“Landau” by Maja Bessarab

I have recently read the book by Maja Bessarab, entitled “Landau”.

It is a very small book (~120 pages). As guessed, it is about Lev Davidovich Landau — his life, who he was and how he was. It is written by one of his closest friends, Maja Bessarab. Probably the most valuable information that the book contains is not even the biography of Lev Davidovich (which can easily be found even on wikipedia), but the enormous amount of close, sometimes even word-to-word conversations of Landau with various people (Bessarab, Kora Landau, Niels Bohr, Evgeniy Lifshitz, and many-many others).

I do not know if this book is available in English, but it is definitely worth looking it up. It was published by Moscovskiy Rabochiy (Moscow Worker) in 1971 (although I suspect it may have had multiple reprints, possibly by other publishers).

I will quote some of the most memorable (for me) lines from the book. Will do so in Russian, to contain the spirit of Landau’s genius.

Главное, делайте всё с увлечением, это страшно украшает жинь. (из письма автору)

Есть предметы, по которым стыдно получать оценку выше тройки. (Ландау отцу по поводу своей плохой успеваемости по предмету словестность)

Проблемы важнее решения. Решения могут устареть, а проблемы остаются. (Бор из своих лекций)

Я люблю людей, кроме пресыщенных жизнью ничтожеств. (Джон Рид)

Без экспериментаторов, теоретики скисают. (Ландау своим ученикам)

Учёба — любимое занятие женщины. Я не принадлежу к числу мужчин, которые сильный пол ставят выше слабого. Однако, если бы у меня было столько забот, сколько у вас, я бы никогда не стал физиком. (Дау двум молодым аспиранткам)

Главное в жизни — правда, и во имя правды человек должен быть беспощаден к самому себе. Правда и труд. Бойтесь растратить отпущенное вам время на мелкие, недостойные человека дела. (Ландау ученикам)

Когда имеется конечное число экспериментов и бесконечное число теорий, то существует бесконечное же количество теорий, удовлетворящих конечному числу экспериментов. (Ландау цитирует Бора своим ученикам)

- Но согласитесь, в науке ведь есть необъяснимые явления.
- Нет! Любое явление науки можно объяснить. А жульничество — нельзя. В этом и состоит разница между ними.
(Из интервью)

Главное в жизни — дерзать!

Без вдохновления нет воли, без воли нет борьбы, а без борьбы — ничтожество и произвол. (Николай Пирогов)

Верховным судьёй всякой физической теории является опыт. (Ландау, Румер, “Что такое теория относительности”)

Science Rendezvous Part 1: Invitation

As one of the organisers, I invite all, who lives in Toronto, the Greater Toronto Area or near, or just happens to be at Toronto for a moment, to the first annual Toronto’s science and technology festival: the Science Rendezvous!

This is an all-day, free event! Everyone will find something to raise and feed their interest!

Time: 10 of May. All day, from early morning or so to sunset or so.

Location: Toronto Downtown, University of Toronto St. George campus, St. George street, near Willcocks and College (map).

Specifically, I invite you to our physics part of the Science Rendezvous, which is located in the department of Physics, 80 St. George Street (map).

We will have lots of very cool demonstrations, which I shall not reveal here yet. It is going to be very-very exciting! You’ll have a chance to see real laboratories and what we do there (well, not really “we” — theorists are usually repelled by the labs…)

Further information: official website, UofT Bulletin article, Globe and Mail article.

Please, come by. You’re all very welcome!

Found online

I post here a couple of extracts from the world of (1) astronomy and astrophysics, (2) biology and archaeology, (3) technology, (4) politics and the world that I have found on the internet.

Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. Discovery of the Candidacy for the Furthest Galaxy: The Hubble telescope has come across a galaxy, presumably 13 billion light-years away, making it a strong candidate for the furthest and hence youngest galaxy ever observed. It has been given the name (or the code, rather) A1689-zD1. The galaxy would have formed only 700 million years after the Big Bang; if this is the case, then this galaxy must be one of the first few that helped end the dark ages of the Universe. The discovery was made by means of the natural magnification, provided by the galaxy cluster Abell 1689. [full article here]. Update: 13 billion light years away is actually so very huge. If you think about it, it amounts to about metres away; that’s 4,000,000,000,000,000,000 metres. And we worry that our work is too far away from our home!
2. Dark-matter powered first stars: When a star emits radiation, it does it through thermonuclear fusion reactions that occur deep inside it and its nucleus. There is a suggestion that the early stars — that existed about 100 to 200 million years after the Big Bang — were predominantly fueled not by fusion, but rather by annihilation. As the Universe was still relatively small at that time, matter and antimatter existed in high proximity (as opposed to, for example, what it is today), this suggestion has a significant base. [full article here].
3. Smaller Version of the Solar System Is Discovered: Scott Gaudi of Ohio State University and his colleagues “said Wednesday that they had found a miniature version of our own solar system 5,000 light-years across the galaxy — the first planetary system that really looks like our own, with outer giant planets and room for smaller inner planets.” The object was named OGLE-2006-BLG-109. “… a planet about two-thirds of the mass of Jupiter and another about 90 percent of the mass of Saturn are orbiting a reddish star at about half the distances that Jupiter and Saturn circle our own Sun. The star is about half the mass of the Sun.” “… warm rocky planets — suitable for life — could exist undetected in the inner parts of the system.” The planets were discovered by means of the microlensing. ” … on March 28, 2006, a star 5,000 light-years away in the constellation Scorpius began to pass in front of one 21,000 light-years more distant, causing it to flash. That was picked up by the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment, or Ogle.” The collected data provided the knowledge of “not just the masses of the interloper star and its two planets, but also rough approximations of their orbits”. [full article here; for those who have access to Science articles, here are their results].
4. Beautiful Nebula (photo): (Traffic Alert!!!) view photo.
5. Crab Nebula (photo): (Traffic Alert!!!) view photo.

Biology and Archaeology

1. Modern Birds Existed Before Dinosaur Die-Off: “Modern birds originated a hundred million years ago—long before the demise of dinosaurs, according to new research.” Until recently, fossil records were interpreted as if modern birds originated about 60 million years ago; however, the genetic analyses (based on the concept of molecular clock) suggest that these originated some 40 million year earlier (that being 100 million years ago). Dinosaurs disappeared some 65 million years ago. [full article here].
2. 20 Facts About the Human Genome: Here. Perhaps you will find something you don’t know (I did).
3. Who Eats Who: What a great shot!
4. Finding an Underwater Lake (video): Excellent extract from “The Deep” programme. (Traffic Alert!!!) Watch video.

Technology

1. Air-Fueled Car: “A French engineer has claimed he will be ready to start selling a car with no carbon emissions within a year.” (Traffic Alert!!!) Watch video.
2. Zero Emission Car: Here is a short explanation of the suggestion of collecting the carbon dioxide, emitted by a car, in order to later reuse it. Good idea, but, as someone mentioned it in the comments, the overall energy produced from this ‘recycling’ is probably not going to be much. But then again, we need to see the actual calculations.
3. These are in tight connection with point 3 of the list of 2008’s saver technologies.
4. Information age: How exactly has information and communication technology evolved over time? A very nice photographic timeline (here).

Politics and the World

1. The (supposed) 1980 Soviet particle beam weapon construction site (photo): If Soviet Union indeed ever had a project of developing the particle beam weapon around 1980, the construction site is believed to be captured in this American satellite image.
2. Chicago to Raise the Environmental Awareness by Turning Lights Off: On March 29 from 20:00 to 21:00, as part of the Earth Hour 2008, Chicago will turn the lights off. I wonder what is the estimated cost of saved energy over this hour — must be a very-very large number. If anyone among the readers is from Chicago, I would like to see a few photographs of the city during the hour — that must be magnificent! [reference]
3. View from Mountain Everest: Have you ever stood on “the top of the world”? Are you planning on doing so any time soon? Well, me neither. But at least we can can a sense of what it is like, by taking a look at this splendid panoramic photograph: (Traffic Alert!!!) here.

