Pyotr Kapitsa
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Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitza
Russian physicist (1894–1984)
Pyotr (or Peter) Kapitza was born in Kronstadt, Russia, and educated (1918–21) at the Polytechnic Institute and the Physical and Technical Institute in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg). He lectured at the Polytechnic Institute from 1919 to 1921. From 1921 to 1924 he was involved in magnetic research at the Cavendish Laboratory of Cambridge University under Ernest Rutherford and gained his PhD there in 1923. He was made director of the Royal Society Mond Laboratory at Cambridge in 1930. In 1934 he paid a visit to his homeland but was detained by the Soviet authorities. The next year Kapitza was made director of a newly founded research institute in Moscow – the Institute for Physical Problems – and was able to continue the line of his Cambridge research through the purchase of his original equipment. He worked there until 1946 when, apparently, he fell into disfavor with Stalin for declining to work on nuclear weapons. He was held under house arrest until 1955, when he was able to resume his work at the Institute. Kapitza had shown similar courage earlier in 1938 when he had intervened on behalf of his colleague Lev Landau who had been arrested as a supposed German spy. Without Landau, Kapitza insisted, he would be unable to complete work considered to be important by the authorities. Soon after, Landau was released.
Kapitza's most significant work in low-temperature physics was on the viscosity of the form of liquid helium known as He–II. This he (and, independently, J. F. Allen and A. D. Misener) found to exist in a ‘superfluid’ state – escaping from tightly sealed vessels and exhibiting unusual flow behavior. Kapitza found that He–II is in a macroscopic quantum state with perfect atomic order. In a series of experiments, he found also that a novel form of internal convection occurs in this form of helium.
Besides work on the unusual properties of helium, Kapitza also devised a liquefaction technique for the gas, which is the basis of present-day helium liquefiers, and was able to produce large quantities of liquid hydrogen, helium, and oxygen. The availability of liquid helium has led to the production of electric superconductors and enabled much other work at extremely low temperatures to proceed. Kapitza also created very high magnetic fields for his experiments, and his record of 500 kilogauss in 1924 was not surpassed until 1956. Kapitza's low-temperature work was honored after almost forty years by the award of the 1978 Nobel Prize for physics.
From 1955, Kapitza headed the Soviet Committee for Interplanetary Flight and played an important part in the preparations for the first Soviet satellite launchings. In his career, Kapitza collected many awards from scientific institutions of both East and West, including the Order of Lenin on six occasions. In 1965 he was finally allowed to travel outside the Soviet Union. He first visited Copenhagen and in 1966 he spent some time in Cambridge, England, with his colleagues of the 1930s, John Cockroft and Paul Dirac.
Kapitza, Peter (kä'pētsə), 1894-1984, Russian physicist, educated at the polytechnic institute of Petrograd (now St. Petersburg) and at Cambridge. He developed equipment (for a laboratory at Cambridge) capable of producing very powerful magnetic fields for his experiments in low-temperature physics. In 1934, Kapitza returned to the USSR, and the equipment he designed was bought by the Soviet government. Kapitza was made director of the Institute for Physical Problems of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. In 1938 he discovered the superfluidity of liquid helium. He resigned as head of the Institute for Physical Problems in 1946, but returned as director in 1955 and also became editor of the Journal of Theoretical and Experimental Physics. He was an outspoken advocate of open scientific thought in the USSR. Kapitza shared the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physics with Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson.
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Pyotr Kapitsa
| Pyotr Kapitsa | |
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| Born | Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa 8 July 1894 Kronstadt, Russian Empire |
| Died | 8 April 1984 (aged 89) Moscow, Soviet Union |
| Nationality | Russian, Soviet |
| Fields | Physics |
| Known for | Superfluidity |
| Notable awards | Franklin Medal (1944) Nobel Prize in Physics (1978) |
Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa (Russian Пётр Леони́дович Капи́ца) (8 July [O.S. 26 June] 1894[1] – 8 April 1984) was a leading Soviet physicist and Nobel Prize in Physics laureate.
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Biography
Kapitsa was born in Kronstadt, Russian Empire to Leonid Petrovich Kapitsa, a military engineer who constructed fortifications, and Olga Ieronimovna Kapitsa. Kapitsa' studies were interrupted by the First World War, in which he served as an ambulance driver for two years on the Polish front.[2] He graduated from the Petrograd Polytechnical Institute in 1918. He subsequently studied in Britain, working for over ten years with Ernest Rutherford in the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society[3] in 1929 and was the first director (1930–34) of the Mond Laboratory in Cambridge. In the 1920s he originated techniques for creating ultrastrong magnetic fields by injecting high current for brief periods into specially constructed air-core electromagnets. In 1928 he discovered the linear dependence of resistivity on magnetic field for various metals in very strong magnetic fields.
