| Pyotr Kapitsa  AKA Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa
Born: 8-Jul-1894
Birthplace: Kronshtadt, Russia
Died: 8-Apr-1984
Location of death: Moscow, Russia
Cause of death: unspecified
Gender: Male
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Physicist Nationality: Russia
Executive summary: Discovered superfluidity Soviet physicist Pyotr Kapitsa was born and educated in the Soviet Union, but first made his mark in science while working at Cambridge University, where in 1934 he invented a new device to produce liquid helium. His invention was the first machine capable of manufacturing large quantities of liquid helium without using liquid hydrogen for pre-cooling, making the process far more affordable and allowing a major expansion in the study of low-temperature physics.
In the same year, he returned to his homeland to visit family, and when his visit was finished Soviet officials refused to allow his return to England. As a result, he spent the remainder of his career in Russia, where he was admired and to some extent protected by Josef Stalin despite Kapitsa's persistent criticism of Soviet policies. He was not allowed to leave the USSR until 1965, and he spent the years 1946-55 under house arrest, punishment for his refusal to participate in atomic weapons research.
In 1937 he discovered the superfluidity of liquid helium, a phenomenon characterized by a complete absence of viscosity under certain circumstances, allowing superfluids to circulate endlessly in a closed loop with no friction. When helium is cooled to what is called its lambda point, a temperature of approximately 2.17 K, the liquid's density drops and a portion of the liquid becomes a zero viscosity "superfluid". Kapista won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1978, for his research, inventions, and discoveries in the field of low-temperature physics. Father: Leonid Petrovich Kapitsa
Mother: Olga Ieronimovna Stebnitskaia
Wife: Nadezhda Tschernovsvitova (div.)
Wife: Anna Alekseevna Krylova (m. 1927, two sons)
Son: Sergei
Son: Andrei
University: BS Physics, Petrograd Polytechnical Institute (1919)
University: PhD Physics, University of Cambridge (1923)
Lecturer: Physics, Petrograd Polytechnical Institute (1919-21)
Lecturer: Physics, University of Cambridge (1921-26)
Scholar: Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge (1924-32)
Administrator: Royal Society Mond Laboratory, University of Cambridge (1930-34)
Administrator: Institute of Physical Problems, Moscow (1934-46, 1955-84)
IET Faraday Medal 1942
Order of Lenin 1943
Benjamin Franklin Medal 1944 (by the Franklin Institute)
Order of Lenin 1944
Hero of Socialist Labor 1945
Order of Lenin 1945
Order of the Red Banner of Labor 1954
Mikhail Lomonosov Gold Medal 1959
CAS Medal for Merits in Science and to Mankind 1964
Niels Bohr Gold Medal 1964
Order of Lenin 1964
IOP Rutherford Medal and Prize 1966
Order of Lenin 1971
IOP Simon Memorial Award 1973
Hero of Socialist Labor 1974
Order of Lenin 1974
Nobel Prize for Physics 1978 (with Arno Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson)
American Academy of Arts and Sciences Foreign Member, 1968
Finnish Academy of Science and Arts Foreign Member, 1974
Franklin Institute Foreign Member, 1944
French Physical Society Foreign Member, 1931
German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina Foreign Member, 1958
Indian Academy of Sciences Foreign Fellow, 1947
Institute of Metals Foreign Member, 1943
Institute of Physics Foreign Member, 1934
International Academy of Astronautics 1964
International Academy of the History of Science 1971
Journal of Theoretical and Experimental Physics Editorial Board, 1955-84
National Academy of Sciences Foreign Member, 1946
National Institute of Sciences of India Foreign Member, 1957
New York Academy of Sciences Foreign Member, 1946
Polish Academy of Sciences Foreign Member, 1962
Royal Danish Academy of Sciences Foreign Member, 1946
Royal Irish Academy Foreign Member, 1948
Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences Foreign Member, 1969
Royal Society 1929
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Foreign Member, 1966
Russian Academy of Sciences 1939
Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts Foreign Member, 1971
Russian Ancestry
Asteroid Namesake 3437 Kapitsa
Author of books:
The Heat Transfer and Superfluidity of Helium II (1941)
Research into the Mechanism of Heat Transfer in Helium II (1941)
High Power Microwave Electronics (1964)
Collected Papers of P. L. Kapitsa (1964-67, three volumes)
Society and the Environment (1977)
Experiment, Theory, Practice (1977)
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