The Man They Wouldn't Let Die: Alexander Dorozynski: Amazon.com: Books

I've not quite finished it yet, but this really is an amazingly good book.

It incidentally has much information about the Russian bomb that I had not previously come across.

Landau (or Dau for reasons to do with the French language) comes across as a wonderful character. Like so many mathematicians at least (eg Weyl, Sophus Lie but in fact many others) Dau seemed to have gained immensely from being incarcerated. It was where he leant to do calculations in his head, using the cell wall as his imaginary blackboard - bit like Ronald Fisher and his poor eyesight giving him am incredible geometrical imagination. Contrast this with Laurent Schwartz who had difficulties imagining the triangle!

In a book called 'Hitler's scientists' (Cornwell) that I have just read, the author writes that the German Scientists captured by Russia at the end of the war said their knowledge was a bit superfluous, as they found Russian physics to be in a highly advanced state. So I don't think it can be true that the reason Russia first put a man in space was because their German scientists were better than America's German scientists.

Pity that Landau and Feynman never met. In respect to their approach to physics and authority they seem very similar. Landau is by far the more loveable however.

I have read very many biographies of mathematicians and physicists, but this is the best so far and I look forward to going home to continue reading it in the 20 minutes I allocate for light reading. What a book!