Science and Society

What could possibly bring together scientific reports, appeals to leaders, and apt aphorisms?

Their author is P. L. Kapitsa, an outstanding physicist, the creator of PhysTech, and a Nobel Prize laureate!

The pages of this book feature not only the rare speeches of the scientist at symposia and conferences, but also his celebrated “Maxims,” as well as paradoxical physics problems he invented.

Pyotr (Peter) Leonidovich Kapitsa (1894–1984) was the foremost Soviet physicist, engineer, and experimentalist; a Nobel Prize in Physics laureate; and the founder of the Institute for Physical Problems.

Kapitsa had an amazing combination of scientific intuition and the engineering savvy of an experimenter, practicality and organizational talent, independence of judgment, and the ability to speak with those in power on equal terms. Preferring a written dialogue over oral communication, he left behind an extensive legacy: reports for scientific forums, speeches at meetings of specialists, notes and appeals to leaders, and much more—part of these materials is included in this collection. Here, too, are the “Maxims”—Kapitsa’s exact formulations that have become catchphrases—and his unusual physics problems.