The Course of Theoretical Physics is a ten-volume series of books covering theoretical physics that was initiated by Lev Landau and written in collaboration with his student Evgeny Lifshitz starting in the late 1930s.
It is said that Landau composed much of the series in his head while in an NKVD prison in 1938–1939.[1] However, almost all of the actual writing of the early volumes was done by Lifshitz, giving rise to the witticism, "not a word of Landau and not a thought of Lifshitz".[2] The first eight volumes were finished in the 1950s, written in Russian and translated into English in the late 1950s by John Stewart Bell, together with John Bradbury Sykes, M. J. Kearsley, and W. H. Reid. The last two volumes were written in the early 1980s. Vladimir Berestetskii[ru] and Lev Pitaevskii also contributed to the series. The series is often referred to as "Landau and Lifshitz", "Landafshitz" (Russian: "Ландафшиц"),[3][4] or "Lanlifshitz" (Russian: "Ланлифшиц") in informal settings.
Impact
The presentation of material is advanced and typically considered suitable for graduate-level study.[5][6] Despite this specialized character, it is estimated that a million volumes of the Course were sold by 2005.[7]
The series has been called "renowned" in Science and "celebrated" in American Scientist.[8][9] A note in Mathematical Reviews states, "The usefulness and the success of this course have been proved by the great number of successive editions in Russian, English, French, German and other languages."[9] At a centenary celebration of Landau's career, it was observed that the Course had shown "unprecedented longevity."[10]
In 1962, Landau and Lifshitz were awarded the Lenin Prize for their work on the Course. This was the first occasion on which the Lenin Prize had been awarded for the teaching of physics.[7]
English editions
Course of Theoretical Physics
The following list does not include reprints and revised editions.
The original edition comprised two books, labelled part 1 and part 2. The first covered general aspects of relativistic quantum mechanics and relativistic quantum field theory, leading onto quantum electrodynamics. The second continued with quantum electrodynamics and what was then known about the strong and weak interactions. These books were published in the early 1970s, at a time when the strong and weak forces were still not well understood. In the second edition, the corresponding sections were scrapped and replaced with more topics in the well-established quantum electrodynamics, and the two parts were unified into one, thus providing a one-volume exposition on relativistic quantum field theory with the electromagnetic interaction as the prototype of a quantum field theory.
Volume 6 covers fluid mechanics in a condensed but varied exposition, from ideal to viscous fluids, includes a chapter on relativistic fluid mechanics, and another on superfluids.
Volume 8 covers electromagnetism in materials, and includes a variety of topics in condensed matter physics, a chapter on magnetohydrodynamics, and another on nonlinear optics.
Mechanics is the area of mathematics and physics concerned with the relationships between force, matter, and motion among physical objects. Forces applied to objects result in displacements or changes of an object's position relative to its environment.
Lev Davidovich Landau was a Soviet physicist who made fundamental contributions to many areas of theoretical physics. He was also involved in the design of the Soviet atomic bomb.
In chemistry, a group is a column of elements in the periodic table of the chemical elements. There are 18 numbered groups in the periodic table; the 14 f-block columns, between groups 2 and 3, are not numbered. The elements in a group have similar physical or chemical characteristics of the outermost electron shells of their atoms, because most chemical properties are dominated by the orbital location of the outermost electron.
Boris Yakovlevich Podolsky was a Russian-American physicist of Jewish descent, noted for his work with Albert Einstein and Nathan Rosen on entangled wave functions and the EPR paradox.
Evgeny Mikhailovich Lifshitz was a leading Soviet physicist and brother of the physicist Ilya Lifshitz.
In theoretical physics and applied mathematics, a field equation is a partial differential equation which determines the dynamics of a physical field, specifically the time evolution and spatial distribution of the field. The solutions to the equation are mathematical functions which correspond directly to the field, as functions of time and space. Since the field equation is a partial differential equation, there are families of solutions which represent a variety of physical possibilities. Usually, there is not just a single equation, but a set of coupled equations which must be solved simultaneously. Field equations are not ordinary differential equations since a field depends on space and time, which requires at least two variables.
Isaak Markovich Khalatnikov was a leading Soviet theoretical physicist who made significant contributions to many areas of theoretical physics, including general relativity, quantum field theory, as well as the theory of quantum liquids. He is well known for his role in developing the Landau-Khalatnikov theory of superfluidity and the so-called BKL conjecture in the general theory of relativity.
