Talk:Pyotr Kapitsa

Untitled
According to this Russian page, after Kapitsa was prevented to return to England with his wife and children, they moved back to Moscow to live with him. The Russian page is apparently a translation of an encyclopedic article in English published first by the H.W. Wilson Company in 1987. The Russian article also states that he had already visited Russia several times during his time in England and that Soviet officials had tried to convince him to remain in Russia. While he had expressed interest in such proposals, he had requested guarantees, such as the freedom to travel freely to the west, that were deemed unacceptable. In The legacy of Stalin and Stalinism: A historiographical survey of the literature, 1930-1990, Canadian Journal of History, Apr. 1994, T. R.Ravindranathan tersely writes that "Kapitsa decided to stay in the Soviet Union in the summer of 1934 despite the fact that he already had a new laboratory, house, wife, and family in Cambridge". The Russian page also states that in 1941 Kapitsa drew "public attention" (whatever that may have meant in Stalin's Russia) to the possibility of developing nuclear weapons. In 1945 Kapitsa was a member of the Soviet "Special Committee" to solve the nuclear problem (p.24 of ). He was dismissed from the Soviet nuclear program after he sent a letter to Stalin where he sharply criticised Beria (p. 56 of ), “comrade Beria’s basic weakness is that the conductor ought not only to wave the baton, but also to understand the score. In this respect Beria is weak” (p.19). Other material that may beef up the picture is Kapitsa's letter (Oct. 25, 1943, quoted in ref. [2]) to Bohr (who was preparing to escape from Nazi-occupied Denmark) inviting him to the Soviet Union. L&#39;omo del batocio 12:32, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Alan Beyerchen in "Anti-Intellectualism and the Cultural Decapitation of Germany Under the Nazis", Jackman & Borden, The Muses Flee Hitler (1983), p. 39: "A case in point was that of Peter Kapitza, a brilliant physicist who had been working in Cambridge with Ernest Rutherford. In 1934, on a visit to his homeland, he was simply detained permanently and put to work on projects for the state." Citing: Lawrence Badash, "Rutherford, Kapitza and the Kremlin", talk presented at the West Coast History of Science Society meeting in Los Angeles, 1975. Andygx (talk) 15:00, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Kapitsa's true date of birth
Firstly, I'm copying a conversation I had on User:Languagehat's talk page:


 * Hi, Languagehat. May I ask you about this edit?


 * There was a 12-day gap in the calendars in the 19th century; it increased to 13 days only in March 1900. So, 26 June 1894 Julian does not correspond to 9 July 1904 Gregorian, because that gap is 13 days. We know his birth date is 9 July, but I've always been unsure whether this was a Gregorian date (= 27 June, Julian), or a Julian date (= 21 July, Gregorian).  You seem to believe it was a Gregorian date.  What lead you to form that conclusion?  Cheers.  --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   09:58, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I got it from the Russian Wikipedia page. Languagehat (talk) 13:59, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

I now continue this dialogue here so that all comers might be aware of the issue and my proposed solution:

Thanks, Languagehat. This seems to have thrown up a major discrepancy in the literature over exactly when he was born. If you look closely on the Russian WP page, you’ll see the lede has 26 June/9 July 1894, but the infobox has 26 June/8 July. The infobox at least has the virtue of internal consistency (8 July was 12 days after 26 June), but it’s out of step with the lede. Any article that contains that sort of inconsistency should not be used as a source. Besides, isn’t there a blanket rule of not using WP as a source for itself, and doesn’t that extend to not using other language versions of the same article?

The immediate question that raises in my mind is, was he actually born on 26 June (= 8 July), or on 27 June (= 9 July)? Reviewing the literature, this is what I’ve discovered:


 * the Nobel Prize page and various other sites say he was born 9 July without any reference to his Julian birth date – not much help there.
 * various sites mirror WP’s 26 June/9 July, without realising the inherent conflict in that pair of dates
 * Britannica online (bless its heart) says 26 June/8 July – at last, some sanity
 * this, this and others mention 26 June alone
 * no sites that mention 27 June (which would satisfy a 9 July Gregorian date)
 * most other language versions of WP say 9 July without saying which calendar that was from, nor any mention of the corresponding date in the other calendar - but German WP has 26 June/8 July.

So, all this tells me he was born 26 June 1894 (Julian) = 8 July 1894 (Gregorian), and I’m changing the article accordingly. --  Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   22:16, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Dirac
I've just finished reading a biography of Paul Dirac that describes how he and Kapitza were lifelong friends (as well as colleagues) - very surprised to see no mention of Dirac here! Saccerzd (talk) 22:09, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
 * It's a wiki. Be bold! Go for it! Woz2 (talk) 14:28, 21 June 2011 (UTC)