Veniamin Levich
Ukrainian physicist (1917–1988)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Veniamin Grigorievich (Benjamin) Levich (Russian: Вениами́н Григо́рьевич Ле́вич; 30 March 1917 – 19 January 1987[1]) was a Soviet dissident[2] who was an internationally prominent physical chemist, electrochemist, and founder of the discipline of physico-chemical hydrodynamics. He was a student of the theoretical physicist, Lev Landau. His landmark textbook Physicochemical Hydrodynamics is widely considered his most important contribution to science.[3] The Levich equation describing a current at a rotating disk electrode is named after him. His research activities also included gas-phase collision reactions, electrochemistry, and the quantum mechanics of electron transfer.
Veniamin Grigorievich (Benjamin) Levich | |
|---|---|
| Вениамин Григорьевич Левич | |
 | |
| Born | 30 March 1917 |
| Died | 19 January 1987 (aged 69) Englewood, New Jersey, United States |
| Education | Sc.D., Physics and Mathematics |
| Alma mater | University of Kharkiv |
| Known for | Landau–Levich problem Levich equation |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | physical chemistry |
Levich received many honors during his life, including the Olin Palladium Award of The Electrochemical Society in 1973. He was elected a foreign member of the Norwegian Academy of Sciences in 1977 and a foreign associate of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering in 1982.[4][5] He was also a member of numerous scientific organizations, although on leaving the USSR in 1978 he had to relinquish his Soviet citizenship and, therefore, was expelled from the USSR Academy of Sciences.[1] An interdisciplinary institute at the City College of New York is named in his honor.[6] His son Eugene V. (Yevgeny) Levich also became a physicist, leaving the Soviet Union in 1975 and raising support for other family members.[7]