In quantum mechanics, Landau quantization refers to the quantization of the cyclotron orbits of charged particles in a uniform magnetic field. As a result, the charged particles can only occupy orbits with discrete energy values, called Landau levels. These levels are degenerate, with the number of electrons per level directly proportional to the strength of the applied magnetic field. It is named after the Soviet physicist Lev Landau.
In quantum mechanics, the spinor spherical harmonics are special functions defined over the sphere. The spinor spherical harmonics are the natural spinor analog of the vector spherical harmonics. While the standard spherical harmonics are a basis for the angular momentum operator, the spinor spherical harmonics are a basis for the total angular momentum operator. These functions are used in analytical solutions to Dirac equation in a radial potential. The spinor spherical harmonics are sometimes called Pauli central field spinors, in honor to Wolfgang Pauli who employed them in the solution of the hydrogen atom with spin–orbit interaction.
The Stewart–Tolman effect is a phenomenon in electrodynamics caused by the finite mass of electrons in conducting metal, or, more generally, the finite mass of charge carriers in an electrical conductor.
In physics, relativistic quantum mechanics (RQM) is any Poincaré covariant formulation of quantum mechanics (QM). This theory is applicable to massive particles propagating at all velocities up to those comparable to the speed of light c, and can accommodate massless particles. The theory has application in high energy physics, particle physics and accelerator physics, as well as atomic physics, chemistry and condensed matter physics. Non-relativistic quantum mechanics refers to the mathematical formulation of quantum mechanics applied in the context of Galilean relativity, more specifically quantizing the equations of classical mechanics by replacing dynamical variables by operators. Relativistic quantum mechanics (RQM) is quantum mechanics applied with special relativity. Although the earlier formulations, like the Schrödinger picture and Heisenberg picture were originally formulated in a non-relativistic background, a few of them also work with special relativity.
Aleksandr Ilyich Akhiezer was a Soviet and Ukrainian theoretical physicist, known for contributions to numerous branches of theoretical physics, including quantum electrodynamics, nuclear physics, solid state physics, quantum field theory, and the theory of plasma. He was the brother of the mathematician Naum Akhiezer.
Lev Petrovich Pitaevskii was a Russian theoretical physicist, who made contributions to the theory of quantum mechanics, electrodynamics, low-temperature physics, plasma physics, and condensed matter physics. Together with his PhD supervisor Evgeny Lifshitz and with Vladimir Berestetskii, he was also the co-author of a few volumes of the influential Landau–Lifschitz Course of Theoretical Physics series. His academic status was professor.
The Landau Gold Medal is the highest award in theoretical physics awarded by the Russian Academy of Sciences and its predecessor the Soviet Academy of Sciences. It was established in 1971 and is named after Soviet physicist and Nobel Laureate Lev Landau. When awarded by the Soviet Academy of Sciences the award was the "Landau Prize"; the name was changed to the "Landau Gold Medal" in 1992.
The electromagnetism uniqueness theorem states the uniqueness of a solution to Maxwell's equations, if the boundary conditions provided satisfy the following requirements:
At , the initial values of all fields everywhere is specified;
For all times, the component of either the electric field E or the magnetic field H tangential to the boundary surface is specified.
Classical Electrodynamics is a textbook written by theoretical particle and nuclear physicist John David Jackson. The book originated as lecture notes that Jackson prepared for teaching graduate-level electromagnetism first at McGill University and then at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Intended for graduate students, and often known as Jackson for short, it has been a standard reference on its subject since its first publication in 1962.
Landau–Placzek ratio is a ratio of the integrated intensity of Rayleigh scattering to the combined integrated intensity of Brillouin scattering of a triplet frequency spectrum of light scattered by homogenous liquids or gases. The triplet consists of two frequency shifted Brillouin scattering and a central unshifted Rayleigh scattering line split. The triplet structure was explained by Lev Landau and George Placzek in 1934 in a short publication, summarizing major results of their analysis. Landau and Placzek noted in their short paper that a more detailed discussion will be published later although that paper does not seem to have been published. However, a detailed discussion is provided in Lev Landau and Evgeny Lifshitz's book.
Igor Ekhielevich Dzyaloshinskii, was a Russian theoretical physicist, known for his research on "magnetism, multiferroics, one-dimensional conductors, liquid crystals, van der Waals forces, and applications of methods of quantum field theory". In particular he is known for the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction.
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