Grigory Landsberg facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Grigory Samuilovich Landsberg
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Landsberg on a Russian postcard
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| Born | 22 January 1890 Vologda, Vologda Governorate, Russian empire
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| Died | 2 February 1957 (aged 67) |
| Nationality | Russian |
| Citizenship | USSR |
| Alma mater | Moscow State University |
| Known for | Raman Scattering |
| Awards | Order of Lenin |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Physics, optics, spectroscopy |
Grigory Samuilovich Landsberg (born January 22, 1890 – died February 2, 1957) was a smart Soviet physicist. He studied how light works, a field called optics, and how to analyze light to learn about materials, which is called spectroscopy. He is best known for helping discover something important about light called Raman scattering. He worked with another scientist named Leonid Mandelstam on this discovery.
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A Scientist's Life
Grigory Landsberg finished his studies at Moscow State University in 1913. He then taught there for many years, from 1913 to 1915, and again from 1923 to 1945, becoming a professor in 1923. He also worked at the Physical Institute of the Academy of Sciences starting in 1934. Later, from 1951 to 1957, he was a professor at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.
Studying Light and Crystals
Landsberg started studying how light scatters in crystals in 1926. This was a new and exciting area of physics. In 1928, he and Leonid Mandelstam made a big discovery. They found a new way light scatters, which they called combinational scattering of light. This discovery is now widely known as Raman scattering or the Raman effect. Two Indian scientists, C. V. Raman and K. S. Krishnan, found the same effect in liquids around the same time.
Landsberg also discovered something called the fine structure in Rayleigh scattering. This helped scientists understand more about how light behaves. In 1931, he found another interesting thing: selective scattering of light.
Building a Foundation for Spectroscopy
Grigory Landsberg helped create the study of spectroscopy for organic molecules in the USSR. This means he found ways to use light to understand the tiny parts of organic materials. He also studied how these parts interact with each other in gases, liquids, and solids.
He started a famous school for teaching atomic and molecular spectral analysis. He also created methods to analyze metals and alloys using light. For this work, he won the USSR Government Prize in 1941. He also developed ways to analyze complex mixtures, like the fuel used in cars. Landsberg wrote a well-known book called "Optics" and edited a popular "Elementary Textbook on Physics."
In 1946, he became a full member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. He later started the Commission on Spectroscopy there. This group eventually became the Institute for Spectroscopy Russian Academy of Sciences in 1968. Landsberg received two Orders of Lenin and several other awards for his important work.
The Discovery of Combinational Scattering
In 1926, Landsberg and Mandelstam began experiments at Moscow State University. They wanted to see if light scattering in crystals had a "fine structure." This idea came from Mandelstam's theory in 1918.
How the Discovery Happened
On February 21, 1928, Landsberg and Mandelstam discovered the effect of inelastic combinational scattering of light. They called it "combinational" because it involved a mix of light frequencies and molecular vibrations. They shared their amazing discovery at a meeting on April 27, 1928. They quickly published short reports in Russian and German. Later, they wrote a detailed paper in a science journal called Zeitschrift für Physik.
Naming the Discovery
In the same year, 1928, two Indian scientists, C. V. Raman and K. S. Krishnan, were also studying scattered light. They found the same combinational scattering of light. Raman said he first saw the new light on February 28, 1928. This means Landsberg and Mandelstam discovered it about a week earlier!
However, the discovery became known as the Raman effect. This is because Raman published his findings sooner than Landsberg and Mandelstam did. Even so, in Russian science, it is still often called "combinational scattering of light".
