RE: The Physical Jew
June 4, 2017 at 5:28 pm
(This post was last modified: June 4, 2017 at 5:30 pm by Alex K.)
The prize for best weirdly sloped hair in theoretical physics goes to smartest physicist in all of Soviet Union
![[Image: Landau.jpg]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/Landau.jpg)
Lev Landau
His last name probably came from my own home town, the southern palatinate city of Landau - which had a rich and long Jewish tradition until the great synagogue was burnt down and everyone was killed or chased away by you can guess who you can guess when. Lev Landau is known to every student of physics from the seminal series of text books which to me are still a gold standard for their unique mix of physics intuition, conceptual clarity and calculational detail. Landau has worked on many important things, but he got his Nobel for the theory of superfluidity.
The famed Higgs mechanism which is the cornerstone of particle physics (I have mentioned it several times in this very thread), is basically the Landau-Ginzburg theory of phase transitions applied to the universe as a whole instead of a piece of matter.
Ginzburg, of course, was also an eminent Jewish physicist
![[Image: 1024px-Ginzburg_in_MSU.jpg]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/39/Ginzburg_in_MSU.jpg/1024px-Ginzburg_in_MSU.jpg)
Lev Landau
His last name probably came from my own home town, the southern palatinate city of Landau - which had a rich and long Jewish tradition until the great synagogue was burnt down and everyone was killed or chased away by you can guess who you can guess when. Lev Landau is known to every student of physics from the seminal series of text books which to me are still a gold standard for their unique mix of physics intuition, conceptual clarity and calculational detail. Landau has worked on many important things, but he got his Nobel for the theory of superfluidity.
The famed Higgs mechanism which is the cornerstone of particle physics (I have mentioned it several times in this very thread), is basically the Landau-Ginzburg theory of phase transitions applied to the universe as a whole instead of a piece of matter.
Ginzburg, of course, was also an eminent Jewish physicist
The fool hath said in his heart, There is a God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.
Psalm 14, KJV revised edition
