Pyotr Kapitsa
Encyclopedia
Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa (Russian
Пётр Леони́дович Капи́ца) ( – 8 April 1984) was a prominent Soviet/Russian
physicist
and Nobel laureate.
in the Cavendish Laboratory
in Cambridge
. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society 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 field
s by injecting high current for brief periods into specially constructed air-core electromagnet
s. 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.
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
.
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.
Kapitsa was married in 1927 to Anna Alekseevna Krylova, daughter of applied mathematician A.N. Krylov
. They had two sons, Sergei and Andrei
.
A minor planet
3437 Kapitsa
, discovered by Soviet
astronomer Lyudmila Georgievna Karachkina
in 1982, is named after him.
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
Пётр Леони́дович Капи́ца) ( – 8 April 1984) was a prominent Soviet/Russian
Russians
The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....
physicist
Physicist
A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...
and Nobel laureate.
Biography
Kapitsa was born in the city of Kronstadt and graduated from the Petrograd Polytechnical Institute in 1918. He worked for over ten years with Ernest RutherfordErnest Rutherford
Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson OM, FRS was a New Zealand-born British chemist and physicist who became known as the father of nuclear physics...
in the Cavendish Laboratory
Cavendish Laboratory
The Cavendish Laboratory is the Department of Physics at the University of Cambridge, and is part of the university's School of Physical Sciences. It was opened in 1874 as a teaching laboratory....
in Cambridge
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society 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 field
Magnetic field
A magnetic field is a mathematical description of the magnetic influence of electric currents and magnetic materials. The magnetic field at any given point is specified by both a direction and a magnitude ; as such it is a vector field.Technically, a magnetic field is a pseudo vector;...
s by injecting high current for brief periods into specially constructed air-core electromagnet
Electromagnet
An electromagnet is a type of magnet in which the magnetic field is produced by the flow of electric current. The magnetic field disappears when the current is turned off...
s. 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
Liquid helium
Helium exists in liquid form only at extremely low temperatures. The boiling point and critical point depend on the isotope of the helium; see the table below for values. The density of liquid helium-4 at its boiling point and 1 atmosphere is approximately 0.125 g/mL Helium-4 was first liquefied...
.
Kapitsa formed the Institute for Physical Problems
Institute for Physical Problems
P.L. Kapitza Institute for Physical Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The Institute was founded in 1934. The founder of the Institute, Prof. Kapitsa served as its head for many years. The head of the theoretical division of the Institute was Prof. Landau. The primary direction of...
, 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
Liquid helium
Helium exists in liquid form only at extremely low temperatures. The boiling point and critical point depend on the isotope of the helium; see the table below for values. The density of liquid helium-4 at its boiling point and 1 atmosphere is approximately 0.125 g/mL Helium-4 was first liquefied...
, leading to the discovery in 1937 of its superfluidity (not to be confused with superconductivity
Superconductivity
Superconductivity is a phenomenon of exactly zero electrical resistance occurring in certain materials below a characteristic temperature. It was discovered by Heike Kamerlingh Onnes on April 8, 1911 in Leiden. Like ferromagnetism and atomic spectral lines, superconductivity is a quantum...
). 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
Lavrentiy Beria
Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria was a Georgian Soviet politician and state security administrator, chief of the Soviet security and secret police apparatus under Joseph Stalin during World War II, and Deputy Premier in the postwar years ....
, head of the NKVD
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
writing to Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
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.
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
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world...
.
Nobel Prize in Physics
The Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded once a year by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895 and awarded since 1901; the others are the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Nobel Prize in Literature, Nobel Peace Prize, and...
for the work in low temperature physics that he did about 1937. He shared this prize with Arno Allan Penzias
Arno Allan Penzias
Arno Allan Penzias is an American physicist and Nobel laureate in physics.-Early life and education:Penzias was born in Munich, Germany. At age six he was among the Jewish children evacuated to Britain as part of the Kindertransport rescue operation...
and Robert Woodrow Wilson
Robert Woodrow Wilson
For the American President, see Woodrow Wilson.Robert Woodrow Wilson is an American astronomer, 1978 Nobel laureate in physics, who with Arno Allan Penzias discovered in 1964 the cosmic microwave background radiation...
(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
Liquid helium
Helium exists in liquid form only at extremely low temperatures. The boiling point and critical point depend on the isotope of the helium; see the table below for values. The density of liquid helium-4 at its boiling point and 1 atmosphere is approximately 0.125 g/mL Helium-4 was first liquefied...
and a solid.
Kapitsa was married in 1927 to Anna Alekseevna Krylova, daughter of applied mathematician A.N. Krylov
Alexei Krylov
Aleksey Nikolaevich Krylov was a Russian naval engineer, applied mathematician and memoirist.-Biography:Alexei Nikolaevich Krylov was born on August 3 O.S., 1863 to the family of an Army Artillery officer in a village Akhmatovo near town Alatyr of the Simbirsk Gubernia in Russia...
. They had two sons, Sergei and Andrei
Andrey Kapitsa
Andrey Petrovich Kapitsa was a Russian geographer. His father was Pyotr Kapitsa, and his maternal grandfather was Aleksey Krylov.Kapitsa was born in Cambridge, United Kingdom, and graduated from Moscow State University in 1953. He is credited with the discovery and naming of Lake Vostok, the...
.
A minor planet
Minor planet
An asteroid group or minor-planet group is a population of minor planets that have a share broadly similar orbits. Members are generally unrelated to each other, unlike in an asteroid family, which often results from the break-up of a single asteroid...
3437 Kapitsa
3437 Kapitsa
3437 Kapitsa is a main-belt asteroid discovered on October 20, 1982 by L. G. Karachkina at Nauchnyj. It is named in honor of the Soviet physicist Pyotr Kapitsa.- External links :*...
, discovered by Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
astronomer Lyudmila Georgievna Karachkina
Lyudmila Georgievna Karachkina
Lyudmila Georgievna Karachkina is a Soviet and Ukrainian astronomer.Working at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory since 1978, she has discovered a number of asteroids, including the Amor asteroid 5324 Lyapunov and the Trojan asteroid 3063 Makhaon. She has received a Ph.D. in astronomy from I. I...
in 1982, is named after him.
External links
- 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