Pyotr Kapitsa was a pioneering Soviet physicist renowned for his groundbreaking contributions to low-temperature physics. Born in 1894 in Kronstadt, Russia, he graduated from the Petrograd Polytechnical Institute in 1918 after his engineering studies were interrupted by service as an ambulance driver during World War I. In 1921, he traveled to Cambridge University to study under Ernest Rutherford at the prestigious Cavendish Laboratory, where his exceptional experimental skills earned him rapid recognition. He became Assistant Director of Magnetic Research in 1924 and subsequently served as the founding director of Cambridge's Mond Laboratory in 1930, establishing himself as a leading figure in the international physics community.
Kapitsa's most significant scientific achievement was the 1937 discovery of superfluidity in liquid helium, a revolutionary finding that revealed helium-4 cooled below 1.8 K exhibits zero viscosity and extraordinary thermal conductivity. This breakthrough, documented in his seminal 1938 Science paper, represented a fundamental advance in understanding quantum phenomena at macroscopic scales. Earlier in his career, he made important contributions to high-magnetic field research, discovering in 1928 that electrical resistance in metals has a straight line relationship with magnetic field strength, now known as Kapitsa's law of magnetoresistance. His innovative 1934 development of new apparatus for producing significant quantities of liquid helium based on the adiabatic principle provided the essential tools for his subsequent discoveries in low-temperature physics.
Beyond his experimental work, Kapitsa played a pivotal role in shaping Soviet science, co-founding the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology after World War II and serving as a member of the presidium of the Soviet Academy of Sciences from 1957 until his death in 1984. From 1955, he edited the Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Physics, influencing the direction of Soviet physics research for decades. Kapitsa's legacy endures through the Institute of Physical Problems in Moscow, which was renamed in his honor and remains a leading center for low-temperature physics research. Awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1978 for his basic inventions and discoveries in low-temperature physics, his work continues to inspire new generations of physicists exploring quantum phenomena at extreme temperatures.
