biography
| name: |
Kapitza, Pyotr Leonidovich
|
pronunciation:
[kapitza]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1894–1984)
|
| biography:
| Physicist, born in Kronstadt, NW Russia. He studied at St Petersburg (then Petrograd), and taught there until 1921. He then studied under Rutherford at Cambridge, where he became assistant director of magnetic research at the Cavendish Laboratory (1924–32). He was elected fellow of the Royal Society in 1929. He returned to Russia for a conference, but was prevented from leaving again, and was appointed director of the Institute of Physical Problems. He was dismissed in 1946 for refusing to work on the atomic bomb, but reinstated in 1955. He is known for his work on high-intensity magnetism, low temperature, and the liquefaction of hydrogen and helium. He shared the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1978. |
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