Lev Petrovich Pitaevskii ( born 18.01.1933)—a Soviet theoretical physicist, a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1976). He was born in Saratov. He graduated from Saratov University (1955). In 1959-60 he worked at the Institute of Terrestrial Magnetism, the Ionosphere and Radio Wave Propagation of the USSR Academy of Sciences, and from 1960 at the Institute of Physical Problems of the USSR Academy of Sciences. From 1971 he has also been professor at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.
His work concerned plasma physics, quantum mechanics, macroscopic electrodynamics, statistical physics, low-temperature physics and the theory of superfluidity. He studied the properties of liquid helium. Together with V. L. Ginzburg he proposed (1958) a semi-phenomenological theory of superfluidity near a phase transition. In 1959 he predicted the transition of 3He to the superfluid state. Together with E. M. Lifshitz he completed Landau and Lifshitz's “Course of Theoretical Physics”. The L. D. Landau Prize (1980).
His work concerned plasma physics, quantum mechanics, macroscopic electrodynamics, statistical physics, low-temperature physics and the theory of superfluidity. He studied the properties of liquid helium. Together with V. L. Ginzburg he proposed (1958) a semi-phenomenological theory of superfluidity near a phase transition. In 1959 he predicted the transition of 3He to the superfluid state. Together with E. M. Lifshitz he completed Landau and Lifshitz's “Course of Theoretical Physics”. The L. D. Landau Prize (1980).