Russia’s most notorious physics exam

[@dargi_amorim]

13:00 I studied in this institute (MIPT) and Landau was one of its founders. When I was still there I met a few students that have passed the modern version of the exam and these guys were all brilliant. It is quite curious to hear about this exam outside of my university and in such a big channel in english. Thank you for sharing this with such a wide public!

[@user-mc1sj9bf3i]

Aunty tibees I feel cry

[@MAKMath]

Next Year I start studying in МФТИ, I have received an acceptance into ФЭФМ и ЛФИ, which one do you think I should take if I am more interested in Quantum technologies?

[@dargi_amorim]

@MAKMath Congrats ! It depends on the technology you're interested in. I have a friend in ФЭФМ that works with quantum dots and a friend in ЛФИ that works with algorithms for quantum computing. МФТИ also has its own quantum computer developed by them.

[@The_Tauri]

When I was preparing for exams, I used to get "black market" Russian textbooks and problem sets and they were infamously hard. You had to be quite creative to solve most of them, and if you were able to, then you could sail past any "normal" exam. In Russia, the exam does you. :D

[@daigakunobaku273]

In modern Russia, it is compensated by the fact that nearly everyone cheats, even in the best universities, really.

[@novamisponge5325]

Can you name some examples? I'm interested

[@ytb40]

I got a Russian Math/Physics textbook too almost 15 years ago- It took me a week to work through even the first three pages. One needed so much more math as a prerequsite than is was taught even in a "usual" math diploma./ master.

[@AlexKarasev]

Ah, a very good Yakov Smirnoff homage. That guy is still performing, apparently. Let me try: In free America, youtube watches you.

[@PrincipiaScientifica]

The soviet-era physics books and textbooks are brilliant. They are still used in many countries by high schoolers to prepare for Olympiads such as IPhO. Irodov's "Problems in General Physics" is a classic example.

[@DS91284]

So he was like House MD of theoretical physics.

[@peterhall6656]

The reason is that only 43 Russians were actually sober during this period. Jokes aside, at the upper levels the Russian intellectual tradition is something like a slog through a Siberian wasteland - only the tough get through. There is a completley diifferent feel between French and Russian mathematics for instance. V I Arnold famously took the piss out of French abstraction as represented by the Bourbaki school. The Russian school of probability theory going back to Bernstein, Smirnov, Lyapunov, Kolmogorov etc is really hard core and you could not teach probability theory to US students starting with their work. For instance, it was Glivenko and Cantelli who proved that the empirical distribution function always converges to the actual distribution function and Kolmogorov found the asymptotically exact rate of this convergence, the rate of which turns out to be exponentially fast and independent of the unknown distribution function. This sort of foundational stuff is deep and the Russians are actually good at it. Cambridge Tripos students do get into such technicalities.

[@Inkedalic3]

My mum grew up in the societ union and she NEVER stops talking about how hard her exams were and how easy the gcses in the uk are in comparison lol.

[@markeggerman8301]

I love videos like this no background music ... just talking and graphics

[@alexdee781]

This was your best video so far! Thank you

[@NoreenHoltzen]

Here for the soothing voice and clear thought process.

[@crazzylongears8835]

Same here 😊

[@stearin1978]

10:15 - GULag is organization that governs the labour camps, not the name of the camp. It is abbreviation of Main Camp's Agency. It's like FBP - Federal Bureau of Prisons in USA.

[@akshatpathrikar7080]

It had to be Landau, one of the most versatile physicists. I studied physics from his books, his way of writing is concise and yet full of insightful information, for instance, his presentation of nöether's theorems is the most neat one yet! Thanks for making this video.

[@SeanGhaeli]

I remember reading about this in my junior year and feeling better about my exams 😅 It's cool that you made a video about this!

[@TheLoneWolf_1013]

My favorite educational youtuber. Your soothing voice, your simple yet intriguing way of explaining different topics, and the topics chosen, add up to the best academic youtuber.

[@markusba]

I vividly recall my first encounter with the textbook of Landau and Lifshitz. During the theoretical mechanics lecture Prof. Fritzsch seemed to recollect and present in a certain style. Without telling explicitly he was using the exact text, formulas and derivations from the classical mechanics textbook word by word knowing them by heart. So the book was actually our lecture notes. Used different (modern) books for most other topics but the problems and also the huge scope of each of the volumes are still impressive. Another interesting source to get to know more about Landau's school of theoretical physics is the preview test chapter from M. Shifman's book "Under The Spell Of Landau: When Theoretical Physics Was Shaping Destinies".

[@erdossuitcase7667]

Landau invented a logarithmic scale for genuises. Einstein was at 0.5 and most of the giants of quantum mechanic were at 1. He originally ranked himself at 2.5 but later his ranking moved up to 1.5.

