The Physics of a Lifetime: Reflections on the Problems and Personalities of 20th Century Physics PDF
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The Physics of a Lifetime Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg GmbH Physics and AstronOmy~ ONUNEUBIAIIY http://www.springer.de/phys/ Vitaly L. Ginzburg The Physics of a lifeti me Reflections on the Problems and Personalities of 20th Century Physics , Springer Professor Vitaly L. Ginzburg P.N. Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences Leninsky Prospect 53 ll792.4 Moscow, RUSSIA Managing Editor of Translation Dr. Maria S. Aksent' eva Managing and Scientific Editor ofUFN Journal Leninsky Prospect 15, off. 2.40 ll7071 Moscow, RUSSIA E-mail: maria4lufn.ru Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data. Die Deutsche Bibliothek - CIP-Einheitsaufnahme Ginzburg, Vitalij L.: The physics of a Iifetime: reflections on the problems and personalities of 2.oth century physicslVitaly L. Ginzburg. (Springer series in materials processing) (Physics and astronomyonline Iibrary) ISBN 978-3-642-08699-1 ISBN 978-3-662-04455-1 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-662-04455-1 ISBN 978-3-642-08699-1 This work is subject to copyright. AU rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights oftranslation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broad- casting, reproduction on microfilm or in any other way, and storage in data banks. Duplication of this publication or parts thereof is permitted only under the provisions of the German Copyright Law of September 9, 1965, in its current version, and permission for use must always be obtained from Springer-Verlag. Violations are Iiable for prosecution under the German Copyright Law. @ Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2.001 Originallypublished by Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg New York in 2.001 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2.001 The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant pro- tective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. Typesetting: Camera ready copy by the translator using a Springer 'IBX macropackage Cover design: Erich Kirchner, Heidelberg Printed on acid-free paper SPIN 10681905 57/3141/tr 5 4 3 2. 1 o Preface to the English Translation These days English is known to serve as the lingua franca of science. This is not the least of the reasons for my welcoming the present English translation. I hope the international readership will appreciate the book but only the future will tell, of course. The papers comprising Parts II and III of the book were written on differ- ent occasions over a long period of time. They have not been changed in the translation; only a few small items have been added and, where necessary, some notes have been made. Two small texts have been omitted from the book (the answers to a questionnaire distributed by one journal and an inter- view given to another journal) and two larger papers. One is "Three Hundred Years of the Principia by Isaac Newton" and the other is "The Course (In Memory of L. D. Landau and E. M. Lifshitz)". The English translation of the first paper was published in Sov. Phys.-Uspekhi 30, 46, 1987. The English translation of "The Course" was an attachment to the book Landau: The Physicist and the Man (Pergamon, Oxford, 1989). A rather detailed bibli- ographical note about the papers in the collection was also omitted in the translation. Part I consists of the paper entitled "What Problems of Physics and As- trophysics Seem Now to Be Especially Important and Interesting?", whose long history is told in the Preamble to Part I. The underlying concept of the paper implies its regular revision and I have taken care of that throughout the years. But the last Russian edition was published comparatively recent- ly (in 1995) and since then few major events have taken place in physies and astrophysics. Indeed, in my opinion the only momentous events were the understanding of the cosmological nature of the gamma bursts and the detection of the neutrino mass. Moreover, completing the paper in 1995, I declared my intention not to revise it any more - patching up will not make an old garment new but can make it look ugly. However, new results, trends, and developments cannot be ignored altogether. This is why I made some amendments and comments specially for the English translation. The list of references has also been revised. I believe that the paper will still be of inter- est to readers. After all, its main purpose is not to report the latest science news but to promote a comprehensive awareness of science (see my article on the subject published in Physics Today 43 (5), 9, 1990, and its discussion in VI Preface to the English Translation a later issue, Physics Today 44 (3), i3, 1991). While the translation of the book was in progress, I published a paper "What Problems of Physics and Astrophysics Seem Now to Be Especially Important and Interesting (Thirty Years Later, on the Verge of the 21st Century)?" in Physics-Uspekhi 42, 353, 1999. This paper is a follow-up to the main paper on the subject in Part I and is also included here. Note that the continuation of the present book is a collection of my papers entitled "About Science, Myself, and Others" published in Russian in 1997 (Nauka, Moscow). I am grateful to the translators and, particularly, to M. S. Aksent'eva, without whose management effort the publication would have been impossi- ble. I would like also to thank most warmly the Physics editorial department of Springer-Verlag for their attention to, and care of the translation of the manuscript. October 30, 2000 v. L. Ginzburg Author's Note (Preface to the Earlier Russian Edition) The type of publication before the reader allows the author to present papers of diverse kind and content under the same cover. The papers I have selected have been distributed among the three parts of the book. Part I is essentially a new, revised version of the paper "What Problems of Physics and Astrophysics Seem Now to Be Especially Important and In- teresting?" There is no need to describe it in detail here because that is done in the Preamble to Part 1. Part II includes papers on the history and methodology of science and related matters. Part III consists of papers and short articles dedicated to the memory of a number of Russian and foreign physicists (1. E. Tamm, L. 1. Man- delshtam, N. D. Papaleksi, L. D. Landau, A. A. Andronov, A. L. Mints, S. 1. Vavilov, 1. M. Frank, G. S. Landsberg, E. K. Zavoiskii, M. S. Rabinovich, M. V. Keldysh, A. D. Sakharov, A. Einstein, N. Bohr, R. P. Feynman, and J. Bardeen). An article written on the occasion of the 80th birthday of the Dutch astrophysicist J. Oort is also in this section. The texts of almost all papers in Parts II and III had been published