Lev Davidovich Landau was one of the twentieth century's finest theoretical physicists. Known as the last of the "Universalists," Landau was most remarkable for the breadth of his erudition and for his ability to move with ease between the various branches of physics. His Collected Papers record the scope of his interests--which included everything from low-temperature physics to the symmetry of space--and the exactitude with which he approached every challenge. Landau was a teacher no less than he was a theoretician; the towering standards that he set for himself were conveyed to his students at the School of Landau, many of whom later achieved recognition in their own right. Landau's work was widely and repeatedly recognized as evidenced by the copious honors bestowed upon him, most notably, the 1962 Nobel Prize in physics "for his pioneering theories concerning condensed matter, especially liquid helium ." Landau was born on January 22, 1908, in...