[@stevebarlow3310]

Thank you! For anyone unfamiliar with the Landau & Lifschitz series on theoretical physics, I would recommend the first few section of Vol 1 on Classical Mechanics. It reads more like exquisite poetry than physics; Landau developed the intimate connection between symmetries and the structure of classical mechanical theory. In my tiny brain, I found the whole thing mind boggling.

[@gulk.5307]

love your videos so much 💗💗

[@LawpickingLocksmith]

Wow this sorted them out. Fascinating from the intellectual point, sad to hear how they got treated. Huge THANKS to you not playing useless music and keeping to the point.

[@hipals6859]

Love watching your videos before bed. Thanks for sharing this interesting topic

[@hamdamoverali]

Thank you❤. Your content is truly inspiring.❤❤❤

[@S-W-D]

To be honest, they were Soviet scientists

[@clownphabetstrongwoman7305]

I am not sure many in the West understand the difference.

[@cerealport2726]

so....?

[@bogdana.luchko]

@@cerealport2726So he is not “a russian scientist”. He was from Azerbaijan. But even if you want to say that he was from soviet union, then call him “a soviet scientist”. “soviet” does not mean “russian”

[@herbie_the_hillbillie_goat]

@@bogdana.luchko Why are you whining about it?

[@herbie_the_hillbillie_goat]

Irrelevant

[@sameergauria]

Seems like a good exam in that the time studying would be well spent -- no matter whether you passed or failed.

[@mutabazimichaeljean]

hmmm 😁😁 Excellent and very interesting video as always

[@daniilasafov9211]

It was unexpected to see my surname in Tibeese's video (I am one of the people who passed the exams relatively recently) By the way - the list is sparse because people aren't required to pass all the exams anymore. Often to study at the department it is enough to pass math-1 and quantum mechanics (depends on the number of people who want to join the institute and the university where they study) Thank you for popularising Landau's theoretical minimum!

[@espada228-d9u]

Im currently preparing to pass the exam on field theory and the way you presented the exam actually makes me scared for my life the way I struggled to figure out the distribution of light intensity at a caustic for 3 entire days😭 I mean imagine me getting to GR with this massive skill issue 😭

[@keepcalm7453]

Merry Christmas, Toby!! ❤🎄💕❄💓⭐💝☃️🎅☃️💝⭐💓❄💕🎄❤

[@eternaldoorman5228]

I never got past chapter 1 of Landau & Lifshitz' Classical Mechanics, ...

[@Штерн-я1с]

Same story

[@hywelgriffiths5747]

They're grad level books really. They assume you've already had undergrad level courses in mechanics, electrodynamics, qm, etc

[@bartmeijer1954]

The title "The theoretical minimum" has been borrowed by Leonard Susskind for his series of books on mechanics, quantum physics, and relativity. I read the mechanics book: it is interesting and it was challenging for me, but not half as challenging as the Russian exam, I'm sure.

[@quasarsupernova9643]

If I took it, Landau would be humming constantly - it would sound like aum aum aum, as though he were meditating...

[@enzeru5491]

Curiously fascinating and exceptionally informative!!!!!!!🤔🙂😀😃👍👍.

[@drizer4real]

Loved this clip! As a collector of math and physics books, personally those books of Lifshitz and Landau are my absolute priced possesion , if I lose anything in life, these are the last to go. ❤

[@MusCollab]

Has anyone tried solving an equation number 2 at 13:14?

[@Samhades]

calming voice😊

[@eternaldoorman5228]

5:08 Mew too?

[@enzeru5491]

Mewtwo???😱

[@Mr_Nobody-n6w]

Today is 'National mathematics day' in India

[@robgrune3284]

excellent video ! this young lady is a gem.

[@Nudnik1]

Russians no joke . My grandparents escaped from Soviet Union to NYC Brooklyn. I worked in nuclear research physics Fermilab. We had many Physicists who fled Russia after 1990 . תודה רבה שלום

[@fierypickle4823]

לא הבנתי אתה ישראלי?

[@adityamohan8514]

They didn't flee russia, it collapsed, you can go back now

[@abarax_altered1666]

I read the title as physical exam and immediately thought my time has come. Then i reread it and thought nah I'm good.

[@thehorizonx1540]

After reading the questions , I said "hmm" to myself cuz I couldn't even properly understand what it wanted or asked 😅. Yeah my dreams of Becoming a Physicist isn't looking good. Thank you for the video.

[@northbot]

Landau's Test highlights the psychology of intimidating newbies with mathematical physics questions containing no numeric characters.