A Short Update and Motivation for Further Takeoff

I sincerely appologise for updating the blog thus rarely. The new semester has started from a tough note, and so it ought to take time for me to obtain a laminar flow, for I would really hate to see any turbulent behaviour.

As some of you may know (and those who have checked out my web page, http://individual.utoronto.ca/nikolaev, for more information), I organise the 2008 Canadian Undergraduate Mathematics Conference (CUMC) that will take place at the University of Toronto some time in July. I have recently found out that the 2008 Canadian Undergraduate Physics Conference will also take place at the University of Toronto some time in October. Knowing that I have gained much experience in organising the CUMC, I thought no longer and found people responsible for the organising the physics conference. I now organise both events. With any further questions, please contact me. If you would like to appear as one of the speakers, please let me know that, too!

Again, I regret that I haven’t been updating the blog too often. I will try to manage my time better so that I will leave a few minutes to scribble a note or two. I have had a few things I was ought to share with the blog, but found no time to actually write them; as a result, I now do not remember what they were…

Also, I have quite a few nice photographs of the University of Toronto campus to show. These will also hopefully appear reasonably shortly.

On another note, I mentioned that apparently University of Toronto Physics Department had a store (here and here). Well, I went there and I looked at it. Umm… I couldn’t find it. Perhaps I was either looking at the wrong place or it was closed. I should ask someone, I think. I’ll let you know.

Frogs Population is Under a Question Mark

A deadly disease threatens population of frogs, toads, newts, salamanders and caecilians all over the world. Scientists fear (~) it will be the largest mass extinction since the extinction of the dinosaurs. The threat is particularly harmful, because frogs and other species very frequently occur in various food chains.

7 Technologies that will Save the Earth in 2008

EcoGeek published their list of 7 technologies (here), which they predict will save the Earth in 2008. Even though the definition of “saving Earth” escapes me, I nevertheless found the article interesting.

1. Cellulosic Ethanol: the idea is the same as that with corn fuel, only the cause seems to be much more sensible.
2. LEDs: efficient, brighter, better than the incandescent light bulbs (which will be mostly illegal by 2014 in US and, presumably, Canada — more here).
3. Electrical Cars: hybrids already appear on markets with an exponentially increasing frequency, but I doubt that we will have an opportunity to see lots of purely electrical cars driving around as early as 2008. I think 2010 would be more reasonable a year, really. More here.
4. CDs are gone: DVDs perform painfully much better than CDs, not to mention things like MP3s. However, again, 2008 will be filled with CDs, no doubt; it’s just that their number will be decreased substantially. 2010 should be more reasonable, I think. May be 2009. May be.
5. Ebook Readers: electronic thingybobbles that let you read whatever on a screen.
6. Solar Energy: solar panels will become much cheaper than it is today; perhaps even as cheap as coal energy. This is a good point, because I have just recently started thinking about decorating the roof of my house with a few of them. I shall wait, then!
7. Smaller Cars: we have already made a huge journey from the large, mammoth-like cars of the 1950s and 60s to realise that smaller cars will do it much better, especially in the tangled jungles of many-floor business buildings of today.

Update: here is a list, originally published by BBC, of technologies that will most likely be a hit on markets of 2008.

“Technologies on the rise in 2008″

BBC posted their latest web news article, entitled “Technologies on the rise in 2008″. In it, they make an attempt at predicting what technologies could possibly be big during the next 12 months. Their list is

1. The web to go:
   Technology that is able to take rich web content and make it available offline to you (such as doing much of the work for setting up auctions).
2. Ultra mobile PC:
   A technology able to fill in the niche between a fully fledged laptop and a PDA.
3. IPTV:
   Television, streaming through Internet.
4. Wimax:
   Wireless technology that provides high speed broadband over large distances.
5. Mobile VoIP:
   Telephone calling over the Internet that is cheaper.

A thing that amazes me is that all of them are somehow related to Internet, with three of them directly! Who would have thought 30 years ago? Wow!

Update: here is a list of technologies, originally published by EcoGeek that will “save the Earth in 2008″; that is, environmentally healthy technologies.

