The name of Lev Davidovich Landau is widely known as that of one of the greatest twentieth-century physicists. A brilliant teacher to those pupils he carefully chose, notoriously controversial in his outlook and opinions, the combination of his outstanding intellect and striking personality brought him almost legendary fame. This volume contains letters, papers and recollections by friends and pupils, describing Landau's views of science, culture and life, and provides the reader with a vivid portrait of a remarkable man.

Evgenii Mikhailovich Lifshitz is perhaps best known for his long association with his mentor Lev D Landau, with whom he co-wrote the classic Course of Theoretical Physics, but he was a noted and respected Soviet physicist in his own right. Born in the Ukraine to a scientific family, his long and distinguished career will be remembered for three things - his collaboration with Landau on the internationally acclaimed Course of Theoretical Physics, his work as editor of the Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Physics, and his scientific papers. As well as his work with Landau, E\M\Lifshitz collaborated with many noted Soviet scientists such as I\M\Khalatnikov, I\E\Dyzaloshinskii, V\V\Sudakov, V\A\Belinskii and the editor of this book, L\P\Pitaevskii. Many of the papers presented in this book include their contribution. Collected together they give a comprehensive and penetrating insight into the man and his work, clearly showing Lifshitz's contribution to physics and the influences on his work.

Progress in Low Temperature Physics

Devoted to the foundation of mechanics, namely classical Newtonian mechanics, the subject is based mainly on Galileo's principle of relativity and Hamilton's principle of least action. The exposition is simple and leads to the most complete direct means of solving problems in mechanics.The final sections on adiabatic invariants have been revised and augmented. In addition a short biography of L D Landau has been inserted.

Fluid Mechanics, Second Edition deals with fluid mechanics, that is, the theory of the motion of liquids and gases. Topics covered range from ideal fluids and viscous fluids to turbulence, boundary layers, thermal conduction, and diffusion. Surface phenomena, sound, and shock waves are also discussed, along with gas flow, combustion, superfluids, and relativistic fluid dynamics. This book is comprised of 16 chapters and begins with an overview of the fundamental equations of fluid dynamics, including Euler's equation and Bernoulli's equation. The reader is then introduced to the equations of motion of a viscous fluid; energy dissipation in an incompressible fluid; damping of gravity waves; and the mechanism whereby turbulence occurs. The following chapters explore the laminar boundary layer; thermal conduction in fluids; dynamics of diffusion of a mixture of fluids; and the phenomena that occur near the surface separating two continuous media. The energy and momentum of sound waves; the direction of variation of quantities in a shock wave; one- and two-dimensional gas flow; and the intersection of surfaces of discontinuity are also also considered. This monograph will be of interest to theoretical physicists.

This invaluable collection of memoirs and reviews on scientific activities of the most prominent theoretical physicists belonging to the Landau School OCo Landau, Anselm, Gribov, Zeldovich, Kirzhnits, Migdal, Ter-Martirosyan and Larkin OCo are being published in English for the first time.The main goal is to acquaint readers with the life and work of outstanding Soviet physicists who, to a large extent, shaped theoretical physics in the 1950sOCo70s. Many intriguing details have remained unknown beyond the OC Iron CurtainOCO which was dismantled only with the fall of the USSR.

Self-Consistent Fields in Atoms: Hartree and Thomas-Fermi atoms centers on atomic properties- energy levels, binding energies, how atoms scatter X-rays, what magnetic properties they have, and so on. This book is organized into two parts. Part I contains topics including central field wave functions and angular momentum operators; concept of self-consistent field; Thomas-Fermi atom; energies of atoms and ions; X-ray scattering and electron densities in atoms; and relativistic effects in heavy atoms. Part II discusses the wave mechanics of an atom with a non-Coulomb central field; the calculation of atomic fields; a statistical method for the determination of some atomic properties and the application of this method to the theory of the periodic system of elements; and a simplification of the Hartree-Fock method.