[@АлексейТучак-м4ч]

there is nothing scary in that. Yet sometimes i hear people proclaim "i can do calculations with numbers, but all these x and y confuse me. Gimme numbers!" Usually they have problems with the simplest things like collecting terms, opening brackets, working with fractions.

[@jortor2932]

Yeah LANDAU'S i have tried it once years ago

[@frankklemm1471]

The car accident was in 1962. Sunday, 7 January 1962.

[@eldrago19]

"I have put together an exam to test whether people have the minimum knowledge to engage in a serious conversation about physics. I expect only 1 or 2 people will pass each year "

[@lesselp]

A hint of daylight is visible in the room - Midsummer vibes.

[@minxythemerciless]

I can't help thinking of the 'Coffin Exams' around that time. They were allegedly anti-semitic, but these physics exams seem to be of the same type but the situation is reversed.

[@abupinhus]

I got one of those. We called it submarine, because any one who took one, went underwater. But Landay min was something different. It was something that you could prepare, you need to be smart enought and persistent.

[@shlokdave6360]

Great video! Any chance of taking the problems mentioned head on?

[@marcobsomer5574]

Excellent livres (MIR) de Landau.....

[@ryancox5097]

40 out of how many? 46?

[@Nudnik1]

39

[@checksumsha1sum632]

¿Escribió el título en español?

[@shiijei2638]

Tibees could pass 😌

[@Black_Heart_69]

😊😊😊

[@andrii6054]

Russia is not the Soviet Union. Not all soviet scientist were Russians.

[@FarbotBurunetNia]

TNX

[@pichirisu]

ngl as a math major these seem extremely easy if you just explained what the words meant lol. There's no way this is considered difficult physics, I refuse to believe that.

[@allykid4720]

That's the problem. Very simple terms to describe very complex matters, f.e. Black hole, photon, quarks, etc., unexplainable in comment section, better read Landau's series.

[@nickallman5000]

I like how you say omega

[@ivan4087]

Math ASMR

[@PhilKernick]

Looks a lot like gatekeeping. He just needed to prove that he was the smartest guy in the room.

[@abupinhus]

Hmm...

[@ngenuity1395]

I laughed so hard at 5:08 , Mewtwo is so funny oh my god😭

[@michaelburggraf2822]

Theory A: Landau/Lifschitz Theory B: Jackson Theory C: Schiff, Merzbacher, Gasirowicz, Baym Theory D: Sakurai, Newton Theory E: Kittel, Reichl Recommendations at the university of Karlsruhe around late 1980ies, early 1990ies. Despite using only the first volume of his textbooks lecturers often hinted at interesting chapters of the other ones for all of the higher courses. Possibly the later volumes were deemed a bit outdated with regard to notation.

[@ssleddens]

I passed it, wasn't very hard at all. If you can flush a toilet you shouldn't have any issues, as you all know flushing a toilet for a physicist can be quite a chore.

[@johnchristian5027]

just put that sin(x) integral in wolfram alpha and its no joke, really? is this considered "the basics"?

[@abupinhus]

No computers allowed, you need to know transformations and be great in pattern recognition.

[@basilhanas8453]

Yeah wolfram alpha on a written exam... how to fail test without even attending..

[@claireli88]

Hmm...interesting and challenging 🤔

[@lorenzovizza5357]

I don't like exams that tell people what they can or cannot do. Obviously I wouldn't pass, I 'm not a theoretical physicist, but I wouldn't take it in the first place on principle.

[@abupinhus]

Hmm

[@richs6424]

Yes, very smart, but could they find the volume of a hypersphere?

[@naveenkumar-fc3xf]

ie.irodov....ss krotov....all russian books are a nightmare for indian students 😂😂

[@narayanryadav4196]

Language in hindi also please❤

[@zetristan4525]

What a sweet-sounding presenter!

[@DinoAlberini]

Which proves my point that nothing good came from the Soviet Union or Russia except for art and science from dissidents.

[@eo-fi3fh]

[@mincart9899]

Reminds me of evil scientist

[@bharatawale7403]

What is his lands iq

[@MitchellPorter2025]

You may read in his Wikipedia biography, that he had a ranking for physicists, with 0 the best and 5 the worst, e.g. Newton was 0 and EInstein was 0.5. He rated himself as 2-2.5

[@daigakunobaku273]

@@MitchellPorter2025 you gotta note that the ranking was logarithmic. And I don't believe he placed Newton at 0, that would be weird on a logarithmic scale.

[@kalabakonbitts1362]

“When it was still possible to do so.” When I heard that I thought ‘shades of Charles H. Duell.’ We are just at the beginning of our understanding of physics. There is so much we are completely unaware of. There are nearly endless opportunities to make significant discoveries/contributions in all branches by one person. I expect your estimation of humanity’s potential to be higher than this.

