On the Sixtieth Anniversary of the Birth of Academician G. S. Landsberg

On January 27, at the Moscow House of Scientists of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, an open session was held of the Academic Council of the P. N. Lebedev Physical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, with the participation of the Soviet scientific community and representatives of industry, devoted to honoring Academician Grigorii Samuilovich Landsberg in connection with the sixtieth anniversary of his birth.

In his opening remarks, Academician S. I. Vavilov characterized G. S. Landsberg as an outstanding Soviet scientist, widely known in our country and beyond its borders.

The principal activity of G. S. Landsberg has been devoted to work in the field of physical optics. A brilliant experimenter, G. S. Landsberg obtained in this difficult field a number of results of fundamental importance. Worthy of mention is the discovery, made jointly with Academician L. I. Mandelstam, of the phenomenon of combination scattering of light. This discovery is one of the most remarkable in the history of physics in recent decades; it has entered the treasury of Soviet science.

Together with a large group of his students, G. S. devotes much time and energy to work in the field of atomic and molecular spectral analysis and to its applications in industry. These works deservedly placed G. S. Landsberg at the head of Soviet spectroscopist-analysts.

The merits of G. S. Landsberg are exceptionally great in the training of young physicists, in the creation of a Soviet school of workers in the field of physical optics and applied spectroscopy.

Chronicle

The Soviet scientific community rightly sees in G. S. Landsberg an outstanding representative of Soviet advanced science.

A brief report illuminating the activity of G. S. Landsberg as a scientist and teacher was given by Prof. S. L. Mandelstam. S. L. Mandelstam dwelt on two main directions in G. S. Landsberg’s scientific activity—research in the field of molecular scattering of light and research in the field of spectral analysis.

Research on molecular scattering of light was begun by G. S. Landsberg together with L. I. Mandelstam more than a quarter of a century ago. The first cycle of these studies was devoted to the investigation of molecular scattering in crystals. G. S. Landsberg was the first to isolate in pure form and measure, for the case of quartz, true molecular scattering.

Research on the scattering of light in crystals led, as is known, G. S. Landsberg and L. I. Mandelstam in 1928 to the discovery of an entirely new phenomenon—combination scattering of light. The significance of the new phenomenon in contemporary physics, chemistry, and related fields of science is difficult to overestimate. At present many thousands of investigations throughout the world are devoted to the phenomenon of combination scattering and to its applications. It has entered the arsenal of contemporary physics as one of the most powerful methods for studying the structure of matter.

Combination scattering of light received, in the hands of G. S. Landsberg and his school, especially broad development in studies of the manifestation of intermolecular interactions. Here one must first of all point to the systematic and comprehensive investigation of the so-called “hydrogen bond,” the study of combination lines of the “second order,” characterizing the nonlinearity of intramolecular forces, and so on.

For many years G. S. Landsberg and a numerous group of his pupils have been carrying out extensive work on the development and application of the method of combination scattering of light as a method for analyzing the qualitative and quantitative composition of complex organic mixtures, in the first instance motor fuels. Thanks to these studies, the method of combination scattering is being transformed into a reliable analytical method.

In 1932 G. S. Landsberg, with a group of pupils, began investigations in the field of spectral analysis and its practical application in the industry of the USSR. G. S. Landsberg and the entire army of Soviet spectroscopists developed the physical foundations of spectral analysis, created special apparatus, numerous analytical procedures, and carried out the introduction of spectral analysis at numerous factories in the most important branches of industry. All this extensive scientific and organizational work is united and directed by the Commission on Spectroscopy under the Department of Physico-Mathematical Sciences of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, whose organizer and permanent head is G. S. Landsberg. In 1940 G. S. Landsberg was awarded the Stalin Prize for his work in the field of spectral analysis.

Very great are G. S. Landsberg’s merits in the training of young physicists. For more than a quarter of a century G. S. Landsberg has been teaching in higher education, directing the work of numerous pupils, collaborators, and graduate students, and giving everyday assistance to numerous physicists, chemists, and engineers who turn to him with the most varied questions. The school of G. S. Landsberg has produced many—

independent scientists working in the scientific institutions, higher schools, and industry of the USSR.

For outstanding services in the development of science in the USSR, G. S. Landsberg was awarded the Order of Lenin by the government in 1945.

G. S. Landsberg was greeted by: from the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR—Academician I. G. Petrovsky; from the Division of Physical and Mathematical Sciences—Academician D. V. Skobeltsyn; from the Division of Technical Sciences—Academician B. A. Vvedensky; from the Division of Chemical Sciences—Academician I. I. Chernyaev; from the Minister of the Metallurgical Industry—Comrade A. A. Elianov; and also by representatives of numerous institutes of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, branch institutes, industry, and higher educational institutions. A list was also announced of numerous greetings and telegrams received by the jubilee commission.

At the conclusion of the meeting, G. S. Landsberg delivered a warm response.