L. P. GOR'KOV

The 'young people'

Dau was a very lean person. He would rush into the room where we were, fold himself into an armchair, twist his legs up, rub his hands with a characteristic angular gesture, elbows wide apart, and begin an animated discussion. We (I. E. Dzyaloshinskii, L. P. Pitaevskii, and myself, who were at that time the youngest members of the theoretical department at the Institute of Physical Problems) greatly enjoyed these times. The topic of discussion could vary widely. In particular, it might be a continuation of a previous discussion on a scientific subject, from the point where we had left off. The conversation might then begin at a loud and excited level. Disputes were allowed. If some serious point was made which Dau had to think about, he would be silent for a while. This, alas, did not always happen; usually Dau was right, of course. There might follow an express-ive and educative address: we were growing idle, or we were philosophiz-ing too much, and brooding instead of working, which meant using pen and paper! Thinking is very difficult,' Dau would say, 'and thinking all the time is impossible. You must work!' He would remark in passing that the Marxist classics had long since shown that only labour can make a man, and he would quote with relish some example, perhaps of a scientist who was elected an Academician, after which it seemed to Dau that the man simply stopped working. 'So you see,' Dau rammed his message home, 'he's on his way back to the trees!' After some further similar comments, Dau would look for new themes. But sometimes he would jump with irritation. This was not pleasant; we were naturally a little afraid of Dau. I realize now that he made some allowances for our youth; I more than once saw him stamp his foot in despair, raising his arms to heaven, and generally expressing his grief, with a considerable variety of epithets, if he thought that the work put before him was, in his word, rubbish! (Still, all three of us were fairly prideful and tried unsuccessfully not to be a nuisance to him.)

More often, Dau's entry into our room was quiet. He seated himself, as already mentioned, in an armchair, and we began to chat on any subject, for example, some particular piece of work. The result depended, as they say. Dau often said that 90% of the papers in the Physical Review are in the class of 'silent pathology', and accordingly rated their authors as

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144 LANDAU: THE PHYSICIST AND THE MAN

'pathologists'. This was a perfectly peaceful and business-like term, imply-ing simply that the author did not appropriate others' results, and had none of his own, but also did not deal in pseudo-science, but excavated in his field quietly and uselessly. A 'pathologist' might even do some good work. (The opposite might also occur, a competent person doing 'patho-logical work about nothing'.) There was also 'gibberish'. I do not now recall the whole classification system. But Dau loved to discuss and explain the essentials of any talented and successful work to anyone who cared to listen. This was especially true of subjects that he himself had thought about at some time (and there were not many subjects that he was unfam-iliar with). What annoyed him were pseudo-scientific publications whose emptiness concealed itself behind pointless mathematics and ponderous language. And he absolutely detested aggressive pretentions to scientific achievement, self-advertisement ('exhibitionism!' he would cry), and of course scientific deception, refusal to see that the result or the proposition was in conflict with accepted facts. In such cases, Dau talked on, some-times ending with a plea to us 'not to disgrace his grey hairs'. Then he would disappear again.

Dau was a sociable person, and so, after such a disappearance, he seems to have been left with the feeling that he had not finished things off that day. We could therefore be confident that he would return to our room. This he did, usually in a very good humour, and now he began some tale, or asked how the 'young people' were getting on. It is hard to describe really how the discussion proceeded. Our own affairs might be discussed and the relations between persons, which brought up maxims such as 'every woman likes to learn' (where Dau was, as always, right), the characteristics of various physicists were discussed and it was explained that talent should be compared on a logarithmic scale, like the brightness of stars, since one or two results do not make a person (Dau placed himself, I do not recall exactly where, but somewhere very distant). From here, we would return to some particular problem in physics. This would be thoroughly dealt with, and Dau would again begin to expound some piece of worldly wisdom. In his opinion, for most of the people we knew, half (if not all) their problems arose from the fact that they were accustomed to thinking in their scientific work (though not always, even there) but rarely did so in everyday life. I am not certain that Dau himself was invariably consistent in doing so, but I recall that the very idea startled me at the time.

One of Dau's favourite hobby-horses was arguing that 'one should not be greedy' and 'greed brings no profit'. This concept of greed covered a wide range, from everyday greed, so to speak, to attempting to corner some aspect of science, and inflate one's influence unjustifiably. Admittedly, according to Dau, the result was usually that 'God labels the scoundrels' for others' benefit (and again, of course, illustrative examples were adduced,

With E. M. Lifshitz on holiday at Borzhomi in the Caucasus, 1960.

*0L

In the mountains with Z. I. Gorobets (see page 151).

In 1960.

With Bohr and their wives outside the Landaus' home, 1961.

With Bohr, 1961.

With Bohr in the Institute garden, 1961.

LANDAU: THE PHYSICIST AND THE MAN 145

including the story of how the barber accidentally cut off one scoundrel's ear).

Altogether, it was a mix of brilliant paradoxes, personal comments, assertions, specific remarks, stories, anecdotes, and so on. For us, the most important thing was that it was not a monologue: there were three of us, all very different, and we were not afraid to question or comment, with the deference due to Dau. Our room was visited also by E. M. Lifshitz, I. M. Khalatnikov, and A. A. Abrikosov. Usually, Dau good-humouredly allowed everyone to pester him, though he was always on his guard. When he had had enough, he got up and left, remarking, 'I'm going mad and I'm going home!'

To be honest, I have never fully understood his attitude and the reasons for what I might call his interest in us. It was not conscious behaviour. Although Dau had a certain amount of affectation, there was always a great deal of sincerity in him. At the same time, his different experience of life, his many contacts, and also his superiority as a scientist, put him not only above us but seemingly far from us. We were by no means his personal friends. There could be no question of personal friendship: we belonged to totally different generations. Nevertheless, there was interest (and not only in us three, of course), and I believe it was probably an expression of Dau's love of life. He was too, a great classifier and collector of characters. Talking to people, noting their weaknesses, complexities, and strengths, and in particular enjoying the discrepancies between their words and their actions, and then 'classifying' them: all this was for him as vital a need as science was. He was fond of reading history books, and knew a multitude of detailed facts. For him, the factual side always came first, and here, it seems to me, the same trait was evident: he wanted to think of historical figures as human characters. Ivan the Terrible was for him undoubtedly a living personage and created a burning curiosity, though not of course love.

I knew Lev Davidovich Landau for about ten years, but in these notes I have given only my recollections from the middle 1950s. That was for me a joyous time. No doubt someone will offer more details that reveal the aspect of Landau the great scientist and of Landau the far from simple personality; someone will describe the colourful celebrations of his fiftieth birthday. But, if I can count myself a member of the school of Landau, that is largely due to my unique association with Dau, when I was young.