Evgeny Lifshitz

Evgeny Mikhailovich Lifshitz (Russian: Евгений Михайлович Лифшиц; February 21, 1915 – October 29, 1985) was a leading Soviet physicist of Jewish origin and the brother of physicist Ilya Mikhailovich Lifshitz. (Some commonly encountered alternative transliterations of his names include Yevgeny or Evgenii and Lifshits or Lifschitz.) Lifshitz is well known in general relativity for coauthoring the BKL conjecture concerning the nature of a generic curvature singularity. As of 2006^[update], this is widely regarded as one of the most important open problems in the subject of classical gravitation.

With Lev Landau, Lifshitz co-authored Course of Theoretical Physics, 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. Landau's wife strongly criticized his scientific abilities, hinting at how much of their joint work was done by Lifshitz and how much by Landau. Despite the sniping, he is well known for many invaluable contributions, in particular to quantum electrodynamics, where he calculated the Casimir force in an arbitrary macroscopic configuration of metals and dielectrics.

See also

• Lev Landau
• Course of Theoretical Physics
• Landau–Lifshitz equation

References

• Belinskii, V.; Khalatnikov, I.; and Lifschitz, E. (1970). "Oscillatory approach to a singular point in the relativistic cosmology". Advances in Physics 19 (80): 525–573. Bibcode 1970AdPhy..19..525B. doi:10.1080/00018737000101171.  The paper introducing the BKL conjecture.
• Landau, L. D.; and Lifschitz, E. M. (1976). Mechanics. Course of Theoretical Physics. Vol. 1 (3rd ed.). London: Pergamon. ISBN 0-08-021022-8. 
• Landau, L. D.; and Lifschitz, E. M. (1971). Classical Theory of Fields. Course of Theoretical Physics. Vol. 2 (3rd ed.). London: Pergamon. ISBN 0-08-016019-0. 
• Landau, L. D.; and Lifschitz, E. M.; (1977). Quantum Mechanics: Non-relativistic Theory. Course of Theoretical Physics. Vol. 3 (3rd ed.). London: Pergamon. ISBN 0-08-020940-8. 
• Berestetskii, V. B.; Lifschitz, E. M.; and Pitaevskii, L. P. (1982). Quantum electrodynamics. Course of Theoretical Physics. Vol. 4 (2nd ed.). London: Pergamon. ISBN 0-080-26503-0. 
• Lifschitz, E. M.; and Pitaevskii, L. P. (1981). Physical kinetics. Course of Theoretical Physics. Vol. 10 (1rst ed.). Oxford: Pergamon. ISBN 0-08-026480-8. 

External links

• O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Evgeny Lifshitz", MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews, http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Lifshitz.html .