earlier. Only small revisions were made for this edition, the purpose of which is usually self-evident. It should be admitted that the book is not free of repetitions. Unfortu- nately, it was impossible to get rid of all of them, as the book includes many papers written in different periods on different occasions. It may be said that another drawback of the book is that personal pronouns (I, me, myself, and so on) are used, though this is typically not done in scientific literature in Russian. It is not always possible to employ rigorously the impersonal style of scientific literature in popular-science papers and reminiscences. Another important (and primary) explanation is that my reminiscences too often fea- ture myself. Obviously, a reader would like to learn more about, for instance, Tamm from my reminiscences of him than about myself. I have not managed to resolve adequately all the problems that arose in this connection. I hope, though, that a well-disposed reader will be able to select from the book what VIII Author's Note (Preface to the Earlier Russian Edition) is interesting for himt and will ignore without prejudice the items that seem superfluous or boring to him. One should always remember that different people have different perceptions and the same comments or reports may seem interesting or boring, useful or irrelevant to them. This is my opinion based on considerable experience and was my thinking in the compilation of the present collection. In conclusion, I am grateful to the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, whose financial assistance made possible the publication of the book. I am also grateful to Yu. M. Bruk, L. A. Panyushkina, and S. V. Shikhmanova for assistance of various types. I am also grateful to a number of colleagues for their advice, which I used, in particular, for revising the paper in Part I of the book (I do not give their names, so that they cannot be blamed, however indirectly, for any errors or omissions made by myself). V. L. Ginzburg t (Note added to English translation.) For simplicity, the pronouns 'he', 'him', and 'his' are used in this book when referring to an unspecified person. This is not intended to carry any implication as to the person's gender. Contents Preface to the English Translation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. V Author's Note (Preface to the Earlier Russian Edition) '" .... VII Part I What Problems of Physics and Astrophysics Seem Now to Be Especially Important and Interesting? ............. . 3 Preamble ................................................. . 3 Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 List of 'Especially Important and Interesting Problems' (1995) . . .. 11 Macrophysics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 12 1. Controlled Nuclear Fusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . .. 12 2. High-Temperature Superconductivity. Superdiamagnetism ..... 18 3. New Substances (Production of Metallic Hydrogen and Some Other New Materials). . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . .. 24 4. Some Problems of Solid-State Physics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 27 5. Phase Transitions of the Second Order and Similar Transitions (Critical Phenomena). Interesting Examples of Such Transitions 29 6. Physics of Surfaces. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 35 7. Liquid Crystals. Very Large Molecules. Fullerenes. . . .. . . . . . . .. 37 8. Matter in Super high Magnetic Fields. . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 38 9. X-ray Lasers, Grasers, and New Superpowerful Lasers. . . . . . . .. 40 10. Strongly Nonlinear Phenomena (Nonlinear Physics). Solitons, Chaos. Strange Attractors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 45 11. Superheavy Nuclei (Far Transuranic Elements). Exotic Nuclei. 47 Microphysics ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 50 12. What is Understood by Microphysics? ... . . . . . . . . . . . .. .. . . .. 50 13. Mass Spectrum. Quarks and Gluons. Quantum Chromo dynamics 53 14. Unified Theory of the Weak and Electromagnetic Interactions. W± and ZO Bosons. Leptons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 59 15. Grand Unification. Proton Decay. Neutrino Mass. Magnetic Monopoles. Superunification. Superstrings ........ 62 X Contents 16. Fundamental Length. Particle Interactions at High and Ultrahigh Energies .......................... 67 17. Violation of CP Invariance. Nonlinear Phenomena in Vacuum and Superhigh Electromagnetic Fields. Phase Transitions in Vacuum. Some Comments on the Development of Microphysics ........................................ 72 18. Microphysics Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow .............. 81 Astrophysics ............................................... 87 19. Experimental Verification of the General Theory of Relativity. 87 20. Gravitational Waves ..................................... 90 21. The Cosmological Problem. Singularities in the General Theory of Relativity and Cosmology. Relationship between Cosmology and High-Energy Physics 94 22. Neutron Stars and Pulsars. Supernovae. Black Holes ......... 98 23. Quasars and Galactic Nuclei. Formation of Galaxies. Problem of Dark Matter (Missing Mass). Does Astronomy Require a 'New Physics'? ................ 110 24. Origin of Cosmic Rays and Cosmic Gamma and X-ray Radiation. Gamma Bursts ..................... 120 25. Neutrino Astronomy ..................................... 129 26. The Contemporary Stage in the Development of Astronomy. .. 132 Concluding Remarks ........................................ 135 27. General Comments on Scientific Progress ................... 135 28. In Lieu of a Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 138 References ................................................. 142 What Problems of Physics and Astrophysics Seem Now to Be Especially Important and Interesting (Thirty Years Later, Already on the Verge of the 21st Century)? .............. 149 1. Introduction ............................................. 149 2. List of 'Especially Important and Interesting Problems' (1999) . 152 3. Some Comments (Macrophysics) ............................ 154 4. Some Comments (Microphysics) ............................ 160 5. Some Comments (Astrophysics) ............................ 165 6. Three More 'Great' Problems .............................. 183 7. An Attempt to Predict the Future .......................... 187 References ................................................. 193 Part II How Does Science Develop? Remarks on The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by T. Kuhn ..................... 201 Preamble .................................................. 201 1. The Subject Matter of the Book ............................ 202
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