Evgeny Mikhailovich Lifshitz (; ; 21 February 1915 – 29 October 1985) was a leading Soviet

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...

and brother of the physicist

Ilya Lifshitz Ilya Mikhailovich Lifshitz (; ; January 13, 1917 – October 23, 1982) was a leading Soviet theoretical physicist, brother of Evgeny Lifshitz. He is known for his works in solid-state physics, electron theory of metals, disordered systems, and ...

Work

Born into a Ukrainian Jewish family in Kharkov,

Kharkov Governorate Kharkov Governorate was an administrative-territorial unit (''guberniya'') of the Russian Empire founded in 1835. It embraced the historical region of Sloboda Ukraine. From 1765 to 1780 and from 1796 to 1835 the governorate was called Sloboda Uk ...

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

(now Kharkiv,

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

). Lifshitz is well known in the field of

general relativity General relativity, also known as the general theory of relativity, and as Einstein's theory of gravity, is the differential geometry, geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1915 and is the current description of grav ...

for coauthoring the BKL conjecture concerning the nature of a ''generic curvature singularity''. , this is widely regarded as one of the most important open problems in the subject of classical gravitation. With

Lev Landau Lev Davidovich Landau (; 22 January 1908 – 1 April 1968) was a Soviet physicist who made fundamental contributions to many areas of theoretical physics. He was considered as one of the last scientists who were universally well-versed and ma ...

, Lifshitz co-authored ''

Course of Theoretical Physics The ''Course of Theoretical Physics'' is a ten-volume series of books covering theoretical physics that was initiated by Lev Landau and written in collaboration with his student Evgeny Lifshitz starting in the late 1930s. It is said that Landau ...

'', an ambitious series of physics textbooks, in which the two aimed to provide a graduate-level introduction to the entire field of physics. These books are still considered invaluable and continue to be widely used. Lifshitz was the second of only 43 people ever to pass Landau's "Theoretical Minimum" examination. He made many invaluable contributions, in particular to quantum electrodynamics, where he calculated the

Casimir force In quantum field theory, the Casimir effect (or Casimir force) is a physical force acting on the macroscopic boundaries of a confined space which arises from the quantum fluctuations of a field. The term Casimir pressure is sometimes used whe ...

in an arbitrary macroscopic configuration of metals and dielectrics. Since 1975, a special

multicritical point Multicritical points are special points in the parameter space of thermodynamic or other systems with a continuous phase transition. At least two thermodynamic or other parameters must be adjusted to reach a multicritical point. At a multicritic ...

, the ''Lifshitz point'', carries his name.

Bibliography

* The paper introducing the BKL conjecture. * * * * * Landau and Lifshitz suggested in the third volume of the ''Course of Theoretical Physics'' that the then-standard periodic table had a mistake in it, and that lutetium should be regarded as a d-block rather than an f-block element. Their suggestion was fully vindicated by later findings, Scerri, Eric R (2020). ''The Periodic Table, Its Story and Its Significance'', 2nd edition, Oxford University Press, New York, and in 1988 was endorsed by a report of the

International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC ) is an international federation of National Adhering Organizations working for the advancement of the chemical sciences, especially by developing nomenclature and terminology. It is ...

(IUPAC).

References

External links

* For more information about Evgeny Lifshitz’s work, you can read ‘A Brief History of Time’ and ‘Brief Answers to the Big Questions’, both by the acclaimed author and scientist Stephen Hawking. {{DEFAULTSORT:Lifshitz, Evgeny 1915 births 1985 deaths Scientists from Kharkiv People from Kharkovsky Uyezd Academic staff of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology Foreign members of the Royal Society Full Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute alumni Recipients of the Stalin Prize Recipients of the Lenin Prize Recipients of the Order of Friendship of Peoples Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour Fluid dynamicists People involved with the periodic table Soviet Jewish physicists Burials at Kuntsevo Cemetery Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology people

Work

Bibliography

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External links