The discussion centers around the authorship of Volume 4 of the "Landau Lifshitz Course for Theoretical Physics," specifically why Lev Landau is not credited as an author despite the series being associated with him. Participants explore potential reasons for this, including the context of Landau's health and the sequence of publication.
Participants express various hypotheses regarding Landau's lack of authorship, but no consensus is reached on a definitive reason. Multiple competing views remain regarding the factors influencing authorship.
There are limitations in the discussion, including assumptions about the delegation of writing responsibilities and the impact of Landau's health on authorship. The sequence of publication and its relevance to authorship is also noted but remains unresolved.
I never considered that, thanksrootone said:A possible answer is that although the overall course was designed and produced by him, this part of it he delegated to others who he considered to be most expert in that particular area.
I considered that too; he died at some point, hence the exclusion from vol 9 and 10 which were published after his death. But he's included in vol 5-8 as well which is why I found it oddphyzguy said:I think the answer is that by the time that volume was written, Landau had been in an auto accident that caused severe brain damage. He never really practiced physics again after the accident.
For some reason that never occurred to me; I just checked and it was published after his deathVanadium 50 said:The various volumes were not necessarily written in sequence.