The-
oretical Physics,
cowritten with Y. M. Lifshitz and
published in 1943. Among his contributions to
Soviet physics are works in atomic and nuclear
physics, stellar energy, as well as contributions to
the development of Soviet space technology. His
work on the behavior of liquid helium, develop-
ing mathematical theories that explain the super-
fluidity of liquid helium at temperatures near
absolute zero, as well as the possibility of predict-
ing the sound wave diffusion of liquid helium at
two speeds account for his lasting reputation. For
this he was cited for the Nobel Prize.
In January 1962, he was injured seriously in
an automobile accident, suffering seemingly
irreversible brain damage and loss of memory.
He was treated by the celebrated Soviet psychol-
ogist Alexander
LURIA
, who during World War II
had developed novel treatments to restore the
psychological functions of patients with severe
head injuries. With Luria's guidance, Landau
made a significant recovery.
Lavrov, Petr Lavrovich
(1823-1900)
revolutionary theorist
Lavrov was a respected intellectual with interests
in mathematics, ethics, and history who made
important contributions to the development of
POPULISM
as a revolutionary ideology. An army
officer of gentry origin, Lavrov espoused reform-
ist sentiments that brought him into contact with
St. Petersburg radical circles in 1855. He con-
tributed to liberal journals on sociology, philoso-
phy, and anthropology and edited the
Encyclopedic
Dictionary
(1864-66). He was arrested for revolu-
tionary activities in 1866 and banished to Vologda
province, in the north. While in Vologda he wrote
his most important contribution to Russian radi-
cal social thought,
Historical Letters
(1868-69).
Lavrov emigrated from Russia in 1870, becoming
an important member of the revolutionary émi-
gré community. He joined the First International
and edited the journal
Vpered!
(
Forward!
) from
1873 to 1876, in which he continued to advocate
a relatively moderate political line. Widely
respected for his gentility and humanity, Lavrov
often vacillated in his ideas. For example, at the
time of the
PEOPLE
'
S WILL
's assassination of
ALEXANDER II
, he was temporarily swayed by the
ideas of revolutionary terrorism. A similar vacil-
lation characterized his philosophical views. He
began as an advocate of “subjectivist sociology,”
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