[@dougant6728]

I’m 139 it’s horrible

[@Das1]

😮 I passed the exam, will she now try to woo me 🤔

[@magatamass]

What's with the fake wall of books?

[@MacLuckyPTP]

That's books

[@MrMctastics]

Bro's never seen a bookshelf before 💀

[@HaniaTauqeer-c2k]

​@@MacLuckyPTP it's not because the books are related in the same order on different shelves

[@zapfanzapfan]

Good looking wall paper.

[@thomaskrenn3808]

👍

[@fred8174]

You or I can write a test that no one can pass. So what’s the point of making impossible tests?

[@abupinhus]

Hmm

[@brianhyde8017]

James T Kirk would pass it

[@janihilt]

hmm

[@mandresyfalimanana3538]

Mu2!!!

[@sd1729]

❤❤

[@yttean98]

you Still making KZbin videos over the next 5-10yrs, or regret not gaining your PhD or dropping out of PhD program?

[@SM321_]

Why where like 80% of soviet famous physicists jewish?

[@hywelgriffiths5747]

Not only soviet. Einstein, von Neumann, Feynman, Weinberg, Witten, etc.

[@5678efgh3]

Communities tend to direct their children into fields where they believe they'll find success (and money), after a while some fields become saturated with particular groups of people.

[@cristona.d5265]

Most of the CEOs of the big corporates in US are Indians also

[@peaceleader7315]

Hmmmm...

[@wilgarcia1]

🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡

[@Blazeit-rj3eb]

Soviet Union not Russia

[@RonaldAaronLopez]

😌

[@ruskinyruskiny1611]

Being good at sums is no more creditable than being a bad guy is discreditable. Causation the foundation of physics means the there is no credit, and no blame. (See Robert Sapolski for details).

[@sashamohov8210]

😇

[@paulgets2737]

Forgive my sincerity: when I hear your sweet and almost whispered voice, I no longer understand anything.

[@wild_insomnia]

🥰

[@garyproffitt5941]

165 I.Q. and intelligent.

[@penalver7839]

The best Physics & Math..RUSSIA, of course❤❤

[@mcbellyman3265]

This exam was in fact taken in the Kharkhiv Theoretical Physics School, in Kharkiv, UKRAINE.

[@bogdana.luchko]

Moreover, if we delve into this topic, then soviet russia, on the contrary, was only stopping (limiting) the scientific activities of the majority of soviet scientists, especially if they were of any nationality other than russian. During Stalin's time, science was generally prohibited, and if it was allowed somewhere, then scientists had to pay for all the funding themselves, because less than one percent of the state budget was allocated for science and education. That’s why shouting today "the best math and physics in rUSSIA ❤️❤️❤️" is the stupidest thing ever.

[@hlgshm]

Russia is the best

[@bogdana.luchko]

@@hlgshm any arguments? reasons? evidence? specific examples? of course not

[@bogdana.luchko]

@@hlgshm oh, sorry, the best at appropriating other people's achievements? yes, no doubt

[@masentaja8344]

Putin was one of them surely?

[@advar4579]

lovely voice .....like everything else

[@Candidjalapeno]

Don't say anything about exmas otherwise "im preparing for jee 🤓🤓" chomos will come

[@pingnick]

Wow he escaped the wrath of Stalin! Interesting indeed!!✍️♾️♾️♾️♾️♾️🎬🌈☮️💟🤩😍🥰😘🤯🤯🤯🌞🌞🌞🗽🗽🗽🔥🔥🔥…

[@oliverlaw02]

He came over to America and worked with other persecuted people from Operation Paperclip.

[@shotgun-pw4rn]

3rd

[@loochunboon1615]

Soviet, not Russian

[@paulmwai5988]

Soviet union was Russia all along.The Russians are king when it comes to STEM

[@martinfinn674]

Gday, what do you personally think of the Theoretical minimum? Yes, it weeds out those with 'holes in their foundational knowledge'. But, how many of the famous Theoretical physicists actually sat the exam? For example, did Albert Einstein sit this exam?

[@markusba]

No. One obvious reason being that he was about 30 years older than Landau.

[@narayanryadav4196]

Please sister in hindi language also

[@l.rongardner2150]

Why doesn't Russia produce noteworthy leading-edge physicists? Why has Russia's space program gone kaPUT, along with PUTin?

[@rodneyagesa1851]

Is it not the same Russians who were supplying rocket engines to NASA and also still transport their astronauts to the international space station? Don't be a jealous Ukrainian or American and try to rewrite history based on your petty politics.

[@blengi]

russia ranks behind most of western europe in the world famous PISA education tables. Heck even america ranks significantly higher than russia in PISA reading and science.. Of course russia is outside top 50 for global innovation index topped by the west