In the 1930s he started doing low temperature research, beginning with a critical analysis of the existing methods for obtaining low temperatures. In 1934 he developed new and original apparatus (based on the adiabatic principle) for making significant quantities of liquid helium.
Kapitsa formed the Institute for Physical Problems, in part using equipment which the Soviet government bought from the Mond Laboratory in Cambridge (with the assistance of Rutherford, once it was clear that Kapitsa would not be permitted to return).
In Russia, Kapitsa began a series of experiments to study liquid helium, leading to the discovery in 1937 of its superfluidity (not to be confused with superconductivity). He reported the properties of this new state of matter in a series of papers, for which he was later awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics "for basic inventions and discoveries in the area of low-temperature physics". In 1939 he developed a new method for liquefaction of air with a low-pressure cycle using a special high-efficiency expansion turbine. Consequently, during World War II he was assigned to head the Department of Oxygen Industry attached to the USSR Council of Ministers, where he developed his low-pressure expansion techniques for industrial purposes. He invented high power microwave generators (1950–1955) and discovered a new kind of continuous high pressure plasma discharge with electron temperatures over 1,000,000K.
In November 1945, Kapitsa quarreled with Lavrentiy Beria, head of the NKVD writing to Joseph Stalin about Beria's ignorance of physics and his arrogance. Amazingly, Stalin backed Kapitsa, telling Beria he had to get on with the scientists. Kapitsa refused to meet Beria: "If you want to speak to me, then come to the Institute." Kapitsa refused to work with Beria even when he gave him a hunting rifle. Stalin offered to meet Kapitsa, this never happened.[4]
Immediately after the war, a group of prominent Soviet scientists (including Kapitsa in particular) lobbied the government to create a new technical university, the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. Kapitsa taught there for many years. From 1957, he was also a member of the presidium of the Soviet Academy of Sciences and at his death in 1984 was the only presidium member who was not also a member of the Communist Party.[5]
In 1978, Kapitsa won the Nobel Prize in Physics for the work in low temperature physics that he did about 1937. He shared this prize with Arno Allan Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson (who won for work unrelated to Kapitsa's).
Kapitsa resistance is the thermal resistance (which causes a temperature discontinuity) at the interface between liquid helium and a solid.
Family
Kapitsa was married in 1927 to Anna Alekseevna Krylova, daughter of applied mathematician A.N. Krylov. They had two sons, Sergey and Andrey.
- Sergei Kapitsa, physicist and demographer, host of the popular and long-running Russian scientific TV show, Evident, but Incredible[6]
- Andrey Kapitsa, geographer, credited with the discovery and naming of Lake Vostok, the largest subglacial lake in Antarctica, which lies 4,000 meters below the continent's icecap.[7]
Named in honor
A minor planet 3437 Kapitsa, discovered by Soviet astronomer Lyudmila Georgievna Karachkina in 1982, is named after him.[8]
See also
References
- ^ Britannica online
- ^ James, Ioan (2004). Remarkable Physicists from Galileo to Yukawa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 321. ISBN-0521-81687-4, ISBN 0-521-00170-6.
- ^ Shoenberg, D. (1985). "Piotr Leonidovich Kapitza. 9 July 1894-8 April 1984". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 31: 326–326. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1985.0012. JSTOR 769929.
- ^ Simon Sebag Montefiore, Young Stalin, pp 446-7
- ^ Graham, Loren R. 1994. Science in Russia and the Soviet Union: A Short History. Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-28789-8. p. 212
- ^ "Kalinga Prize Laureates". United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. http://www.unesco.org/new/en/natural-sciences/science-technology/sti-policy/global-focus/science-popularization/science-popularization/kalinga-winners/. Retrieved 17 March 2011.
- ^ "Andrey Kapitsa dies in Moscow". Russian Geographical Society. 2011-08-03. http://int.rgo.ru/news/andrey-kapitsa-dies-in-moscow/. Retrieved 2011-08-04.
- ^ Dictionary of Minor Planet Names - p.287
External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Pyotr Kapitsa |
- Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa: Official Nobel page — Good, fast coverage of highlights of his many innovations.
- Annotated bibliography for Peter Kapitza from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
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