GRIGORY SAMUILOVICH LANDSBERG
(1890–1957)

October 1957

Vol. LXIII, issue 2

ADVANCES IN PHYSICAL SCIENCES

IN MEMORY OF G. S. LANDSBERG*

I. E. Tamm

Every time an eminent person leaves us, one who has contributed much that is substantial and important to the sphere of activity to which he devoted his life, it becomes strikingly clear that very many people, even those who knew him personally and valued him highly, in fact had very little idea of the full scale of his work, of his whole image as a whole. Often particular aspects of his activity, closer to a given circle of people, and certain secondary traits and details obscured his general image; so that his principal features were not so much clearly understood as felt by them more or less subconsciously.

Everyone knows that Grigorii Samuilovich, together with Leonid Isaakovich Mandelstam, discovered the combination scattering of light, and that this is one of the greatest discoveries, and perhaps the greatest physical discovery made by Soviet physics in all the 40 years of its existence. But by no means everyone imagines the scale of Grigorii Samuilovich’s activity in other areas of physics: in various branches of physical optics (where he, in particular, discovered selective scattering of light and, for the first time, distinguished truly molecular scattering of light in solids), in molecular physics, in particular in the field of the study of molecular bonds, etc.; that is, in all those areas of physics into which Grigorii Samuilovich made an extraordinarily substantial, broad, and great contribution to science.

Again, everyone knows that Grigorii Samuilovich directed work in applied spectroscopy. But some, probably, looked at this in such a way that Grigorii Samuilovich, in addition to his laboratory at the Lebedev Physical Institute, also had a “burden”—chairmanship of the spectral commission. This view characterizes the true state of affairs in a ridiculously incorrect way.

Of course, the enormous army of spectroscopists working in research institutes and in factory laboratories saw in Grigorii Samuilovich their teacher, inspirer, and leader; but among other physicists, owing to Grigorii Samuilovich’s exceptional modesty, it was not so widely known that he was the initiator and founder of the broad introduction of spectral methods into our industry, that he created this cause, made it a cause of great state importance, and devoted to it, right up to the very end of his life, a very great deal of strength and attention.

* Introductory address by Academician I. E. Tamm at the Joint Session of the Division of Physical and Mathematical Sciences of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, the P. N. Lebedev Physical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, the Commission on Spectroscopy under the Division of Physical and Mathematical Sciences of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, and the Moscow Physico-Technical Institute of the Ministry of Higher Education, dedicated to the memory of Academician Grigorii Samuilovich Landsberg.

Everyone who came into contact with Grigorii Samuilovich knew the unusually developed sense of responsibility he had for carrying out any task he had undertaken, even a small one, and his extraordinary conscientiousness in every matter. He simply could not, by his very nature, treat carelessly any serious matter—whether it was a matter on the scale of the discovery of combination scattering, or a review of someone’s dissertation, or the plan of a physics textbook for technical schools and secondary schools. He would not let any matter leave his hands until he had arrived at firmly grounded, verified judgments and reliable conclusions. This was known by all who came into contact with Grigorii Samuilovich, but not everyone felt that in this was manifested the characteristic style of his creativity, which, just like his unusual purity of soul and deep principledness, made him akin to L. I. Mandelstam, with whom he worked together for almost 20 years.

Here, for example, is how this style of creativity manifested itself in the discovery of combination scattering. In our time one often encounters an unhealthy agitation connected with the pursuit of scientific priority, with scientific vanity. It is not without reason that the expression “to stake out a claim” now has such wide currency among scientists, i.e., to publish some note or other, to “stake out” some area of scientific work long before it becomes clear whether there is pure gold, or sand, or the sand of triviality to be found there. And I think that it is hard to find in the last 50 years any other physical discovery of such significance as combination scattering whose first published report already included a rigorous and complete quantitative verification of the newly discovered phenomenon.

Meanwhile, precisely such was the very first publication by Grigorii Samuilovich and Leonid Isaakovich on combination scattering; it set forth the results of all conceivable checks of the correctness of the experimental measurements, removed all doubts as to their reality and reliability.

In this first publication not only was the effect itself correctly described and quantitatively characterized, but its theoretically correct interpretation was also given.

Our meeting is devoted to a survey of the scientific activity of Grigorii Samuilovich, but one cannot pass over his human qualities.

Grigorii Samuilovich was a man of rare purity of soul, principledness, and moral courage. Not only those who worked directly with him feel the irreparable loss acutely; in all areas of scientific life with which he had one or another connection—not only in the scientific collectives created under his influence, but also throughout the entire scientific and public life of physicists, from academic bodies to the editorial boards of scientific journals—the absence of his moral influence will long be felt.

I knew and was friends with Grigorii Samuilovich for almost 35 years. Much that was good was lived through, and much that was very difficult. And I can testify that always and invariably his entire life and activity were, in the true sense of the word, irreproachable.