Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa orPeter KapitzaFRS (Russian:Пётр Леонидович Капица,Romanian:Petre Capița; 9 July [O.S. 26 June] 1894[3] – 8 April 1984) was a leadingSovietphysicist andNobel laureate,[4][5] whose research focused on low-temperature physics.
In the 1920s he originated techniques for creating ultrastrongmagnetic fields by injecting highcurrent for brief periods into specially constructed air-coreelectromagnets. In 1928 he discovered the linear relation between resistivity and magnetic field strength in various metals under very strong magnetic fields.[4]
In 1934 Kapitsa returned to Russia to visit his parents but the Soviet Union prevented him from travelling back to Great Britain.[11]
As his equipment for high-magnetic field research remained in Cambridge (although later Ernest Rutherford negotiated with the British government the possibility of shipping it to the USSR), he changed the direction of his research to the study of low temperature phenomena, beginning with a critical analysis of the existing methods for achieving low temperatures. In 1934 he developed new and original apparatus (based on theadiabatic principle) for making significant quantities ofliquid helium.[citation needed]
Kapitsa participated in formation of theInstitute for Physical Problems, in part using equipment which the Soviet government bought from the Mond Laboratory in Cambridge (with the assistance of Rutherford, once it was clear that Kapitsa would not be permitted to return).[citation needed]
In Russia, Kapitsa began a series of experiments to studyliquid helium. This research culminated with the 1937 discovery ofsuperfluidity (another expression of thestate of matter that gives rise tosuperconductivity). Beginning with a letter to the editor ofScience on 8 January 1938 where he reported the absence of measurable viscosity in liquid helium-4 cooled below 1.8 K, Kapitza documented the properties of helium-4 superfluid in a series of papers. This was the body of work for which he was later awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, "basic inventions and discoveries in the area of low-temperature physics".[12]
In 1939 he developed a new method for liquefaction of air with a low-pressure cycle using a special high-efficiency expansion turbine. Consequently, during World War II he was assigned to head the Department of Oxygen Industry attached to theUSSR Council of Ministers, where he developed his low-pressure expansion techniques for industrial purposes. He invented high power microwave generators (1950–1955) and discovered a new kind of continuous high pressure plasma discharge with electron temperatures over 1,000,000 K.[citation needed]
In November 1945 Kapitsa quarreled withLavrentiy Beria, head of theNKVD and in charge of theSoviet atomic bomb project, writing toJoseph Stalin about Beria's ignorance of physics and his arrogance. Stalin backed Kapitsa, telling Beria he had to cooperate with the scientists. Kapitsa refused to meet Beria: "If you want to speak to me, then come to the Institute." Stalin offered to meet Kapitsa, but this never happened.[13]
Immediately after the war, a group of prominent Soviet scientists (including Kapitsa in particular) lobbied the government to create a new technical university, theMoscow Institute of Physics and Technology. Kapitsa taught there for many years. From 1957, he was also a member of the presidium of theSoviet Academy of Sciences and at his death in 1984 was the only presidium member who was not also a member of theCommunist Party.[14]
In 1966 Kapitsa was allowed to visit Cambridge to receive theRutherford Medal and Prize.[15] While dining at his old college,Trinity, he found he did not have the requiredgown. He asked to borrow one, but a college servant asked him when he last dined athigh table, "Thirty-two years" replied Kapitza. Within moments the servant returned, not with any gown, but Kapitsa's own.[16]
Pyotr Kapitsa had the nickname "Centaurus". This arose when onceArtem Alikhanian asked Kapitsas' studentShalnikov "is your supervisor a human or a beast?" to which Shalnikov responded that he is a Centaurus, i.e. he can be human but also he can get angry and hit you with hooves like a horse.[18] Kapitsa was married in 1927 to Anna Alekseyevna Krylova (1903-1996), daughter of applied mathematicianAleksey Krylov. They had two sons, Sergey and Andrey.Sergey Kapitsa (1928–2012) was a physicist and demographer. Kapitsa was also the host of the popular and long-running Russian scientific TV showEvident, but Incredible.[19]Andrey Kapitsa (1931–2011) was a geographer. He was credited with the discovery and naming ofLake Vostok, the largestsubglacial lake inAntarctica, which lies 4,000 meters below the continent'sice cap.[20]
Kapitsa had the ear of people high up in the Soviet government, due to the usefulness to industry of his discoveries, regularly writing letters on matters of science policy. In particular, he saved bothVladimir Fock andLev Landau fromStalin's purges of the 1930s, tellingVyacheslav Molotov that Landau was the only one who would be able to solve an important physics puzzle of the time.[21]
Kapitsa died on 8 April 1984 inMoscow at the age 89.
