Google Doodle honours Soviet-era physicist Lev Landau on his 111th birth anniversary

Tech giant Google on Tuesday Soviet-era physicist Lev Davidovich Landau on his 111th birth anniversary.

Landau is known for his contribution to modern science in the form of Landau energy spectrum, Landau Levels, Landau diamagnetism and more. Born on January 22, 1908, the researcher who was a son of an engineer and a physician from Azerbaijan was brilliant at math and science since he was a young boy.

Landau began college by the age of 14, way before his peers. In 1922, he enrolled at the Baku State University, studying in two departments simultaneously: the Departments of Physics and Mathematics, and the Department of Chemistry. At the age of 21, Landau finished his PhD and earned the coveted Rockefeller Scholarship which gave him the opportunity to visit research facilities in Zurich and Cambridge. During his visit, he met renowned scientist Niels Bohr who is known for his work in quantum theory and was even awarded the Nobel prize.

In 1932, Landau headed the department of Theoretical Physics at the National Scientific Centre Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology and continued till 1937. Landau was awarded a Nobel Laureate in 1962, for his groundbreaking research on liquid Helium’s behaviour at extremely low temperatures. The second most prominent research undertaken by Landau is his ‘Course of Theoretical Physics’ for which he was awarded the Lenin Science Prize — Soviet Russia’s most prestigious award in 1946.

Landeu died on April 1, 1968, at the age of 60 due to injuries sustained in a car accident. Russia honoured him by naming a crater on the moon after him. There is also an institute named after him called as the Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics in Moscow.