Physics World’s Best of Two Thousand and Seven

The well renown magazine Physics World (~) published an article in their online news section a week ago, entitled “The Best of 2007″ [note: in order to be a little different, I spelled out "2007" ;)]

In it (which can be found here), they list the most interesting articles that appeared in the Physics World magazine in 2007. The intro is a very good summary of the year, so I thought I’d copy it here too:

It was the year that the first “commercial” quantum computer was unveiled, and 2007 also saw a flurry of research into the supersolid state of matter. Astronomers improved our understanding of the cosmos by zeroing in on the origins of ultra-high energy cosmic rays and providing the best-ever map of dark matter in the Universe. While the Nobel Prize in Physics – awarded for the discovery of giant magnetoresistance — demonstrated how investing in fundamental research could lead to rapid improvements in technology, the year ended on a sour note with some physicists in the US and UK facing significant cuts in their research funding.

The financial cut is indeed a very sad instance of this past year (more here).

To the list, I would also, however, add the ruling out of PVLAS axion, which, I think, was also quite important.

Building Genomes and Internet Censorship

I have read two very-very short articles, which I found quite interesting. To make a list:

1. Building Genomes, by Michael Brudno, The Arts & Science Review, University of Toronto, 2007, 4:2, page 21.

Brudno talks about the use of computers helps understanding of the human genome, specifically through the comparison between the genome of human beings with that of other species: “Many of the analysis of novel genomes have concentrated on how similar other species are to humans.” As an example, he says that human and mouse genome differ by about 40%; the difference between two humans is 0.1%, on average of course. The surprise came with the studies of the Ciona (which is a sea squirt) genomes, the result of which was an assemblage of “two similar, but different genomes”; the difference being almost 5%.
The conclusion was that “most organisms have two copies of the genome: one ingerited from the father and one from the mother.” So, the human genome from a father and that from a mother differ by 0.1%, which is minuscule enough to have been neglected by the scientists and believed to be a single genome.
Now, the scientists are attempting to build this genome, and in that order, they turn to computers and hence here are a few open questions, posed by Brudno: “how do we assemble two jigsaw puzzles which are only five percent different, but the pieces of which have become intermingled?” “How much variation is possible between two individuals from a single species and what are the biological processes that cause this variation”?

2.Internet Censorship Worldwide by Ron Deibert, The Arts & Science Review, University of Toronto, 2007, 4:2, page 38.

This isn’t actually too much of an article, but more of just a world map with some information, which illustrates national, governmental or other type of control over the world wide web. Deibert breaks the level of control into 4 categories, listed from least to most controlled: inderect, nominal, substantial and pervasive. As expected, China, North Korea, Pakistan and a few others were listed under “pervasive”, being the most controlled. However, I was completely surprised to see Tunisia on under the pervasive, too. To me, this country always seemed to be very liberal, quiet and tourist-oriented. If anyone has any more information or thought on that, I’d be happy to hear.
Other countries, such as Russia and Ukraine, were listed under “watchlist”, meaning they are to be investigated in the next short little while. My prediction is, of course, the pervasive level, would you agree? A number of European countries, such as Spain, Italy, Sweden and many others weren’t listed under any category and appeared blanck on the map — I wonder what can be said about them.

Archaeology of Cities and States

I visited my fiancee’s first year anthropology class (she isn’t actually majoring in anthropology or archaeology or anything of that sort; instead, she’s intensively tackling the part of science that I am worse than the worst at: chemistry and biology). The moment she told me the topic of the lecture, I knew I had to be there! And was not wrong, for the two hours of lecture were indeed very well spent. The lecturere talked about how the cities came to be, gave a few very interesting examples of some of the earliest city-like settlements.

I have taken notes of what he talked about, so I will publish them somewhere around here (if I’ll figure out how to do so) or on my webpage, hence they will be available for the interested ones.

Update: I have now posted the lecture notes document on my web page. To find the file, you can follow the link: http://individual.utoronto.ca/nikolaev/publications.htm; the file is under the “lecture notes”, as surprising as it may get :) Enjoy