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Soviet physicist Peter Leonidovich Kapitza won the 1978 Nobel Prize in physics. He is known for his work in the liquefaction of gases, especially helium and hydrogen. He also studied the effects of low temperatures and strong magnetic fields on metals.

Peter Leonidovich Kapitza (1894-1984), Russian physicist and Nobel laureate in physics. Kapitza was awarded the 1978 Nobel Prize in physics for his research in low-temperature physics. He shared the prize with American physicists Arno Penzias and Robert W. Wilson, who were recognized for their work in radio astronomy.

Kapitza was born in Kronshtadt, Russia, and educated at the Petrograd Polytechnic Institute and the Petrograd Physical and Technical Institute in what is now Saint Petersburg. For two years after his graduation in 1919 he taught electrical engineering at the Petrograd Polytechnic Institute.

In 1921 Kapitza went to England to study at the University of Cambridge as part of the renewal of scientific relations between the new Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and the West. Soon after he arrived, Kapitza became an assistant to Sir Ernest Rutherford, the director of magnetic research at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge. Kapitza earned his Ph.D. degree in physics from Cambridge in 1923.

Kapitza stayed at Cambridge for more than a decade after earning his Ph.D. degree. He worked on producing strong magnetic fields, but soon began studying the effects that these strong fields had on metals. He found that the magnetic properties of metals in high magnetic fields grew more interesting at very low temperatures.

Kapitza returned to the USSR in 1934 and was refused permission to leave. In 1936 he became director of the Institute for Physical Problems of the USSR Academy of Sciences, and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin had Kapitza’s Cambridge laboratory moved to Moscow. In Moscow in 1941 Kapitza first published his findings on the superfluidity of helium II. When helium is cooled to about -271° C (-455° F), it becomes a better conductor than copper and it flows even more easily than gases. It can climb the walls of a container and seep through a sealed lid. Kapitza’s work on helium II earned him the 1978 Nobel Prize.

Kapitza refused to work on the Soviet atomic weapons program and was placed under house arrest from 1945 to 1953. After Stalin’s death, Kapitza resumed his place at the Institute for Physical Problems. There he studied subjects ranging from ball lightning to solid state physics.