physics

Lev Altshuler

Lev Altshuler is a physics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Lev Altshuler rather than just read about it. In short: Lev Vladimirovitch Altshuler (Russian: Лев Владимирович Альтшулер, 9 November 1913 – 23 December 2003) was a Soviet physicist, one of the founders of the study of solids under extremely high pressures and temperatures and a member of the Soviet atomic bomb project. Biography Altshuler was born in a family of Jewish intellectuals in Moscow.

Key takeaways

Lev Altshuler belongs to physics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Lev Altshuler to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Lev Altshuler from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Lev Vladimirovitch Altshuler (Russian: Лев Владимирович Альтшулер, 9 November 1913 – 23 December 2003) was a Soviet physicist, one of the founders of the study of solids under extremely high pressures and temperatures and a member of the Soviet atomic bomb project.

Biography Altshuler was born in a family of Jewish intellectuals in Moscow. His father Vladimir Aleksandrovich Altshuler (1882–1965) was a lawyer and former revolutionary who worked at the Soviet Ministry of Finances. Altshuler had a brother Sergei (1909–1979) and a sister Olga (1912–1992). In 1932 he started working at the X-ray Laboratory of the Moscow Machine Building Institute. Two years later he enrolled to the Moscow State University, graduating in 1936. Being a specialist in properties of metals and an aviation engineer, he was sent to the Soviet Army in 1940, but in 1942 recalled from the front to the laboratories of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. During those World War II years he defended a PhD (1943) and developed a pulsed X-ray radiography method for real-time analysis of damage induced by a projectile to the tank armor, receiving the State Prize for this work in 1946. The same year he was assigned to the Soviet atomic bomb project. Between 1946 and 1969 he worked at the Soviet Nuclear Center Arzamas-16 under top secret conditions, defending a habilitation in 1954. His administrative promotions were hampered by his outspoken nature, as he publicly opposed some official views and policies. In 1969 he returned to Moscow, assuming a position of department head at the Institute of Optical-Physical Measurements. Twenty years later he became a Chief Researcher at the Institute for High Energy Densities of the Russian Academy of Sciences. In his late years Altshuler published several books and articles on high-pressure science and on the history of the Soviet Atomic Project. Altshuler was married to Mariya Speranskaya (1916–1977); they had three sons: Boris (born 1939), Aleksandr (born 1945) and Mikhail (born 1955). Boris became a notable physicist and besides his scientific research published a series of historical books related to Andrei Sakharov, his father and the Soviet atomic bomb project.

Awards USSR State Prize (1946, 1949, 1953) Order of Lenin (1949, 1953, 1967) Lenin Prize (1962) Shock Compression Science Award of the American Physical Society (1991) Russia State Prize (1999)

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Lev Altshuler

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Lev Altshuler claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In physics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Lev Altshuler before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Lev Altshuler ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Lev Altshuler

In research: Lev Altshuler appears in physics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Lev Altshuler in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Lev Altshuler is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1913 births, 2003 deaths, Jewish Soviet physicists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Lev Altshuler outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Lev Altshuler in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Lev Altshuler means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Lev Altshuler out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Lev Altshuler in simple terms?

Why does Lev Altshuler matter?

Because it connects several physics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Lev Altshuler?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Lev Altshuler.