Name the greatest Russian physicist of this century. The public vote would go for Andrei Sakharov - but for moral stature rather than for contributions to knowledge. A generation ago, Pyotr Kapitza would have been supported by many, in the mistaken belief that he was the master mind behind the Russian Bomb. Among physicists, however, Ley Davidovitch Landau would stand preeminent. He ought, by rights, to be still with us, for he was born in 1908: but a ghastly car accident in 1962 destroyed his intellectual powers and in 1968 he died.

LRB 18 December 1980 | PDF Download