Read more
The book is an expanded autobiography of the famous theoretical physicist Isaak Khalatnikov. He worked together with L.D. Landau at the Institute for Physical Problems lead by P.L. Kapitza. He is the co-author of L.D. Landau in a number of important works. They worked together in the frame of the so-called Nuclear Bomb Project. After the death of L.D. Landau, I.M. Khalatnikov initiated the establishment of the Institute for Theoretical Physics, named in honour of L.D. Landau, within the USSR Academy of Sciences. He headed this institute from the beginning as its Director. The institute inherited almost all traditions of the Landau scientific school and played a prominent role in the development of theoretical physics. So, this is a story about how the institute was created, how it worked, and about the life of the physicists in the "golden age" of the Soviet science. A separate chapter is devoted to today´s life of the institute and the young generation of physicists working now in science.
It is an historically interesting book on the development of Soviet and Russian science and presents the background of the Soviet nuclear bomb program in the cold war age. In war times, Khalatnikov was a chief of the military staff of nuclear research. He writes about the internal conditions of Soviet society, the way of operating of the Soviet authorities and ways for scientists to interact with them. It gives many interesting insights into the development of superconductivity and superfluidity. The book is written by the most experienced and best informed person among the few living Russian scientists in the environment of Landau. Many stories of the book were never published before and considered as "top secret".
List of contents
THE BEGINNING.- THE WAR.- A SPECIAL PROBLEM IN THE INSTITUTE OF PHYSICAL PROBLEMS.- MY TEACHER.- THE INSTITUTE.- WINDOW TO THE WORLD.- TODAY.
Report
From the reviews:
"The publication of a memoir by leading Russian physicist Isaak Khalatnikov, known as 'Khalat' to his friends, is an event to be welcomed by anyone interested in 20th-century physics. ... I thoroughly enjoyed From the Atomic Bomb to the Landau Institute. ... it will be of great interest to all those who have come into contact, either personally or through the literature, with the remarkable scientific achievements of Landau and the members of his school." (Pierre Hohenberg, Physics Today, November, 2013)
