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BENJAMIN G
.
191 7-1987
LEVICH
BY ANDREAS ACRIVOS
BENJAMIN G LEVICH an internationally known physicist and
electrochemist and the founder of the discipline known as
physicochemical hydroclynamics, died sum enly of a heart attack
on January 19, 1987, in Englewood, New Jersey. During the
previous eight years, he was the Albert Einstein Professor of
Science at the City College of the City University of New York as
well as a distinguished professor of chemical engineering and of
physics at the City College. He also held a dual appointment as
a professor of physics at the University of Tel Aviv.
Ben Levich was born in Kharkov, U.S.S.R., on March 30, 1917,
and received his first degree from the university in that city at the
age of twenty. He then enrolled at the State Pedagogical Institute
in Moscow, where he earned his D.Sc. in physics under the
supervision of Academician Lev D. Landau, one of the world's
outstanding theoretical physicists. His thesis dealt with a theory
of the processes that occur in electrolytic cells and led him to
single out the phenomenon of concentration polarization as
being of singular importance and to develop, as a research tool,
the rotating-disk electrocle, which brought him international
recognition. He then joined Academician A. N. Frumkin at the
Institute for Colloid Chemistry and Electrochemistry (later re-
named the Institute for Electrochemistry) of the U.S.S.R. Acad-
emy of Sciences where he continued his research until he left
Russia at the encI of 1978. He was head of the theoretical
165
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166
MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
department in that Institute from 1958 until 1972 and was also
a full professor and department head, first of theoretical physics
at the MoscowInstitute of Physics and Engineering (195~1964)
and then of chemical mechanics at the University of Moscow
(1964-1972~.
Ben Levich was a researcher of extraordinary originality and
productivitywho, during his lifetime, authored more than three
hundred scientific papers ranging from electrochemistry to
turbulence, flows with chemical reactions, and flows dominated
by variations in surface tension. He was, for example, the first to
show conclusively that the seemingly paracloxical observation
that the rise velocity of small air bubbles in viscous liquids equals
that of solid spheres having the same density is clue to the
accumulation of trace amounts of surface-active agents on the
gas-liquid interface. This fact has important implications in a
large variety of mass transfer operations. He also showed, against
all prior expectations, that certain viscosity-dominated flow
phenomena, such as the attenuation of capillary waves or the
steady rise velocity of moderate-sized bubbles in low viscosity
liquids, can be computed simply through knowledge of the
corresponding motion of fluids having zero viscosity. Other
papers dealt with theories of gas-phase collision reactions, the
photoemission of electrons from electrodes into solutions, and
the quantum mechanics of electron transfer between ions in
solution en c! between an ion and an electrocle.
In addition, Ben Levich authored a four-volume treatise on
Theoretical Physics, which rivals in scope the famous series by
Landau and Lifshitz. Undoubtedly though, of all his publica-
tions, the one that had the biggest and most lasting impact is his
book Physicochemical Hydrodynamics, which was first published in
Russian in 1952 and then translates! into English in 1962. A new
field of research was thereby born at the interface between
physics and chemistry, which clears with the effects of fluid
motion on chemical and physicochemical transformations and
conversely with the influence of the latter on the motion of
fluids. This book was widely accIaimecT as a masterful synthesis of
different branches of science that hacI, until then, developed
separately. Indeed, Levich showed how to create a scientific
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BENJAMIN G. LEVICH
167
unity out of seemingly highly diverse phenomena by lucidly
expounding the relatively few underlying patterns and basic laws
of science. This was achieved by using mathematical analysis to
explain experimental observations and by citing the results of
measurements with sufficient frequency to illustrate principles
without, however, overburdening the reader with detail. Even
though out of print, this book still brims with a wealth of useful
information and, as befits a classic, it is very much a pleasure to
read.
Ben Levich was elected a corresponding member of the
U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences in 1958, and his meteoric rise
within the academic establishment of the Soviet Union as well as
his research productivity would have continued unabated had
he notin 1972, afterlongconsultationswith hiswife, his two sons,
and his conscience, applied to emigrate to Israel. All at once, his
chair at the university was abolished and his status at the Electro-
chemistry Institute was reduced to that of a scientific worker
without supervisory responsibilities. In addition, his former
colleagues and collaborators, almost without exception, found
reasons to distance themselves from him; Sovietjournal editors
declined to publish his articles; and his frequently cited name
was laboriously excised from all the copies of Western publica-
tions distributed in the U.S.S.R. In fact, during this period and
prior to his emigration, Levich's primary source of income was
his stipend as a corresponding member of the U.S.S.R. Academy
of Sciences.
Although his sons and their families were allowed to emigrate
in 1975, Ben Levich and his wife, Tanya, had to stay behind on
the pretext that he was in possession of state secrets. Fortunately,
he was so well known and respected by his Western colleagues
that the scientific establishment in the free world was quickly
mobilized on his behalf. Thus, in addition to the numerous
protests and letters addressed to Soviet officials, an international
conference on physicochemical hydrodynamics was organized
at Oxford University in 1977 and specifically dedicated to Lev-
ich, whose sixtieth birthday fell in that year. A second confer-
ence, similar in spirit, was held in Washington, D.C., the follow-
ing year. Eventually, in late 1978, as a result of this continuous
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MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
agitation and following the personal intervention of Senator
Edwarc! Kennedy, Ben and Tanya were allowed to leave for
Israel, where the University of Te] Aviv had, for several years,
been keeping a chair ready for the most distinguished Soviet
scientist ever to settle in his ethnic home.
The followingyear, Benjamin Levich accepted the prestigious
Albert Einstein Professorship in Science at the City College of
the City University of New York, where he also founded the
Institute of Applied Chemical Physics, renamed the Levich
Institute upon his cleath. In his lateryears, his research clealtwith
aspects of theoretical turbulence, but it is a measure of his
universality that he felt equally at home among physicists, chem-
ists, chemical engineers, fluid mechanicists, appliecl mathemati-
cians, and biologists.
He received the Palladium Medal of the American Electro-
chemical Society in 1973 and 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.
He was also a member of numerous scientific organizations,
although on leaving the U.S.S.R. in 1978 he haci to relinquish his
Soviet citizenship and, therefore, was expeller! from the U.S.S.R.
Academy of Sciences.
Ben Levich leaves two sons, Evgeny and Alexancler, and their
families; his wife Tanya passed away in 1983. He was a unique
scientist who left a permanent imprint and legacy in this world.
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Representative terms from entire chapter:
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